To the court of his eye, peeping thorough desire: His heart, like an agate, with your print impress'd, Proud with his form, in his eye pride express'd: His tongue, all impatient to speak and not see, Did stumble with haste in his eyesight to be; All senses to that sense did make their repair, To feel only looking on fairest of fair. Methought all his senses were lock'd in his eye, As jewels in crystal for some prince to buy; Who, tend'ring their own worth from where they were glass'd, 240 Did point you to buy them, along as you pass'd. 250 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 Berowne. What 's her name in the cap? Boyet. Rosaline, by good hap. Boyet. Berowne. Is she wedded or no? 210 Boyet. To her will, sir, or so. Berowne. You are welcome, sir. Adieu. You are too hard for me, Exeunt. ACT III. Boyet. Farewell to me, sir, and welcome to you. Exit BEROWNE. Ladies unmask. Mar. That last is Berowne, the merry madcap lord: Not a word with him but a jest. Boyet. Boyet. I was as willing to grapple as he was to board. Mar. Two hot sheeps, marry! Boyet. And wherefore not ships? No sheep, sweet lamb, unless we feed on your lips. Mar. You sheep, and I pasture: shall that finish the jest? Boyet. So you grant pasture for me. 220 Offering to kiss her. Mar. Not so, gentle beast. My lips are no common, though several they be. Boyet. Belonging to whom? Mar. To my fortunes and me. Prin. Good wits will be jangling; but, gentles, 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? Arm. How meanest thou? brawling in French? Moth. No, my complete master; but to jig off a tune at the tongue's end, canary to it with your feet, humour it with turning up your eyelids, 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 penthouse-like 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 me?-that most are affected to these. Arm. How hast thou purchased this experience? Moth. The hobby-horse is forgot.' 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. 51 Arm. I say lead is slow. Moth. You are too swift, sir, to say so: Is that lead slow which is fir'd from a gun? Arm. Sweet smoke of rhetoric! 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; volable 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 with COSTARD. 70 Moth. A wonder, master! here's a costard broken in a shin. Arm. Some enigma, some riddle: come, thy l'envoy; begin. Cost. No egma, no riddle, no l'envoy! no salve in the mail, sir. O! sir, plantain, a plain plantain: no l'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 smiling: O! pardon me, my stars. Doth the inconsiderate take salve for l'enroy, and the word l'envoy for a salve? Moth. Do the wise think them other? is not l'enroy a salve? Arm. No, page: it is an epilogue or discourse, to make plain Some obscure precedence that hath tofore been sain. Moth. I will add the l'enroy. Say the moral again. 90 Arm. The fox, the ape, the humble-bee, Were still at odds, being but three. Moth. Until the goose came out of door, And stay'd the odds by adding four. 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? 100 Cost. The boy hath sold him a bargain, a goose, that's flat. Sir, your pennyworth 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 Cost. My sweet ounce of man's flesh! my incony Jew! Exit MOTH. 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?' 'One 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. Cost. I thank your worship. God be wi' you! Berowne. Stay, slave; I must employ thee: As thou wilt win my favour, good my knave, Do one thing for me that I shall entreat. Cost. When would you have it done, sir? Cost. Well, I will do it, sir. Fare you well. 16) Berowne. It must be done this afternoon. Hark, slave, it is but this : The princess comes to hunt here in the park, And Rosaline they call her: ask for her, 170 This scal'd-up counsel. There's thy guerdon: Gives him a shilling. go. Cost. Gardon, O sweet gardon! better than remuneration; a'leven-pence farthing better. Most sweet gardon! I will do it, sir, in print. Gardon! Remuneration! Beroune. And I Exit. 189 Forsooth in love! I, that have been love's whip; Of trotting 'paritors: O my little heart! 190 200 And wear his colours like a tumbler's hoop! ACT IV. SCENE I.-The King of Navarre's Park. Enter the PRINCESS, ROSALINE, MARIA, KATHARINE, BOYET, Lords, Attendants, and a Forester. Prin. Was that the king, that spurr'd his horse so hard Against the steep uprising of the hill? Boyet. I know not; but I think it was not he. Prin. Whoe'er a' was, a' show'd a mounting mind. Well, lords, to-day we shall have our dispatch; O short-liv'd pride! Not fair? alack for woe! Fair payment for foul words is more than due. For. Nothing but fair is that which you inherit. 20 Prin. See, see! my beauty will be sav'd by O heresy in fair, fit for these days! merit. A giving hand, though foul, shall have fair praise. We bend to that the working of the heart; 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. Enter COSTARD. 40 One o' these maids' girdles for your waist should be fit. Are not you the chief woman? you are the thickest here. Prin. What's your will, sir? what's your will? Cost. I have a letter from Monsieur Berowne 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; Break up this capon. 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. 59 Break the neck of the wax, and every one give ear. Boyet. 