SCENE I.
The Park; near the Palace.
Enter Armado and Moth7 note.
Arm.
Warble, child; make passionate my sense of hearing.
Moth.
Concolinel—8 note
[Singing.
Arm.
Sweet air!—Go, tenderness of years; take
this key, give enlargement to the swain, bring him
festinately hither9 note; I must employ him in a letter to
my love.
-- 411 --
Moth.
Master, will you win your love with a
French brawl1 note
?
Arm.
How mean'st thou? brawling in French?
Moth.
No, my compleat master: but to jig off a
tune at the tongue's end, canary to it with your feet2 note,
humour it with turning up your eye-lids; sigh a
note, and sing a note; sometime through the throat,
as if you swallow'd love with singing love; sometime
through the nose, as if you snuff'd up love by smelling
love; with your hat penthouse-like, o'er the shop
of your eyes; with your arms cross'd on your thin
belly-doublet, like a rabbit on a spit; or your hands
in your pocket, like a man after the old painting3 note;
and keep not too long in one tune, but a snip and
away: These are complements4 note, these are humours:
-- 412 --
5 notethese betray nice wenches—that would be betray'd
without these; and make the men of note, (do you
note men?) that are most affected to these.
Arm.
How hast thou purchas'd this experience?
Moth.
By my penny of observation6 note.
Arm.
7 note
But O,—but O—
Moth.
—the hobby-horse is forgot.
Arm.
Call'st thou my love, hobby-horse?
Moth.
No, master; the hobby-horse is but a colt8 note,
and your love, perhaps, a hackney. But have you
forgot your love?
Arm.
Almost I had.
Moth.
Negligent student! learn her by heart.
Arm.
By heart, and in heart, boy.
-- 413 --
Moth.
And out of heart, master: all those three I
will prove.
Arm.
What wilt thou prove?
Moth.
A man, if I live; and this, by, in, and
without, upon the instant: By heart you love her,
because your heart cannot come by her: in heart you
love her, because your heart is in love with her; and
out of heart you love her, being out of heart that
you cannot enjoy her.
Arm.
I am all these three.
Moth.
And three times as much more, and yet
nothing at all.
Arm.
Fetch hither the swain; he must carry me
a letter.
Moth.
A message well sympathis'd; a horse to be
embassador for an ass!
Arm.
Ha, ha; what sayest thou?
Moth.
Marry, sir, you must send the ass upon the
horse, for he is very slow-gaited: But I go.
Arm.
The way is but short; away.
Moth.
As swift as lead, sir.
Arm.
Thy meaning, pretty ingenious?
Is not lead a metal heavy, dull, and slow?
Moth.
Minimè, honest master; or rather, master, no.
Arm.
I say, lead is slow.
Moth.
You are too swift, sir, to say so9 note
:
Is that lead slow, which is fir'd from a gun?
-- 414 --
Arm.
Sweet smoke of rhetorick!
He reputes me a cannon; and the bullet, that's he:
I shoot thee at the swain.
Moth.
Thump then, and I flee.
[Exit.
Arm.
A most acute juvenal; voluble and free of grace!
1 noteBy thy favour, sweet welkin, I must sigh in thy face:
Most rude melancholy, valour gives thee place.
My herald is return'd.
Re-enter Moth and Costard.
Moth.
A wonder, master; here's a Costard2 note
broken in a shin.
Arm.
Some enigma, some riddle: come,—thy Penvoy;—begin.
Cost.
No egma, no riddle, no l'envoy 9Q02513 note
; no salve in
the male, Sir4 note
: O Sir, plantain, a plain plantain;
no l'envoy, no l'envoy, or salve, Sir, but a plaintain!
Arm.
By virtue, thou enforcest laughter; thy silly
thought, my spleen; the heaving of my lungs provokes
me to ridiculous smiling: O, pardon me, my
stars! Doth the inconsiderate take salve for l'envoy,
and the word, l'envoy, for a salve?
-- 415 --
Moth.
Doth the wise think them other? is not
l'envoy a salve?
Arm.
No, page; it is an epilogue or discourse, to make plain
Some obscure precedence that hath tofore been sain.
I will example it5 note:
The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee,
Were still at odds, being but three.
There's the moral: Now the l'envoy.
Moth.
I will add the l'envoy; Say the moral again.
Arm.
The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee,
Were still at odds; being but three:
Moth.
Until the goose came out of door,
Staying the odds by adding four.
-- 416 --
Now will I begin your moral, and do you follow
with my l'envoy.
The fox, the ape, and the humble bee,
Were still at odds, being but three:
Arm.
Until the goose came out of door,
Staying the odds by adding four.
Moth.
A good l'envoy, ending in the goose; Would
you desire more?
Cost.
The boy hath sold him a bargain, a goose, that's flat:—
Sir, your penny-worth is good, an your goose be fat.—
To sell a bargain well, is as cunning as fast and loose:
Let me see a fat l'envoy; ay, that's a fat goose.
Arm.
Come hither, come hither: How did this
argument begin?
Moth.
By saying, that a Costard was broken in a shin.
