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.

Enter BIRON.

Biron. O, my good knave Costard! exceedingly well met.

149

Cost. Pray you, sir, how much carnation ribbon may a man buy for a remuneration? Biron. What is a remuneration? Cost. Marry, sir, halfpenny farthing. Biron. Why, then, three-farthing worth of silk. Cost. 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. Cost. When would you have it done, sir? Biron. This afternoon.

well.

Cost. Well, I will do it, sir: fare you Biron. Thou knowest not what it is. Cost. I shall know, sir, when I have done it. Biron. Why, villain, thou must know first. 160 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 white hand see thou do commend 169 This seal'd-up counsel. There's thy guerdon; go. [Giving him a shilling. Cost. Gardon, O sweet gardon! better than remuneration, a 'leven-pence farthing better: most sweet gardon! I will do it, sir, print. Gardon! Remuneration! [Exit. Biron. And I, forsooth, in love! I, that have been love's whip;

180

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 wimpled, 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,

190

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;

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?
For. Hereby, upon the edge of yonder cop-
pice;

A stand where you may make the fairest shoot. 10
Prin. I thank my beauty, I am fair that shoot,
And thereupon thou speak'st the fairest shoot.

For. Pardon me, madam, for I meant not so. Prin. What, what? first praise me and again say no?

O short-lived pride! Not fair? alack for woe!
For. Yes, madam, fair.
Prin.

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. For. Nothing but fair is that which you inherit.

20

Prin. 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,

30

Enter COSTARD. Cost. God dig-you-den 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? Prin. The thickest and the tallest.

Cost. 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.

50

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 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. Break the neck of the wax, and every one give

ear.

59 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.' Thus dost thou hear the Nemean lion roar

90

A phantasime, a Monarcho, and one that makes sport

To the prince and his bookmates.
Prin.

Who gave thee this letter?
Cost.

Thou fellow, a word:

I told you; my lord. Prin. To whom shouldst thou give it? Cost. From my lord to my lady. Prin. From which lord to which lady? Cost. From my lord Biron, a good master of mine,

To a lady of France that he call'd Rosaline. Prin. Thou hast mistaken his letter. Come, lords, away.

[To Ros.] Here, sweet, put up this: 'twill be thine another day.

[Exeunt Princess and train. Boyet. Who is the suitor? who is the suitor? Ros. Shall I teach you to know? 110 Boyet. Ay, my continent of beauty.

Ros. Finely put off!

Why, she that bears the bow.

Boyet. My lady goes to kill horns; but, if thou marry,

Hang me by the neck, if horns that year mis

carry. Finely put on!

Ros. Well, then, I am the shooter.
Boyet.

And who is your deer? Ros. If we choose by the horns, yourself

come not 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?

120

Ros. Shall I come upon thee with an old saying, 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 Guinover of Britain was a little wench, as touching the hit it. Ros. Thou canst not hit it, hit it, hit it, Thou canst not hit it, my good man. Boyet. An I cannot, cannot, cannot, An I cannot, another can.

130

[Exeunt Ros. and Kath. Cost. By my troth, most pleasant: how both did fit it!

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!

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.

140

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!

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' th' one side,-O, a most dainty man!
To see him walk before a lady and to bear her fan!
To see him kiss his hand! and how most sweetly
a' will swear!

And his page o' t' other side, that handful of wit!
Ah, heavens, it is a most pathetical nit!
Sola, sola!

150

[Shout within. [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.

II

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. 20

Dull. I said the deer was not a haud credo; 'twas a pricket.

Hol. Twice-sod simplicity, bis coctus! 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 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. 30 For as it would ill become me to be vain, indiscreet, or a fool,

So were there a patch set on learning, to see him in a school:

But omne bene, say I; being of an old father's mind,

Dull. You two are book-men: can you tell me by your wit

What was a month old at Cain's birth, that's not five weeks old as yet?

Hol. Dictynna, goodman Dull; Dictynna, goodman Dull.

Dull. What is Dictynna?

Nath. A title to Phoebe, to Luna, to the moon. Hol. The moon was a month old when Adam

was no more,

40

And raught not to five weeks when he came to five-score.

The allusion holds in the exchange.

Dull. 'Tis true indeed; the collusion holds in the exchange.

Hol. God comfort thy capacity! I say, the allusion holds in the exchange.

Dull. And I say, the pollusion holds in the exchange; for the moon is never but a month old and I say beside that, 'twas a pricket that the princess killed.

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 pierced 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;

60

Or pricket sore, or else sorel; the people fall a-hooting.

If sore be sore, then L to sore makes fifty sores one sorel.

Of one sore I an hundred make by adding but

one more L.

Nath. A rare talent! Dull. [Aside] If a talent be a claw, look how he claws him with a talent.

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.

Nath. Sir, I praise the Lord for you: and so may my parishioners; for their sons are well tutored by you, and their daughters profit very greatly under you: you are a good member of the commonwealth.

Hol. Mehercle, if their sons be ingenuous, 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.

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

Hol. Piercing a hogshead! a good lustre of conceit in a tuft of earth; fire enough for a flint, pearl enough for a swine: 'tis pretty; it is well. Faq. 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;

Venetia, Venetia,

Chi non ti vede non ti pretia. 100 Old Mantuan, old Mantuan! who understandeth thee not, loves thee not. Ut, re, soi, la, mi, fa. Under pardon, sir, what are the contents? or rather, as Horace says in his-What, my soul, verses?

Nath. Ay, sir, and very learned.

the way of progression, hath miscarried. Trip and go, my sweet; deliver this paper into the royal hand of the king: it may concern much. Stay not thy compliment; I forgive thy duty: adieu.

Faq. Good Costard, go with me. Sir, God save your life! 150

Cost. Have with thee, my girl.

