Boyet. I am bound to serve. This letter is mistook; it importeth none here. Prin. 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, (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 ? 'Gainst thee, thou lamb, that standest as his prey; Submissive fall his princely feet before, And he from forage will incline to play. 1 The ballad of King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid may be seen_m the Reliques of Ancient Poetry, vol. i. The beggar's name was Penelophon. But if thou strive, poor soul, what art thou then? 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 style. Prin. Else your memory is bad, going o'er it erewhile.1 Boyet. This Armado is a Spaniard, that keeps here in court; 2 A phantasm, a Monarcho, and one that makes sport To the prince, and his book-mates. Prin. Who gave thee this letter? Cost. Thou, fellow, a word. I told you, my lord. From my lord to my lady. Prin. To whom shouldst thou give it? Prin. From which lord, to which lady? Cost. From my lord Biron, a good master of mine, To a lady of France, that he called Rosaline. Prin. Thou hast mistaken his letter. away. Come, lords, Here, sweet, put up this; 'twill be thine another day. Boyet. Who is the suitor? who is the suitor ? 3 Ros. [Exit Princess and Train. Shall I teach you to know? Why, she that bears the bow. Boyet. Ay, my continent of beauty. Ros. Finely put off! Boyet. My lady goes to kill horns; but, if thou marry, Hang me by the neck, if horns that year miscarry. Finely put on! 1 i. e. lately. 2 The allusion is to a fantastical character of the time. "Popular applause (says Meres, in Wit's Treasurie, p. 178) doth nourish some, neither do they gape after any other thing but vaine praise and glorie,-as in our age Peter Shakerlye of Paules, and Monarcho that lived about the court." 3 An equivoque was here intended; it should appear that the words shooter and suitor were pronounced alike in Shakspeare's time. Ros. Well then, I am the shooter. Boyet. And who is your deer? Ros. If we choose by the horns, yourself; come 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? 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 Guinever of Britain was a little wench, as touching the hit it. Ros. Thou canst not hit it, hit it, hit it, [Singing. Thou canst not hit it, my good man. Boyet. An I cannot, cannot, cannot, An I cannot, another can. [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! Let the mark have a prick in't, to mete at, if it may be. Mar. Wide o' the bow hand!' is out. I'faith your hand 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 upshot by cleaving the pin. 1 This is a term in archery still in use, signifying "a good deal to the left of the mark." Of the other expressions, the clout was the white mark at which archers took aim. The pin was the wooden nail in the cen tre of it. Mar. Come, come, you talk greasily; your lips grow foul. Cost. She's too hard for you at pricks, sir; challenge her to bowl. good owl. Boyet. I fear too much rubbing. 'Good night, my [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. Armatho o' the one side,-O, a most dainty man! And his page o' t' other side, that handful of wit! Sola, sola! [Shouting within. Exit COST. running. SCENE II. The same. Enter HOLOFERNES, SIR NATHANIEL, and DULL. Nath. Very reverent sport, truly; and done in the testimony of a good conscience. 3 Hol. The deer was, as you know, in sanguis,blood; ripe as a pomewater, who now hangeth like a jewel in the ear of cœlo, 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.* 1 To rub is a term at bowls. 2 Pathetical sometimes meant passionate, and sometimes passionmoving, in our old writers, but is here used by Costard as an idle expletive. 3 Pomewater, a species of apple. 4 In the Return from Parnassus, 1606, is the following account of the 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; 'twas a pricket. Hol. Twice sod simplicity, bis coctus!-0 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. 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, 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. different appellations of deer at their different ages-"Amoretto. I caused the keeper to sever the rascal deer from the bucks of the first head. Now, sir, a buck is the first year, a fawn; the second year, a pricket; the third year, a sorrel; the fourth year, a soare; the fifth, a buck of the first head; the sixth year, a complete buck." 1 The meaning is, to be in a school would as ill become a patch, or low fellow, as folly would become me. 2 Shakspeare might have found this uncommon title for Diana in the second book of Golding's translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses. |