Текст книги "William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition"

Автор книги: William Shakespeare

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1.2 Enter Armado and Mote, his page

ARMADO Boy, what sign is it when a man of great spirit grows melancholy?

MOTE A great sign, sir, that he will look sad.

ARMADO Why, sadness is one and the selfsame thing, dear imp.

MOTE No, no, O Lord, sir, no.

ARMADO How canst thou part sadness and melancholy, my tender juvenal?

MOTE By a familiar demonstration of the working, my tough señor.

ARMADO Why ‘tough señor’? Why ‘tough señor’?

MOTE Why ‘tender juvenal’? Why ‘tender juvenal’?

ARMADO I spoke it, tender juvenal, as a congruent epitheton appertaining to thy young days, which we may nominate ‘tender’.

MOTE And I, tough señor, as an appertinent title to your old time, which we may name ‘tough’.

ARMADO Pretty and apt.

MOTE How mean you, sir? I ‘pretty’ and my saying ‘apt’? Or I ‘apt’ and my saying ‘pretty’?

ARMADO Thou ‘pretty’, because little.

MOTE Little pretty, because little. Wherefore ‘apt’?

ARMADO And therefore ‘apt’ because quick.

MOTE Speak you this in my praise, master?

ARMADO In thy condign praise.

MOTE I will praise an eel with the same praise.

ARMADO What—that an eel is ingenious?

MOTE That an eel is quick.

ARMADO I do say thou art quick in answers. Thou heatest my blood.

MOTE I am answered, sir.

ARMADO I love not to be crossed.

MOTE (aside) He speaks the mere contrary-crosses love not him.

ARMADO I have promised to study three years with the Duke.

MOTE You may do it in an hour, sir.

ARMADO Impossible. – MOTE How many is one, thrice told?

ARMADO I am ill at reckoning; it fitteth the spirit of a tapster.

MOTE You are a gentleman and a gamester, sir. ARMADO I confess both. They are both the varnish of a complete man.

MOTE Then I am sure you know how much the gross sum of deuce-ace amounts to.

ARMADO It doth amount to one more than two.

MOTE Which the base vulgar do call three.

ARMADO True.

MOTE Why, sir, is this such a piece of study ? Now here is ‘three’ studied ere ye’ll thrice wink, and how easy it is to put ‘years’ to the word ‘three’ and study ‘three years’ in two words, the dancing horse will tell you. ARMADO A most fine figure.

MOTE (aside) To prove you a cipher.

ARMADO I will hereupon confess I am in love; and as it is base for a soldier to love, so am I in love with a base wench. If drawing my sword against the humour of affection would deliver me from the reprobate thought of it, I would take desire prisoner and ransom him to any French courtier for a new-devised curtsy. I think scorn to sigh. Methinks I should outswear Cupid. Comfort me, boy. What great men have been in love?

MOTE Hercules, master.

ARMADO Most sweet Hercules! More authority, dear boy. Name more—and, sweet my child, let them be men of good repute and carriage.

MOTE Samson, master; he was a man of good carriage, great carriage, for he carried the town-gates on his back like a porter, and he was in love.

ARMADO O well-knit Samson, strong-jointed Samson! I do excel thee in my rapier as much as thou didst me in carrying gates. I am in love, too. Who was Samson’s love, my dear Mote?

MOTE A woman, master.

ARMADO Of what complexion ?

MOTE Of all the four, or the three, or the two, or one of the four.

ARMADO Tell me precisely of what complexion?

MOTE Of the sea-water green, sir.

ARMADO Is that one of the four complexions?

MOTE As I have read, sir; and the best of them, too.

ARMADO Green indeed is the colour of lovers, but to have a love of that colour, methinks Samson had small reason for it. He surely affected her for her wit.

MOTE It was so, sir, for she had a green wit.

ARMADO My love is most immaculate white and red.

MOTE Most maculate thoughts, master, are masked under such colours.

ARMADO Define, define, well-educated infant.

MOTE My father’s wit and my mother’s tongue assist me!

ARMADO Sweet invocation of a child!—most pretty and pathetical.

