l'envoy; begin. Arm. Some enigma, some riddle: come,e,-thy | rance; 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, re[Exit. warding my dependents. Moth, follow. Moth. Like the sequel, I.-Signior Costard, 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'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. Moth. I will add the l'envoy: Say the moral again. Arm. The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee, Now will I begin your moral, and do you follow 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 desire more? you Cost. The boy hath sold him a bargain, a goose, that's flat: Sir, your pennyworth is good, an your goose be 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 market. 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 ny sweet soul, I mean, setting thee at liberty, enfreedoming thy person; thou wert immured, 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 du (1) An old French term for concluding verses, which served either to convey the moral, or to address the poem to some person. (2) Delightful. (3) Reward. adieu. Cost. My sweet ounce of man's flesh! my incony2 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? 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. 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. 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; Cost. Guerdon,-O sweet guerdon! better than Biron. O-And I, forsooth, in love! I, that have been love's whip; A very beadle to a humorous sigh; (4) With the utmost exactness. citations. Enter Costard. Still a repairing; ever out of frame; ACT IV. [Exit. SCENE I-Another part of the same. 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. mind. Well, lords, to-day we shall have our despatch; Prin. What, what? first praise me, and again say, no? O short-liv'd pride! Not fair? alack for wo! Prin. Here comes a member of the commonwealth. Cost. God dig-you-den1 all! Pray you, which is the head lady? Prin. Thou shalt know her, fellow, by the rest that have no heads. Cost. Which is the greatest lady, the highest? Cost. The thickest, and the tallest! it is so; truth An your waist, mistress, were as slender as my wit, One of 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 Biron, to one lady Rosaline. Prin. O, thy letter, thy letter; he's a good friend Break up this capon.2 I am bound to serve. Boyet. 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. is most infallible; true, that thou art beauteous; Boyet. [Reads.] By heaven, that thou art fair, 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 illustrate3 king Cobeggar Zenelophon; and he it was that might phetua set eye upon the pernicious and indubitate 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, Why did he come? to see; Why did he see? to |two; overcame, three. Who came? the king; 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 lowliness. Shall I command thy love? I may: Shall I enforce thy love? I could: Shall I entreat A giving hand, though foul, shall have fair praise.-thy love? I will. What shalt thou exchange for But come, the bow :-Now mercy goes to kill, Only for praise' sake, when they strive to be Prin. Only for praise: and praise we may afford (1) God give you good even. rags? robes; For tittles, titles: For thyself, me. Thine, in the dearest design of industry. And he from forage will incline to play: Prin. What plume of feathers is he, that indited What vane? what weathercock? did you ever hear better? Boyet. I am much deceived, but I remember the style. Prin. Else your memory is bad, going o'er it erewhile.4 (4) Just now. Boyet. This Armado is a Spaniard, that keeps || When it comes so smoothly off, so obscenely, as it here in court; A phantasm, a Monarcho, and one that makes sport Thou, fellow, a word: Finely put off! Boyet. My lady goes to kill horns; but, if thou marry, Hang me by the neck, if horns that year miscarry. Ros. Well then, I am the shooter. near. Finely put on, indeed!— Mar. You still wrangle with her, Boyet, and she strikes at the brow. Boyet. But she herself is hit lower: Have I hit her now? were, so fit. Armatho o' the one side,--O, a most dainty man! And his page o' t'other side, that handful of wit! SCENE II.-The same. [Shouting within. [Exit Costard, running. Enter Holofernes, Sir Nathaniel, and Dull. Nath. Very reverent sport, truly; and done in the testimony of a good conscience. Hol. The deer was, as you know, in sanguis,blood; ripe as a pomewater, who now hangeth like a jewel in the ear of calo,-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. 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 explication; 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. Dull. I said, the deer was not a haud credo; say-'twas a pricket. Ros. Shall I come upon thee with an old ing, that was a man when king Pepin of France was a little boy, as touching the hit it? Boyet. So I may answer thee with one as old, that was a woman when queen Guinever of Britain was a little wench, as touching the hit it. Ros. Thou canst not hit it, hit it, hit it. [Singing [Exeunt Ros. and Kath. Mar. Come, come, you talk greasily, your lips grow foul. Cost. She's too hard for you at pricks, sir; lenge her to bowl. chal Hol. Twice sod simplicity, bis coctus !-O thou monster ignorance, how deformed 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 in the duller parts; replenished; he is only an animal, only sensible And such barren plants are set before us, that we (Which we of taste and feeling are) for those parts So, were there a patch2 set on learning, to see him But, omne bene, say I; being of an old father's mind, Many can brook the weather, that love not the wind. Dull. You two are book-men: Can you tell by your wit, What was a month old at Cain's birth, that's not five weeks old as yet? Hol. Dictynna, good man Dull; Dictynna, good man Dull. Dull. What is Dictynna? Nath. A title to Phoebe, to Luna, to the moon. was no more; And raught not to five weeks, when he came to five score. The allusion holds in the exchange. Boyet. I fear too much rubbing; Good night, my Dull. 