[Exeunt Cost. and Jaq. Nath. Sir, you have done this in the fear of God, very religiously; and, as a certain father saith,

Hol. Sir, tell not me of the father; I do fear colourable colours. But to return to the verses: did they please you, Sir Nathaniel?

Nath. Marvellous well for the pen. Hol. I do dine to-day at the father's of a certain pupil of mine; where, if, before repast, it

Nath. [reads]

If love make me forsworn, how shall I swear to love?

Ah, never faith could hold, if not to beauty vow'd!

IIO

Celestial as thou art, O, pardon love this wrong, That sings heaven's praise with such an earthly tongue.

caret.

Hol. You find not the apostraphas, and so miss the accent: let me supervise the canzonet. Here are only numbers ratified; but, for the elegancy, facility, and golden cadence of poesy, Ovidius Naso was the man: and why, indeed, Naso, 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.

Hol. I will overglance the superscript: To the snow-white hand of the most beauteous Lady Rosaline.' I will look again on the intellect of the letter, for the nomination of the party writing to the person 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, or by

I will, on my privilege I have with the parents of the foresaid child or pupil, undertake your ben venuto; where I will prove those verses to be very unlearned, neither savouring of poetry, wit, nor invention: I beseech your society.

Nath. And thank you too; for society, saith the text, is the happiness of life.

Hol. And, certes, the text most infallibly concludes it. [To Dull] Sir, I do invite you too; you shall not say me nay: pauca verba. Away! the gentles are at their game, and we will to our recreation. [Exeunt.

SCENE III. The same.

Enter BIRON, with a paper.

O,

Biron. The king he is hunting the deer; I am coursing myself: they have pitched a toil; I am toiling in a pitch,-pitch that defiles: defile! a foul word. Well, set thee down, sorrow! for so they say the fool said, and so say I, and I the fool: well proved, wit! By the Lord, this love is as mad as Ajax: it kills sheep; it kills me, I a sheep well proved again o' my side! I will not love: if I do, hang me; i' faith, I will not. but her eye,-by this light, but for her eye, I would not love her; yes, for her two eyes. Well, I do nothing in the world but lie, and lie in my throat. By heaven, I do love: and it hath taught me to rhyme and to be melancholy; and here is part of my rhyme, and here my melancholy. Well, she hath one o' my sonnets already: the clown bore it, the fool sent it, and the lady hath it: sweet clown, sweeter fool, sweetest lady! By the world, I would not care a pin, if the other three were in. Here comes one with a paper : God give him grace to groan! [Stands aside. 20 Enter the King, with a paper. King. Ay me!

Biron. [Aside] Shot, by heaven! Proceed, sweet Cupid: thou hast thumped him with thy bird-bolt under the left pap. In faith, secrets! King [reads].

So sweet a kiss the golden sun gives not

To those fresh morning drops upon the rose, As thy eye-beams, when their fresh rays have

smote

The night of dew that on my cheeks down flows: Nor shines the silver moon one half so bright 30

Through the transparent bosom of the deep, As doth thy face through tears of mine give light; Thou shinest in every tear that I do weep: No drop but as a coach doth carry thee; So ridest thou triumphing in my woe. Do but behold the tears that swell in me,

And they thy glory through my grief will show: But do not love thyself; then thou wilt keep My tears for glasses, and still make me weep. 40 O queen of queens! how far dost thou excel, No thought can think, nor tongue of mortal tell. How shall she know my griefs? I'll drop the paper:

Sweet leaves, shade folly. Who is he comes here? [Steps aside. What, Longaville! and reading! listen, ear. Biron. Now, in thy likeness, one more fool appear!

Enter LONGAVILLE, with a paper. Long. Ay me, I am forsworn!

Biron. Why, he comes in like a perjure, wearing papers.

King. In love, I hope: sweet fellowship in

shame!

More sacks to the mill! O heavens, I have my wish!

Enter DUMAIN, with a paper. Dumain transform'd! four woodcocks in a dish! Dum. O most divine Kate!

Biron.
Dum. By heaven, the wonder in a mortal eye!
Biron. By earth, she is not, corporal, there
you lie.

O most profane coxcomb!

Dum. Her amber hair for foul hath amber quoted.

Biron. An amber-colour'd raven was well noted.

Dum. As upright as the cedar.
Biron,

Her shoulder is with child.
Dum.

Stoop, I say;

As fair as day.

90

Biron. Ay, as some days; but then no sun

must shine.

Biron. Once more I'll mark how love can vary wit.

Dum. [reads]

On a day-alack the day!—

Love, whose month is ever May,
Spied a blossom passing fair
Playing in the wanton air:

Through the velvet leaves the wind,
All unseen, can passage find;
That the lover, sick to death,
Wish himself the heaven's breath.
Air, quoth he, thy cheeks may blow;
Air, would I might triumph so!

But, alack, my hand is sworn

Ne'er to pluck thee from thy thorn;
Vow, alack, for youth unmeet,

Youth so apt to pluck a sweet!

Do not call it sin in me,

That I am forsworn for thee;
Thou for whom Jove would swear
Juno but an Ethiope were;
And deny himself for Jove,
Turning mortal for thy love.

100

This will I send and something else more plain,
That shall express my true love's fasting pain.
O, would the king, Biron, and Longaville,
Were lovers too! Ill, to example ill,
Would from my forehead wipe a perjured note;
For none offend where all alike do dote.

Long. [advancing]. Dumain, thy love is far from charity,

That in love's grief desirest society:
You may look pale, but I should blush, I know,
To be o'erheard and taken napping so.

130

King [advancing]. Come, sir, you blush; as his your case is such;

You chide at him, offending twice as much;