MOTE If she be made of white and red

Her faults will ne’er be known,

For blushing cheeks by faults are bred

And fears by pale white shown.

Then if she fear or be to blame,

By this you shall not know;

For still her cheeks possess the same

Which native she doth owe.

A dangerous rhyme, master, against the reason of white and red.

ARMADO Is there not a ballad, boy, of the King and the Beggar?

MOTE The world was very guilty of such a ballad some three ages since, but I think now ’tis not to be found; or if it were, it would neither serve for the writing nor the tune.

ARMADO I will have that subject newly writ o’er, that I may example my digression by some mighty precedent. Boy, I do love that country girl that I took in the park with the rational hind Costard. She deserves well.

MOTE (aside) To be whipped—and yet a better love than my master.

ARMADO Sing, boy. My spirit grows heavy in love.

MOTE And that’s great marvel, loving a light wench. ARMADO I say, sing.

MOTE Forbear till this company be past. Enter Costard the clown, Constable Dull, and Jaquenetta, a wench

DULL (to Armado) Sir, the Duke’s pleasure is that you keep Costard safe, and you must suffer him to take no delight, nor no penance, but a must fast three days a week. For this damsel, I must keep her at the park. She is allowed for the dey-woman. Fare you well.

ARMADO (aside) I do betray myself with blushing.—Maid.

JAQUENETTA Man.

ARMADO I will visit thee at the lodge.

JAQUENETTA That’s hereby.

ARMADO I know where it is situate.

JAQUENETTA Lord, how wise you are!

ARMADO I will tell thee wonders.

JAQUENETTA With that face?

ARMADO I love thee.

JAQUENETTA So I heard you say.

ARMADO And so farewell.

JAQUENETTA Fair weather after you.

⌈DULL⌉ Come, Jaquenetta, away.

⌈Exeunt Dull and Jaquenetta⌉

ARMADO Villain, thou shalt fast for thy offences ere thou be pardoned.

COSTARD Well, sir, I hope when I do it I shall do it on a full stomach.

ARMADO Thou shalt be heavily punished.

COSTARD I am more bound to you than your fellows, for they are but lightly rewarded.

ARMADO Take away this villain. Shut him up.

MOTE Come, you transgressing slave. Away!

COSTARD Let me not be pent up, sir. I will fast, being loose.

MOTE No, sir. That were fast and loose. Thou shalt to prison.

COSTARD Well, if ever I do see the merry days of desolation that I have seen, some shall see.

MOTE What shall some see?

COSTARD Nay, nothing, Master Mote, but what they look upon. It is not for prisoners to be too silent in their words, and therefore I will say nothing. I thank God I have as little patience as another man, and therefore I can be quiet.

Exeunt Mote and Costard

ARMADO I do affect the very ground—which is base-where her shoe—which is baser—guided by her foot—which is basest—doth tread. I shall be forsworn—which is a great argument of falsehood-if I love. And how can that be true love which is falsely attempted? Love is a familiar; love is a devil. There is no evil angel but love. Yet was Samson so tempted, and he had an excellent strength. Yet was Solomon so seduced, and he had a very good wit. Cupid’s butt-shaft is too hard for Hercules’ club, and therefore too much odds for a Spaniard’s rapier. The first and second cause will not serve my turn: the passado he respects not, the duello he regards not. His disgrace is to be called boy, but his glory is to subdue men. Adieu, valour; rust, rapier; be still, drum: for your manager is in love; yea, he loveth. Assist me, some extemporal god of rhyme, for I am sure I shall turn sonnet. Devise wit, write pen, for I am for whole volumes, in folio. Exit

2.1 Enter the Princess of France with three attending ladies-Maria, Catherine, and Rosaline-and three lords, one named Boyet

BOYET

Now, madam, summon up your dearest spirits.

Consider who the King your father sends,

To whom he sends, and what’s his embassy:

Yourself, held precious in the world’s esteem,

To parley with the sole inheritor

Of all perfections that a man may owe,

Matchless Navarre; the plea of no less weight

Than Aquitaine, a dowry for a queen.

