Complete Plays, The (344 page)

Don Adriano de Armado

Almost I had.

Moth

Negligent student! learn her by heart.

Don Adriano de Armado

By heart and in heart, boy.

Moth

And out of heart, master: all those three I will prove.

Don Adriano de Armado

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.

Don Adriano de Armado

I am all these three.

Moth

And three times as much more, and yet nothing at all.

Don Adriano de Armado

Fetch hither the swain: he must carry me a letter.

Moth

A message well sympathized; a horse to be ambassador for an ass.

Don Adriano de Armado

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.

Don Adriano de Armado

The way is but short: away!

Moth

As swift as lead, sir.

Don Adriano de Armado

The meaning, pretty ingenious?
Is not lead a metal heavy, dull, and slow?

Moth

Minime, honest master; or rather, master, no.

Don Adriano de Armado

I say lead is slow.

Moth

You are too swift, sir, to say so:
Is that lead slow which is fired from a gun?

Don Adriano de Armado

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

Don Adriano de Armado

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 with Costard

Moth

A wonder, master! here’s a costard broken in a shin.

Don Adriano de Armado

Some enigma, some riddle: come, thy l’envoy; begin.

Costard

No enigma, 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!

Don Adriano de Armado

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?

Moth

Do the wise think them other? is not l’envoy a salve?

Don Adriano de Armado

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.

Moth

I will add the l’envoy. Say the moral again.

Don Adriano de Armado

The fox, the ape, and 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.

Don Adriano de Armado

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?

Costard

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.

Don Adriano de Armado

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.

Costard

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.

Don Adriano de Armado

But tell me; how was there a costard broken in a shin?

Moth

I will tell you sensibly.

Costard

Thou hast no feeling of it, Moth: I will speak that l’envoy:
I Costard, running out, that was safely within,
Fell over the threshold and broke my shin.

Don Adriano de Armado

We will talk no more of this matter.

Costard

Till there be more matter in the shin.

Don Adriano de Armado

Sirrah Costard, I will enfranchise thee.

Costard

O, marry me to one Frances: I smell some l’envoy, some goose, in this.

Don Adriano de Armado

By my sweet soul, I mean setting thee at liberty, enfreedoming thy person; thou wert immured, restrained, captivated, bound.

Costard

True, true; and now you will be my purgation and let me loose.

Don Adriano de Armado

I give thee thy liberty, set thee from durance; and, in lieu thereof, impose on thee nothing but this: bear this significant

Giving a letter

to the country maid Jaquenetta: there is remuneration; for the best ward of mine honour is rewarding my dependents. Moth, follow.

Exit

Moth

Like the sequel, I. Signior Costard, adieu.

Costard

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.

Enter Biron

Biron

O, my good knave Costard! exceedingly well met.

Costard

Pray you, sir, how much carnation ribbon may a man buy for a remuneration?

Biron

What is a remuneration?

Costard

Marry, sir, halfpenny farthing.

Biron

Why, then, three-farthing worth of silk.

Costard

I thank your worship: God be wi’ you!

Biron

Stay, slave; I must employ thee:
As thou wilt win my favour, good my knave,
Do one thing for me that I shall entreat.

Costard

When would you have it done, sir?

Biron

This afternoon.

Costard

Well, I will do it, sir: fare you well.

Biron

Thou knowest not what it is.

Costard

I shall know, sir, when I have done it.

Biron

Why, villain, thou must know first.

Costard

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 white hand see thou do commend
This seal’d-up counsel. There’s thy guerdon; go.

Giving him a shilling

Costard

Gardon, O sweet gardon! better than remuneration, a’leven-pence farthing better: most sweet gardon! I will do it sir, in print. Gardon! Remuneration!

Exit

Biron

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 whimpled, whining, purblind, wayward boy;
This senior-junior, giant-dwarf, Dan Cupid;
Regent of love-rhymes, lord of folded arms,
The anointed sovereign of sighs and groans,
Liege of all loiterers and malcontents,
Dread prince of plackets, king of codpieces,
Sole imperator and great general
Of trotting ’paritors:— O my little heart:—
And I to be a corporal of his field,
And wear his colours like a tumbler’s hoop!
What, I! I love! I sue! I seek a wife!
A woman, that is like a German clock,
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 perjured, which is worst of all;
And, among three, to love the worst of all;
A wightly 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
Of his almighty dreadful little might.
Well, I will love, write, sigh, pray, sue and groan:
Some men must love my lady and some Joan.

Exit

A
CT
IV

S
CENE
I. T
HE
SAME
.

Enter the Princess, and her train, a Forester, Boyet, Rosaline, Maria, and Katharine

Princess

Was that the king, that spurred his horse so hard
Against the steep uprising of the hill?

Boyet

I know not; but I think it was not he.

Princess

Whoe’er a’ was, a’ show’d a mounting mind.
Well, lords, to-day we shall have our dispatch:
On Saturday we will return to France.
Then, forester, my friend, where is the bush
That we must stand and play the murderer in?

Forester

Hereby, upon the edge of yonder coppice;
A stand where you may make the fairest shoot.

Princess

I thank my beauty, I am fair that shoot,
And thereupon thou speak’st the fairest shoot.

Forester

Pardon me, madam, for I meant not so.

Princess

What, what? first praise me and again say no?
O short-lived pride! Not fair? alack for woe!

Forester

Yes, madam, fair.

Princess

 
Nay, never paint me now:
Where fair is not, praise cannot mend the brow.
Here, good my glass, take this for telling true:
Fair payment for foul words is more than due.

Forester

Nothing but fair is that which you inherit.

Princess

See see, my beauty will be saved by merit!
O heresy in fair, fit for these days!
A giving hand, though foul, shall have fair praise.
But come, the bow: now mercy goes to kill,
And shooting well is then accounted ill.
Thus will I save my credit in the shoot:
Not wounding, pity would not let me do’t;
If wounding, then it was to show my skill,
That more for praise than purpose meant to kill.
And out of question so it is sometimes,
Glory grows guilty of detested crimes,
When, for fame’s sake, for praise, an outward part,
We bend to that the working of the heart;
As I for praise alone now seek to spill
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
Lords o’er their lords?

Princess

Only for praise: and praise we may afford
To any lady that subdues a lord.

Boyet

Here comes a member of the commonwealth.

Enter Costard

Costard

God dig-you-den all! Pray you, which is the head lady?

Princess

Thou shalt know her, fellow, by the rest that have no heads.

Costard

Which is the greatest lady, the highest?

Princess

The thickest and the tallest.

Costard

The thickest and the tallest! it is so; truth is truth.
An your waist, mistress, were as slender as my wit,
One o’ these maids’ girdles for your waist should be fit.
Are not you the chief woman? you are the thickest here.

Princess

What’s your will, sir? what’s your will?

Costard

I have a letter from Monsieur Biron to one Lady Rosaline.

Princess

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.

Princess

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 annothanize 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, Don Adriano de Armado.’