'Tis true indeed; the collusion holds in the exchange. wit! (1) A species of apple. (2) A low fellow. Hol. God comfort thy capacity! I say, the allu Dull. And I say the pollution holds in the exchange; for the moon is never but a month old: (3) Reached. LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST 169 and I say beside, that 'twas a pricket that the prin- Though to myself forsworn, to thee I'll faithful cess kill'd. Hol. Sir Nathaniel, will you hear an extemporal epitaph on the death of the deer? and, to humour the ignorant, I have call'd the deer the princess kill'd, 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 The praiseful princess pierc'd and prick'd a pretty Some say, a sore; but not a sore, till now made | The dogs did yell; put L to sore, then sorel jumps Or pricket, sore, or else sorel; the people fall a If sore be sore, then L to sore makes fifty sores; 0 sore L! Of one sore I a hundred make, by adding but one more L. Nath. A rare talent! Dull. If a talent be a claw, look how he claws him with a talent. prove; Those thoughts to me were oaks, to thee like osiers bowed. Study his bias leaves, and makes his book thine If eyes; Where all those pleasures live, that art would comprehend: knowledge be the mark, to know thee shall suf fice; Well learned is that tongue, that well can thee commend: All ignorant that soul, that sees thee without wonder; (Which is to me some praise, that I thy parts admire ;) Thy eye Jove's lightning bears, thy voice his Celestial, as thou art, oh pardon, love, this wrong, Hol. You find not the apostrophes, and so miss are only numbers ratified; but, for the elegancy, the accent: let me supervise the canzonet. Here Hol. This is a gift that I have, simple, simple;dius Naso was the man: and why, indeed, Naso; facility, and golden cadence of poesy, caret. Ovia 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 deliver'd upon the mellowing of occasion: But the gift is good in those in whom it is acute, and I am thankful for it. : but for smelling out the odoriferous flowers of fancy, the jerks of invention? Imitari, is nothing: so doth the hound his master, the ape his keeper, the tired horse his rider.-But damosella virgin, was this directed to you? Jaq. Ay, sir, from one monsieur Biron, one of the strange queen's lords. Nath. Sir, I praise the Lord for you; and so may my parishioners; for their sons are well tutor'd snow-white hand of the most beauteous Lady RosaHol. I will overglance the superscript. To the by you, and their daughters profit very greatly un-line. I will look again on the intellect of the letter, der you: you are a good member of the common-for the nomination of the party writing to the person wealth. Hol. Mehercle, if their sons be ingenious, they shall want no instruction: if their daughters be capable, I will put it to them: But, vir sapit, qui pauca loquitur: a soul feminine saluteth us. Enter Jaquenetta and Costard. one Cost. Marry, master schoolmaster, he that is likest to a hogshead. Hol. Of piercing a hogshead! a good lustre of conceit in a turf of earth; fire enough for a flint, 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 Armatho: I beseech you, read it. Hol. Fauste, precor gelidâ quando pecus omne Ruminat, and so forth. Ah, good old Mantuan! written unto : Your ladyship's in all desired employment, BIRON. Sir Nathaniel, this Biron is one of the votaries with the king; and here he hath framed a letter to a sequent of the stranger queen's, which, accidentally, Trip and go, my sweet; deliver this paper into the or by the way of progression, hath miscarried.royal hand of the king; it may concern much: Stay not thy compliment; I forgive thy duty; adieu!" Jaq. Good Costard, go with me.-Sir, God save your life! Cost. Have with thee, my girl. very religiously; and, as a certain father saith- Hol. Sir, tell not me of the father, I do fear Nath. Marvellous well for the pupil of mine; where if, before repast, it shall Hol. I do dine to-day at the father's of a certain Chi non te vede, ei non te pregia. please you to gratify the table with a grace, I will, Old Mantuan! old Mantuan! Who understandeth said child or pupil, undertake your ben venuto; on my privilege I have with the parents of the forethee not, loves thee not.-Ul, re, sol, la, mi, fa.ed, neither savouring of poetry, wit, nor invention: Under pardon, sir, what are the contents? where I will prove those verses to be very unlearnas Horace says in his-What, my soul, verses? or, rather, Nath. Ay, sir, and very learned. Hol. Let me hear a staff, a stanza, a verse; Lege, Biron, with a paper. SCENE III.—Another part of the same. Enter These numbers will I tear, and write in prose. Biron. The king he is hunting the deer; I am Enter the King, with a paper. King. Ah me! Biron. [Aside.] Shot, by heaven!-Proceed, sweet Cupid; thou hast thump'd him with thy bird-bolt under the left pap:-I'faith secrets.— King. [Reads.] So sweet a kiss the golden sun To those fresh morning drops upon the rose, And they thy glory through thy grief will show: Enter Longaville, with a paper. What, Longaville! and reading! listen, ear. Long. Ah me! I am forsworn. Biron. Why, he comes in like a perjure, wear- Long. Am I the first that have been perjur'd so? Thou mak'st the triumviry, the corner-cap of society, The shape of love's Tyburn that hangs up simplicity. Long. I fear these stubborn lines lack power to This same shall go. [He reads the sonnet. Did not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye Vows, for thee broke, deserve not punishment. Thy grace being gain'd, cures all disgrace in me. If by me broke, What fool is not so wise, Biron. [Aside.] This is the liver vein, which A green goose a goddess: pure, pure idolatry. God amend us, God amend! we are much out o' the way. Enter Dumain, with a paper. stay. Long. By whom shall I send this?-Company! Like a demi-god here sit I in the sky, Biron. O most profane coxcomb! [Aside. lie. Dum. Her amber hairs for foul have amber coted.1 Biron. An amber-colour'd raven was well noted. Dum. As upright as the cedar. Her shoulder is with child. Stoop, I say; As fair as day. [Aside. And I had mine! [Aside. Biron. Ay, as some days; but then no sun must shine. Dum. O that I had my wish! Long. King. And I mine too, good Lord! Aside. word? [Aside. Dum. I would forget her; but a fever she Reigns in my blood, and will remember'd be. Biron. A fever in your blood, why, then inci sion Would let her out in saucers; Sweet misprision! [Aside. Dum. Once more I'll read the ode that I have Biron. Once more I'll mark how love can vary Dum. On a day (alack the day!) Love, whose month is ever May, |