Be now as prodigal of all dear grace

As nature was in making graces dear

When she did starve the general world beside

And prodigally gave them all to you.

PRINCESS

Good Lord Boyet, my beauty, though but mean,

Needs not the painted flourish of your praise.

Beauty is bought by judgement of the eye,

Not uttered by base sale of chapmen’s tongues.

I am less proud to hear you tell my worth

Than you much willing to be counted wise

In spending your wit in the praise of mine.

But now to task the tasker: good Boyet,

You are not ignorant all-telling fame

Doth noise abroad Navarre hath made a vow

Till painful study shall outwear three years

No woman may approach his silent court.

Therefore to’s seemeth it a needful course,

Before we enter his forbidden gates,

To know his pleasure; and in that behalf,

Bold of your worthiness, we single you

As our best-moving fair solicitor.

Tell him the daughter of the King of France

On serious business, craving quick dispatch,

Importunes personal conference with his grace.

Haste, signify so much while we attend,

Like humble-visaged suitors, his high will.

BOYET

Proud of employment, willingly I go.

PRINCESS

All pride is willing pride, and yours is so. Exit Boyet

Who are the votaries, my loving lords,

That are vow-fellows with this virtuous duke?

A LORD

Lord Longueville is one.

PRINCESS Know you the man?

MARIA

I know him, madam. At a marriage feast

Between Lord Perigord and the beauteous heir

Of Jaques Fauconbridge solemnized

In Normandy saw I this Longueville.

A man of sovereign parts he is esteemed,

Well fitted in arts, glorious in arms.

Nothing becomes him ill that he would well.

The only soil of his fair virtue’s gloss-

If virtue’s gloss will stain with any soil-

Is a sharp wit matched with too blunt a will,

Whose edge hath power to cut, whose will still wills

It should none spare that come within his power.

PRINCESS

Some merry mocking lord, belike-is’t so?

MARIA

They say so most that most his humours know.

PRINCESS

Such short-lived wits do wither as they grow.

Who are the rest?

CATHERINE

The young Dumaine, a well-accomplished youth,

Of all that virtue love for virtue loved.

Most power to do most harm, least knowing ill,

For he hath wit to make an ill shape good,

And shape to win grace, though he had no wit.

I saw him at the Duke Alençon’s once,

And much too little of that good I saw

Is my report to his great worthiness.

ROSALINE

Another of these students at that time

Was there with him, if I have heard a truth.

Biron they call him, but a merrier man,

Within the limit of becoming mirth,

I never spent an hour’s talk withal.

His eye begets occasion for his wit,

For every object that the one doth catch

The other turns to a mirth-moving jest,

Which his fair tongue, conceit’s expositor,

Delivers in such apt and gracious words

That aged ears play truant at his tales,

And younger hearings are quite ravished,

So sweet and voluble is his discourse.

PRINCESS

God bless my ladies, are they all in love,

That every one her own hath garnished

With such bedecking ornaments of praise?

A LORD

Here comes Boyet.

Enter Boyet

PRINCESS

Now, what admittance, lord?

BOYET

Navarre had notice of your fair approach,

And he and his competitors in oath

Were all addressed to meet you, gentle lady,

Before I came. Marry, thus much I have learnt:

He rather means to lodge you in the field,

Like one that comes here to besiege his court,

Than seek a dispensation for his oath

To let you enter his unpeopled house.

Enter Navarre, Longueville, Dumaine, and Biron

Here comes Navarre.

KING Fair Princess, welcome to the court of Navarre.

PRINCESS ‘Fair’ I give you back again, and welcome I have not yet. The roof of this court is too high to be yours, and welcome to the wide fields too base to be mine.

KING

You shall be welcome, madam, to my court.

PRINCESS

I will be welcome, then. Conduct me thither.

KING

Hear me, dear lady. I have sworn an oath—

PRINCESS

Our Lady help my lord He’ll be forsworn.

KING

Not for the world, fair madam, by my will.

PRINCESS

Why, will shall break it—will and nothing else.

KING

Your ladyship is ignorant what it is.

PRINCESS

Were my lord so his ignorance were wise,

Where now his knowledge must prove ignorance.

