4 a Spaniard's rapier. The first and second cause | Most power to do most harm, least knowing ill; will not serve my turn; the passado he respects For he hath wit to make an ill shape good, not, the duello he regards not his disgrace is to And shape to win grace though he had no wit. be called boy; but his glory is to subdue men. I saw him at the duke Alençon's once: Adieu, valour! rust, rapier! be still, drum! for And much too little of that good I saw, your manager is in love; yea, he loveth. Assist Is my report, to his great worthiness. me, some extemporal god of rhyme, for, I am sure, I shall turn sonneteer. Devise, wit; write, pen; for I am for whole volumes in folio. [Exit. ACT II. SCENE I. Another part of the same. A Pavilion and Tents at a distance. Enter the Princess of France, ROSALINE, MARIA, KATHARINE, BoYET, Lords, and other Attendants. Boyet. Now, madam, summon up your dearest? spirits: Consider who the king your father sends ; Of all perfections that a man may owe, Prin. Good lord Boyet, my beauty, though but mean, Needs not the painted flourish of your praise; Doth noise abroad, Navarre hath made a vow, Boyet. Proud of employment, willingly I go. [Exit. Prin. All pride is willing pride, and yours is so, Who are the votaries, my loving lords, That are vow-fellows with this virtuous duke? Know you the man? Mar. I know him madam; at a marriage feast, Between lord Perigort and the beauteous heir Of Jaques Falconbridge, solemnized In Normandy, saw I this Longaville: A man of sovereign parts he is esteem'd; Well fitted in the arts, glorious in arms: Nothing becomes him ill, that he would well. The only soil of his fair virtue's gloss (If virtue's gloss will stain with any soil,) Is a sharp wit match'd with too blunt a will; Whose edge hath power to cut, whose will still wills It should none spare that come within his power. Prin. Some merry mocking lord, belike; is't so? Mar. They say so most, that most his humours know. Ros. Another of these students at that time Was there with him: if I have heard a truth, Biron they call him; but a merrier man, Within the limit of becoming mirth, I never spent an hour's talk withal: His eye begets occasion for his wit; For every object that the one doth catch, Which his fair tongue (conceit's expositor,) The other turns to a mirth-moving jest; Delivers in such apt and gracious words, That aged ears play truant at his tales, And younger hearings are quite ravished: So sweet and voluble is his discourse. Prin. God bless my ladies; are they all in love ◄ That every one her own hath garnish'd With such bedecking ornaments of praise? Mar. Here comes Boyet. Enter KING, LONGAVILLE, DUMAIN, BIRON, and Attendants. King. Fair princess, welcome to the court of Navarre. Prin. Fair, I give you back again: and, welcome I have not yet: the roof of this court is too high to be yours; and welcome to the wild fields too base to be mine. King. You shall be welcome, madam, to my court. Prin. I will be welcome then; conduct me thither. King. Hear me, dear lady; I have sworn an oath. Prin. Our lady help my lord! he'll be forsworn. King. Not for the world, fair madam, by my will. Prin. Why, will shall break it; will, and nothing else. King. Your ladyship is ignorant what it is. Prin. Where my lord so, his ignorance were wise Where" now his knowledge must prove ignorance. hear your grace has sworn-out house-keeping: 'Tis deadly sin to keep that oath, my lord, And sin to break it: I Biron. Your wit's too hot, it speeds too fast, 'twill tire. Ros. Not till it leave the rider in the mire. Biron. What time o' day? Ros. The hour that fools should ask. Biron. Now fair befall your mask! 5 Confederates. 6 Prepared. 7 Where is here used for whereas. Ros. Fair fall the face it covers! King. Madam, your father here doth intimate But say, that he, or we (as neither have,) A hundred thousand more; in surety of the which, A hundred thousand crowns ; and not demands, Dear princess, were not his requests so far Prin. You do the king my father too much wrong, Of that which hath so faithfully been paid. Prin. We arrest your word:- come, Where that and other specialties are bound; King. It shall suffice me: at which interview, Prin. Sweet health and fair desires consort your King. Thy own wish wish I thee in every place! [Exeunt King and his Train. Biron. Lady, I will commend you to my own heart. Ros. 