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—O 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 enriched 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 lowliness. Shall I command thy love? I may. Shall I enforce thy love? I could. Shall I entreat thy love? 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, Thus dost thou hear the Nemean lion roar 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. 91 Mar. A mark marvellous well shot, for they both did hit it. Boyet. A mark! O! mark but that mark; a mark, says my lady. Let the mark have a prick in 't, to mete at, if it may be. Mar. Wide o' the bow-hand! i' faith, your hand is out. Cost. Indeed, a' must shoot nearer, or he'll ne'er hit the clout. Boyet. An if my hand be out, then belike your hand is in. Cost. Then will she get the upshoot by cleaving the pin. Mar. Come, come, you talk greasily; your lips grow foul. Cost. She's too hard for you at pricks, sir: challenge her to bowl. Boyet. I fear too much rubbing. Good night, my good owl. Exeunt BOYET and MARIA. Cost. By my soul, a swain! a most simple clown! Lord, Lord, how the ladies and I have put him down! 142 O' my troth, most sweet jests! most incony vulgar wit! When it comes so smoothly off, so obscenely, as it were, so fit. Armado o' the one side, O! a most dainty man, To see him walk before a lady, and to bear hier fan! 51 To see him kiss his hand! and how most sweetly | old; and I say beside that, 'twas a pricket that a' will swear! the princess killed. And his page o' t' other side, that handful of wit! Ah! heavens, it is a most pathetical nit. Sola, sola! Shouting within. 150 Exit COSTARD, running. SCENE II.-The Same. Enter HOLOFERNES, Sir NATHANIEL, and DULL. Nath. Very reverend sport, truly and done in the testimony of a good conscience. Hol. The deer was, as you know, sanguis, in blood; ripe as the pomewater, who now hangeth like a jewel in the ear of caelo, the sky, the welkin, the heaven; and anon falleth like a crab on the face of terra, the soil, the land, the earth. Nath. Truly, Master Holofernes, the epithets are sweetly varied, like a scholar at the least: but, sir, I assure ye, it was a buck of the first head. Hol. Sir Nathaniel, haud credo. 11 Dull. Twas not a haud credo, 'twas a pricket. Hol. Most barbarous intimation! yet a kind of insinuation, as it were, in via, in way of explica tion; facere, as it were, replication, or, rather, ostentare, to show, as it were, his inclination,after his undressed, unpolished, uneducated, unpruned, untrained, or rather unlettered, or ratherest, unconfirmed fashion,-to insert again my haud credo for a deer. 20 Dull. I said the deer was not a haud credo; 'twas a pricket. Hol. Twice-sod simplicity, bis coctus! O! thou monster Ignorance, how deform'd dost thou look. Nath. Sir, he hath never fed of the dainties that are bred in a book; he hath not eat paper, as it were; he hath not drunk ink: his intellect is not replenished; he is only an animal, only sensible in the duller parts; And such barren plants are set before us, that we thankful should be, Which we of taste and feeling are, for those parts that do fructify in us more than he ; For as it would ill become me to be vain, indiscreet, or a fool, 31 Hol. Sir Nathaniel, will you hear an extemporal epitaph on the death of the deer and, to humour the ignorant, call I the deer the princess killed, a pricket. Nath. Perge, good Master Holofernes, perge; so it shall please you to abrogate scurrility. Hol. I will something affect the letter; for it argues facility. The preyful princess piere'd and prick'd a pretty pleasing pricket; Some say a sore; but not a sore, till now made sore with shooting. The dogs did yell; put L to sore, then sorel jumps from thicket; Or pricket sore, or else sorel; the people fall a-hooting. If sore be sore, then Lto sore makes fifty sores one sorel. Of one sore I an hundred make, by adding but one more L. Nath. A rare talent! him with a talent. Dull. If a talent be a claw, look how he claws Hol. This is a gift that I have, simple, simple; a foolish extravagant spirit, full of forms, figures, shapes, objects, ideas, apprehensions, motions, revolutions: these are begot in the ventricle of memory, nourished in the womb of pia mater, and delivered upon the mellowing of occasion. But the gift is good in those in whom it is acute, and I am thankful for it. 74 Enter JAQUENETTA and COSTARD. Jaq. God give you good morrow, Master parson. Hol. Master parson, quasi pers-on. An if one should be pierced, which is the one? Cost. Marry, Master schoolmaster, he that is likest to a hogshead. conceit in a turf of earth; fire enough for a flint, Hol. Piercing a hogshead! a good lustre of pearl enough for a swine: 'tis pretty; it is well. Jaq. Good Master parson, be so good as read me this letter: it was given me by Costard, and sent me from Don Armado: I beseech you, read it. Hol. Fauste, precor gelida quando pecus omne sub umbra Ruminat, and so forth. Ah! good old Mantuan. I may speak of thee as the traveller doth of Venice: Chi non ti vede, non ti pretia. Old Mantuan! old Mantuan! who understandeth thee not, loves thee not. Ut, re, sol, la, mi, ja. Under pardon, sir, what are the contents? or. rather, as Horace says in his-What, my soul, verses? Nath. Ay, sir, and very learned. Hol. Let me hear a staff, a stanze, a verse: lege, domine. |