I hear your grace hath sworn out housekeeping.

’Tis deadly sin to keep that oath, my lord,

And sin to break it.

But pardon me, I am too sudden-bold.

To teach a teacher ill beseemeth me.

Vouchsafe to read the purpose of my coming,

And suddenly resolve me in my suit.

She gives him a paper

KING

Madam, I will, if suddenly I may.

PRINCESS

You will the sooner that I were away,

For you’ll prove perjured if you make me stay.

Navarre reads the paper

BIRON (to Rosaline)

Did not I dance with you in Brabant once?

⌈FROSALINE⌉

Did not I dance with you in Brabant once?

BIRON

I know you did.

⌈ROSALINE⌉

How needless was it then

To ask the question!

BIRON

You must not be so quick.

⌈ROSALINE⌉

‘Tis ’long of you, that spur me with such questions.

BIRON

Your wit’s too hot, it speeds too fast, ’twill tire.

⌈ROSALINE⌉

Not till it leave the rider in the mire.

BIRON

What time o’ day?

⌈ROSALINE⌉

The hour that fools should ask.

BIRON

Now fair befall your mask.

⌈ROSALINE⌉

Fair fall the face it covers.

BIRON

And send you many lovers.

⌈ROSALINE⌉

Amen, so you be none.

BIRON

Nay, then will I be gone.

KING (to the Princess)

Madam, your father here doth intimate

The payment of a hundred thousand crowns,

Being but the one-half of an entire sum

Disbursed by my father in his wars.

But say that he or we—as neither have—

Received that sum, yet there remains unpaid

A hundred thousand more, in surety of the which

One part of Aquitaine is bound to us,

Although not valued to the money’s worth.

If then the King your father will restore

But that one half which is unsatisfied,

We will give up our right in Aquitaine

And hold fair friendship with his majesty.

But that, it seems, he little purposeth,

For here he doth demand to have repaid

A hundred thousand crowns, and not demands,

On payment of a hundred thousand crowns,

To have his title live in Aquitaine,

Which we much rather had depart withal,

And have the money by our father lent,

Than Aquitaine, so gelded as it is.

Dear Princess, were not his requests so far

From reason’s yielding, your fair self should make

A yielding ’gainst some reason in my breast,

And go well satisfied to France again.

PRINCESS

You do the King my father too much wrong,

And wrong the reputation of your name,

In so unseeming to confess receipt

Of that which hath so faithfully been paid.

KING

I do protest I never heard of it,

And if you prove it I’ll repay it back

Or yield up Aquitaine.

PRINCESS We arrest your word.

Boyet, you can produce acquittances

For such a sum from special officers

Of Charles, his father.

KING

Satisfy me so.

BOYET

So please your grace, the packet is not come

Where that and other specialties are bound.

Tomorrow you shall have a sight of them.

KING

It shall suffice me, at which interview

All liberal reason I will yield unto.

Meantime receive such welcome at my hand

As honour, without breach of honour, may

Make tender of to thy true worthiness.

You may not come, fair princess, within my gates,

But here without you shall be so received

As you shall deem yourself lodged in my heart,

Though so denied fair harbour in my house.

Your own good thoughts excuse me, and farewell.

Tomorrow shall we visit you again.

PRINCESS

Sweet health and fair desires consort your grace.

KING

Thy own wish wish I thee in every place.

Exit with Longueville and Dumaine

BIRON (to Rosaline) Lady, I will commend you to mine own heart.

ROSALINE Pray you, do my commendations. I would be glad to see it.

BIRON I would you heard it groan.

ROSALINE Is the fool sick?

BIRON Sick at the heart.

ROSALINE

Alack, let it blood.

BIRON

Would that do it good?

ROSALINE

My physic says ‘Ay’.

BIRON

Will you prick’t with your eye?

ROSALINE

Non point, with my knife.

BIRON

Now God save thy life.

ROSALINE

And yours, from long living.

BIRON

I cannot stay thanksgiving. Exit

Enter Dumaine

DUMAINE (to Boyet)

Sir, I pray you a word. What lady is that same?