'Pray you, do my commendations; I would be glad to see it. Biron. I would, you heard it groan. Biron. Sick at heart. Ros. Alack, let it blood. Biron. Would that do it good? 1.3 1 To depart and to part were anciently synonymous. 2 This phrase appears to us unseemly to a princess, but it was a common metaphorical expression then much used. Perhaps it was no more considered offensive than it would be now to talk of the castrations of Holinshed. It was not peculiar to Shakspeare. 3 The old spelling of the affirmative particle ay is here retained for the sake of the rhyme. 4 Point, in French, is an adverb of negation, but, if properly spoken, is not sounded like the point of a knife. A quibble was however intended. Perhaps Shakspeare was not well acquainted with the pronunciation of French. 5 A quibble is here intended upon the word several. Boyet. She hath but one for herself; to desire Long. Pray you, sir, whose daughter? [Exit LONG. Boyet. Not unlike, sir; that may be. Biron. You are welcome, sir; adieu! Boyet. Farewell to me, sir, and welcome to you. Boyet. word. Boyet. I was as willing to grapple, as he was to board. Mar. Two hot sheeps, marry! And wherefore not ships? No sheep, sweet lamb, unless we feed on your lips. the jest? Boyet. So you grant pasture for me. Mar. [Offering to kiss her.. Not so, gentle beast; My lips are no common, though several they be. Mar. To my fortunes and me. Prin. Good wits will be jangling; but, gentles, Methough all his senses were lock'd in his eye, Moth. Negligent student? learn her by heart. Moth. And out of heart, master: all those three Arm. What wilt thou prove? Did point you to buy them along as you pass'd. I only have made a mouth of his eye, Mar. He is Cupid's grandfather, and learns news of him. Ros. Then was Venus like her mother; for her father is but grim. Boyet. Do you hear, my mad wenches? Mar. No. Boyet. What then, do you see? Ros. Ay, our way to be gone. Boyet. You are too hard for me. [Exeunt. Arm. Marble, child, make passionate my sense | of hearing. Moth. Concolinel2 Moth. A man, if I live; and this, by, in, and 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 sympathised; a horse to be an 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. Minime, honest master; or rather, master, no. Is [Singing. He I Arm. Sweet air!-Go, tenderness of years; take this key, give enlargement to the swain, bring him festinately hither; I must employ him in a letter to my love. Moth. Master, will you win your love with a French brawl?4 a Arm. How mean'st thou? brawling in French? Moth. No, my complete master: but to jig off tune at the tongue's end, canary" to it with your feet, humour it with turning up your eye-lids; sigh a note, and sing a note; sometime through the throat, as if you swallowed love with singing love; sometime through the nose, as if you snuffed up love by smelling love; with your hat penthouselike o'er the shop of your eyes; with your arms crossed on your thin belly-doublet, like a rabbit on a spit; or your hands in your pocket, like a man after the old painting; and keep not too long in one tune, but a snip and away. These are complements, these are humours; these betray nice wenches-that would be betrayed without these; and make them men of note, (do you note, men ?") that most are affected to these. Arm. How hast thou purchased this experience? Moth. By my penny of observation, Arm. But 0,--but 0, Moth. -the hobby-horse is forgot. 1 In Shakspeare's time, notes, quotations, &c. were usually printed in the exterior margin of books. 2 A song is apparently lost here. In old comedies the songs are frequently omitted. On this occasion the stage direction is generally Here they sing-or Cantant. 3 i. e. hastily. 4 A kind of dance; spelt bransle by some authors: being the French name for the same dance. 5 Canary was the name of a sprightly dance, sometimes accompanied by the castanets. 3 i, e. accomplishments. 