Then call'd you for the l'envoy.
Cost.
True, and I for a plantain; thus came your
argument in:
Then the boy's fat l'envoy, the goose that you bought;
And he ended the market6 note.
Arm.
But tell me; how was there a7 note
Costard
broken in a shin?
Moth.
I will tell you sensibly.
Cost.
Thou hast no feeling of it, Moth; I will speak
that l'envoy:—
-- 417 --
I, Costard, running out, that was safely within,
Fell over the threshold, and broke my shin.
Arm.
We will talk no more of this matter.
Cost.
'Till there be more matter in the shin.
Arm.
Sirrah, Costard, I will enfranchise thee.
Cost.
O, marry me to one Frances;—I smell some
l'envoy, some goose, in this.
Arm.
By my sweet soul, I mean, setting thee at liberty,
enfreedoming thy person; thou wert immur'd,
restrained, captivated, bound.
Cost.
True, true; and now you will be my purgation,
and let me loose.
Arm.
I give thee thy liberty, set thee from durance;
and, in lieu thereof, impose on thee nothing but this:
Bear this significant to the country maid Jaquenetta:
there is remuneration; [Giving him money.] for the
best ward of mine honour, is, rewarding my dependants.
Moth, follow.
[Exit.
Moth.
Like the sequel, I8 note
. Signior Costard, adieu.
[Exit.
Cost.
My sweet ounce of man's flesh! my incony
Jew9 note
!—
-- 418 --
Now will I look to his remuneration. Remuneration!
O, that's the Latin word for three farthings:
three farthings—remuneration.—What's the price of
this inkle? a penny:—1 noteNo, I'll give you a remuneration:
why, it carries it.—Remuneration!—why, it is a
fairer name than French crown. I will never buy
and sell out of this word.
Enter Biron.
Biron.
O, my good knave Costard! exceedingly
well met.
Cost.
Pray you, Sir, how much carnation ribbon
may a man buy for a remuneration?
Biron.
What is a remuneration?
Cost.
Marry, Sir, half-penny farthing.
Biron.
O, why then, three-farthing-worth of silk.
Cost.
I thank your worship: God be with you.
Biron.
O, stay, slave; I must employ thee:
As thou wilt win my favour, good my knave,
Do one thing for me that I shall entreat.
-- 419 --
Cost.
When would you have it done, sir?
Biron.
O, this afternoon.
Cost.
Well, I will do it, sir: Fare you well.
Biron.
O, thou knowest not what it is.
Cost.
I shall know, sir, when I have done it.
Biron.
Why, villain, thou must know first.
Cost.
I will come to your worship to-morrow morning.
Biron.
It must be done this afternoon. Hark,
slave, it is but this;—
The princess comes to hunt here in the park,
And in her train there is a gentle lady;
When tongues speak sweetly, then they name her name,
And Rosaline they call her: ask for her;
And to her sweet hand see thou do commend
This seal'd-up counsel. There's thy guerdon; go.
[Gives him money.
Cost.
Guerdon,—O sweet guerdon2 note
! better than
remuneration; eleven-pence farthing better: Most
sweet guerdon!—I will do it, sir, in print3 note
.—Guerdon
—remuneration. 9Q0252
[Exit.
-- 420 --
Biron.
O!—And I, forsooth, in love! I, that have
been love's whip;
A very beadle to a humorous sigh;
A critic; nay, a night-watch constable;
A domineering pedant o'er the boy,
Than whom no mortal so magnificent!
This wimpled4 note
, whining, purblind, wayward boy;
This signior Junio's giant-dwarf, Dan Cupid5 note
;
-- 421 --
Regent of love-rhimes, lord of folded arms,
The anointed sovereign of sighs and groans,
Liege of all loiterers and malecontents,
Dread prince of plackets, king of codpieces,
Sole imperator, and great general
Of trotting paritors6 note,—O my little heart!—
And I to be a corporal of his field7 note
,
-- 422 --
And wear his colours like a tumbler's hoop!
What? what? I love8 note! I sue! I seek a wife!
-- 423 --
A woman, that is like a German clock9 note
,
Still a repairing; ever out of frame;
And never going aright, being a watch,
But being watch'd that it may still go right?
Nay, to be perjur'd, which is worst of all:
And, among three, to love the worst of all;
A whitely wanton with a velvet brow,
With two pitch balls stuck in her face for eyes;
Ay, and, by heaven, one that will do the deed,
Though Argus were her eunuch and her guard;
And I to sigh for her! to watch for her!
To pray for her! Go to; it is a plague
That Cupid will impose for my neglect
-- 424 --
Of his almighty dreadful little might,
Well, I will love, write, sigh, pray, sue, and groan;
1 noteSome men must love my lady, and some Joan.
[Exit.
Samuel Johnson [1778], The plays of William Shakspeare. In ten volumes. With the corrections and illustrations of various commentators; to which are added notes by Samuel Johnson and George Steevens. The second edition, Revised and Augmented (Printed for C. Bathurst [and] W. Strahan [etc.], London) [word count] [S10901].