BOYET

The heir of Alençon, Catherine her name.

DUMAINE

A gallant lady. Monsieur, fare you well. Exit

Enter Longueville

LONGUEVILLE (to Boyet)

I beseech you a word, what is she in the white?

BOYET

A woman sometimes, an you saw her in the light.

LONGUEVILLE

Perchance light in the light. I desire her name.

BOYET

She hath but one for herself; to desire that were a shame.

LONGUEVILLE

Pray you, sir, whose daughter?

BOYET

Her mother’s, I have heard.

LONGUEVILLE

God’s blessing on your beard !

BOYET

Good sir, be not offended.

She is an heir of Fauconbridge.

LONGUEVILLE

Nay, my choler is ended.

She is a most sweet lady.

BOYET

Not unlike, sir. That may be.

Exit Longueville

Enter Biron

BIRON

What’s her name in the cap?

BOYET

Rosaline, by good hap.

BIRON

Is she wedded or no?

BOYET

To her will, sir, or so.

BIRON

O, you are welcome, sir. Adieu.

BOYET

Farewell to me, sir, and welcome to you.

Exit Biron

MARIA

That last is Biron, the merry madcap lord.

Not a word with him but a jest.

BOYET And every jest but a word.

PRINCESS

It was well done of you to take him at his word.

BOYET

I was as willing to grapple as he was to board.

⌈CATHERINE⌉

Two hot sheeps, marry.

BOYET

And wherefore not ships?

No sheep, sweet lamb, unless we feed on your lips.

⌈CATHERINE⌉

You sheep and I pasture—shall that finish the jest?

BOYET

So you grant pasture for me.

⌈CATHERINE⌉

Not so, gentle beast.

My lips are no common, though several they be.

BOYET

Belonging to whom?

⌈CATHERINE⌉

To my fortunes and me.

PRINCESS

Good wits will be jangling; but, gentles, agree.

This civil war of wits were much better used

On Navarre and his bookmen, for here ’tis abused.

BOYET

If my observation, which very seldom lies,

By the heart’s still rhetoric disclosed with eyes,

Deceive me not now, Navarre is infected.

PRINCESS With what?

BOYET

With that which we lovers entitle ‘affected’.

PRINCESS Your reason?

BOYET

Why, all his behaviours did make their retire

To the court of his eye, peeping thorough desire.

His heart like an agate with your print impressed,

Proud with his form, in his eye pride expressed.

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 locked in his eye,

As jewels in crystal, for some prince to buy,

Who, tendering their own worth from where they were glassed,

Did point you to buy them along as you passed.

His face’s own margin did quote such amazes

That all eyes saw his eyes enchanted with gazes.

I’ll give you Aquitaine and all that is his

An you give him for my sake but one loving kiss.

PRINCESS

Come, to our pavilion. Boyet is disposed.

BOYET

But to speak that in words which his eye hath disclosed.

I only have made a mouth of his eye

By adding a tongue, which I know will not lie.

⌈ROSALINE⌉

Thou art an old love-monger, and speak’st skilfully.

⌈MARIA⌉

He is Cupid’s grandfather, and learns news of him.

⌈CATHERINE⌉

Then was Venus like her mother, for her father is but grim.

BOYET

Do you hear, my mad wenches?

⌈MARIA⌉

No.

BOYET

What then, do you see?

⌈CATHERINE⌉

Ay—our way to be gone.

BOYET

You are too hard for me.

Exeunt

3.1 Enter Armado the braggart, and Mote his boy

ARMADO Warble, child; make passionate my sense of hearing.

MOTE (sings) Concolinel.

ARMADO 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.

MOTE Master, will you win your love with a French brawl?

ARMADO How meanest thou—brawling in French?

MOTE 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? men—that most are affected to these.

ARMADO How hast thou purchased this experience?

MOTE By my penny of observation.

ARMADO But O, but O-

MOTE ‘The hobby-horse is forgot.’

ARMADO Call’st thou my love hobby-horse ?

MOTE No, master, the hobby-horse is but a colt, and your love perhaps a hackney. But have you forgot your love?

ARMADO Almost I had.