7 One of the modern editors, with great plausibility, proposes to read do you note me? s The allusion is probably to the old popular pamphlet, A Pennyworth of Wit.' 9 The Hobby-horse was a personage belonging to the ancient Morris dance, when complete. It was the figure of a horse fastened round the waist of a man, his own legs going through the body of the horse, and enabling him to walk, but concealed by a long footcloth: while false legs appeared where those of the man should be at You are too swift,10 sir, to say so: that lead slow which is fir'd from a gun? Arm. Sweet smoke of rhetoric! reputes me a cannon; and the bullet, that's he ;-shoot thee at the swain. Moth. Thump then, and I flee. [Exit. Arm. A most acute juvenal: voluble and free of grace! By 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 Costard'' broken in a shin. Arm. Some enigma, some riddle ;-come,―thy l'envoy;12-begin. Cost. No egma, no riddle, no l'envoy: no salve in the mail, 13 sir: O, sir, plantain, a plain plantain ; ne envoy, no l'envoy, no salve, sir, but a plantain! Arm. By virtue, thou enforcest laughter; thy silly thought, my spleen; the heaving of my lungs provokes me to ridiculous siniling; O, pardon me, my stars! Doth the inconsiderate take salve for l'envoy, and the word, l'envoy, for a salve? Moth. Do 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 it: The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee, Were still at odds, being but three. There's the moral: Now the l'envoy. the sides of the horse. Latterly the Hobby-horse was frequently omitted, which appears to have occasioned a popular ballad, in which was this line, or burden 10 Quick, ready. 11 i. e. a head; a name adopted from an apple shaped like a man's head. It must have been a common sort of apple, as it gave a name to the dealers in apples who were called costar-mongers. 12 An old French term for concluding verses, which served either to convey the moral, or to address the poem to some person. 13 A mail or male was a budget, wallet, or portman. teau. Costard, mistaking enigma, riddle, and l'envoy for names of salves, objects to the application of any salve in the budget, and cries out for a plantain leaf, There is a quibble upon salve and salve, a word with which it was not unusual to conclude epistles, &c and which therefore was a kind of l'envoy. Moth. I will add the l'envoy: Say the moral again. And stay'd the odds by adding four. Now will I begin your moral, and do you follow The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee, Cost. The boy hath sold him a bargain, a goose; Sir, your pennyworth is good, an your goose be To sell a bargain well, is as cunning as fast and loose: Moth. By saying that a Costard was broken in 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 market.1 Arm. But tell me; how was there a 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. I, Costard, running out, that was safely within, Arm. We will talk no more of this matter. Arm. By my sweet soul, I mean, setting thee at liberty, enfreedoming thy person; thou wert immured, restrained, captivated, bound. Cost. Pray you, sir, how much carnation ribbon Cost. When would you have it done, sir? Cost. Well, I will do it, sir: Fare you well. Biron. It must be done this afternoon. Hark, slave, it is but this ;- The princess comes to hunt here in the park, name, And Rosaline they call her: ask for her; go. Cost. Guerdon,-O sweet guerdon! better than remuneration; eleven-pence farthing better: Most sweet guerdon!-I will do it, sir, in print."Guerdon-remuneration. [Exit. Biron. O! And I, forsooth in love! I, that have been love's whip; A very beadle to a humorous sigh; Cost. True, true; and now you will be my pur-Sole imperator, and great general gation, 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, I.—Signior Costard, adieu. Cost. My sweet ounce of man's flesh! my incony Jew![Exit MOTH. Now will I look to this remuneration. Remuneration! O, that's the Latin word for three farthings: three farthings-remuneration.-What's the price of this inkle? a penny :-No, 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. Of trotting paritors 10-O my little heart'- Biron. O, my good knave Costard! exceedingly Some men must love my lady, and some Joan. well met. which nuns wear about their neck.' Shakspeare means 1 Alluding to the proverb, 'Three women and a goose no more than that Cupid was hood-winked. make a market. 2 See p. 196, note 11. 3 Armado sustains his character well; he will not give any thing its vulgar name, he calls the letter he would send to Jaquenetta, a significant. 4 Incony. The meaning and etymology of this phrase is not clearly defined, though numerous instances of its use are adduced. Sweet, pretty, delicate seem to be some of its acceptations; and the best derivation seems to be from the northern word canny or conny, meaning pretty, the in will be intensive and equivalent to very. 5 Guerdon, Fr. is reward. 6 With the utmost nicety. 