MOTE Negligent student, learn her by heart.

ARMADO By heart and in heart, boy.

MOTE And out of heart, master. All those three I will prove. 36

ARMADO What wilt thou prove?

MOTE 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.

ARMADO I am all these three.

MOTE (aside) And three times as much more, and yet nothing at all.

ARMADO Fetch hither the swain. He must carry me a letter.

MOTE (aside) A message well sympathized—a horse to be ambassador for an ass.

ARMADO Ha, ha! What sayst thou?

MOTE Marry, sir, you must send the ass upon the horse, for he is very slow-gaited. But I go.

ARMADO The way is but short. Away!

MOTE As swift as lead, sir. 55

ARMADO The meaning, pretty ingenious?

Is not lead a metal heavy, dull, and slow ?

MOTE

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

ARMADO

I say lead is slow.

MOTE You are too swift, sir, to say so.

Is that lead slow which is fired from a gun?

ARMADO Sweet smoke of rhetoric!

He reputes me a cannon, and the bullet, that’s he.

I shoot thee at the swain.

MOTE Thump, then, and I flee.

Exit

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 returned.

Enter Mote the page, and Costard the clown

MOTE

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

ARMADO

Some enigma, some riddle; come, thy l’envoi. Begin.

COSTARD No egma, no riddle, no l‘envoi, no salve in the mail, sir. O sir, plantain, a plain plantain—no l’envoi, no l’envoi, no salve, sir, but a plantain.

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‘envoi, and the word l’envoi for a salve?

MOTE

Do the wise think them other? Is not l’envoi a salve ?

ARMADO

No, page, it is an epilogue or discourse to make plain

Some obscure precedence that hath tofore been sain.

I will example it. so

The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee

Were still at odds, being but three.

There’s the moral. Now the /’envoi.

MOTE I will add the l’envoi. Say the moral again.

ARMADO The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee

Were still at odds, being but three.

MOTE Until the goose came out of door

And stayed the odds by adding four.

Now will I begin your moral, and do you follow with my l’envoi.

The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee

Were still at odds, being but three.

ARMADO Until the goose came out of door,

Staying the odds by adding four.

MOTE A good l’envoi, 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’envoi-ay, that’s a fat goose.

ARMADO

Come hither, come hither. How did this argument begin?

MOTE

By saying that a costard was broken in a shin.

Then called you for the l’envoi.

COSTARD True, and I for a plantain. Thus came your argument in. Then the boy’s fat l’envoi, the goose that you bought, and he ended the market.

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

MOTE I will tell you sensibly.

COSTARD Thou hast no feeling of it. Mote, I will speak that l’envoi.

I, Costard, running out, that was safely within,

Fell over the threshold and broke my shin.

ARMADO We will talk no more of this matter.

COSTARD Till there be more matter in the shin.

ARMADO Sirrah Costard, I will enfranchise thee.

COSTARD O, marry me to one Frances! I smell some l’envoi, some goose, in this.

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.

ARMADO I give thee thy liberty, set thee from durance, and in lieu thereof impose on thee nothing but this: bear this significant to the country maid, Jaquenetta. (Giving him a letter) There is remuneration (giving him money), for the best ward of mine honour is rewarding my dependants. Mote, follow. Exit

MOTE

Like the sequel, I. Signor Costard, adieu. Exit

COSTARD

My sweet ounce of man’s flesh, my incony Jew!

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 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.

CUSTARD Well, I will do it, sir. Fare you well.

BIRON Thou knowest not what it is.

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

BIRON Why, villain, thou must know first.

COSTARD I will come to your worship tomorrow 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 sealed-up counsel. There’s thy guerdon (giving him a letter and money), go.

COSTARD Guerdon! O sweet guerdon!—better than remuneration, elevenpence-farthing better—most sweet guerdon! I will do it, sir, in print. Guerdon—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 wimpled, whining, purblind, wayward boy,

This Signor Junior, giant dwarf, Dan Cupid,

Regent of love-rhymes, lord of folded arms,

Th’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 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 watched 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 whitely 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, groan:

Some men must love my lady, and some Joan. Exit