7 Magnificent here means glorying, boasting. 8 To wimple is to veil, from guimple, Fr. which Cotgrave explains, The crepine of a French hood,' i. e. the cloth going from the hood round the neck. Kersey explains it,The muffler or plaited linen cloth 9 Plackets were stomachers. See Note on Winter's Tale, Act iv. Sc. 3. 10 The officers of the spiritual courts who serve citations. 11 It appears from Lord Stafford's Letters, vol. ii. p. 199, that a corporal of the field was employed, as an aid-de-camp is now, in taking and carrying to and fro the directions of the general, or other higher officers of the field' 12 It was once a mark of gallantry to wear a lady's colours. So in Cynthia's Revels by Jonson, despatches his lacquey to her chamber early, to know what her colours are for the day. It appears that a tumbler's hoop was usually dressed out with coloured ribands. 13 Clocks, which were usually imported from Germany at this time, were intricate and clumsy pieces of mechanism, soon deranged, and frequently out of frame.' mind. Well, lords, to-day we shall have our despatch; O short-liv'd pride! Not fair? alack for woe! you inherit. A giving hand, though foul, shall have fair praise. The poor deer's blood, that my heart means no ill. Boyet. Do not curst wives hold that self-sovereignty Only for praise' sake, when they strive to be Prin. Only for praise: and praise we may afford To any lady that subdues a lord. 1 Here Drs. Johnson and Farmer have each a note too long and too absurd to quote, to show it was the fashion for ladies to wear mirrors at their girdles. Steevens says justly (though he qualifies his assertion with perhaps) that Dr. Johnson is mistaken, and that the forester is the mirror. It is impossible for common sense to suppose otherwise.-Pye. 2 The princess calls Costard a member of the commomotalih, because he is one of the attendants on the king and his associates in their new modelled society See Ro3 A corruption of God give you good even. meo and Juliet, Act ii. Sc. 4. 4 i. e. open this letter. The poet uses this metaphor as the French do their poulet; which signifies both a young fowl and a love letter. To break up was a phrase for to carve Prin. What's your will, sir? what's your will Cost. I have a letter from monsieur Biron, to one lady Rosaline. Prin. O, thy letter, thy letter; he's a good friend of mine: Stand aside, good bearer.-Boyet, you can carve; this capon.4 up Break Boyet. I am bound to serve. This letter is mistook, it importeth none here; It is writ to Jaquenetta. Prin. We will read it, I swear: Break the neck of the wax, and every one give ear. Boyet. [Reads.] By heaven, that thou art fair, is most infallible; true, that thou art beauteous: truth itself, that thou art lovely: More fairer than fair, beautiful than beauteous; truer than truth itself, have commiseration on thy heroical vassal! The magnanimous and most illustrate king Cophetua set eye upon the pernicious and indubitate beggar Zenelophon; and he it was that might rightly say, veni, vidi, vici; which to anatomize in the vulgar, (0 base and obscure vulgar!) videlicet, he came, saw, and overcame he came, one; saw, two; overcame, three. Who came? the king; Why did he come? to see; Why did he see? to overcome; To whom came he? to the beggar; What saw he? the beggar; Who overcame he the beggar: The conclusion is victory; On whose side? the king's: the captive is enrich'd; On whose side? the beggar's; The catastrophe is a nuptial; On whose side? the king's? no, on both in one, or one in both. I am the king; for so stands the comparison: thou the beggar; for so witnesseth thy I enforce thy love? I could: Shall I entreat thy love? lowliness. Shall I command thy love? I may: Shall I will. What shalt thou exchange for rags? robes; For tittles, titles; For thyself, me. Thus, expecting thy reply, I profane my lips on thy foot, my eyes on thy picture, and my heart on thy every part. Thine, in the dearest design of industry, DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO. Thus dost thou hear the Nemean lion roar 'Gainst thee, thou lamb, that standest as his prey; Submissive fall his princely feet before, And he from forage will incline to play: But if thou strive, poor soul, what art thou then? Food for his rage, repasture for his den. Prin. What plume of feathers is he, that indited this letter? What vane? what weathercock? did you ever hear better? Boyet. I am much deceived, but I remember the |