MOTH. Negligent student! learn her by heart. MOTH. And out of heart, master: all those three I will prove. ARM. 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. ARM. I am all these three. Re-enter MOTH with COSTARD. MOTH. A wonder, master; here's a Costard broken in a shin. C ARM. Some enigma, some riddle: come,-thy l'envoy-begin. COST. No egma, no riddle, no l'envoy; no salve in the male, 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 MOTH. And three times as much more, and l'envoy, and the word l'envoy for a salve? yet nothing at all. ARM. Fetch hither the swain; he must carry me a letter. Mотн. A message well sympathised; a horse to be ambassador for an ass! ARM. Ha, ha! what sayest thou? go. MоTH. Marry, sir, you must send the ass upon a Honest master, or, rather master,-] This is always punctuated "or, rather, master." But, from the context, which is a play on swift and slow, I apprehend Moth to mean by rather master, hasty master; rather, of old, meaning quick, eager, hasty, &c. b To say so:] Should we not read slow for so? e Here's a Costard broken in a shin.] Costard means head. Thus : "I wyll rappe you on the costard with my horne." And in "King Lear," Act IV. Sc. 6: HYCKE SCORNER. "Keepe out, che vor'ye, or ice try whether your costard or my bat be the harder." 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.* f I will example it: " MOTH. A good l'envoy, ending in the goose; would you desire more? COST. 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. (*) First folio, faine. d No salve in the male, sir:] The old copies have-" No salve in thee male, sir," which Johnson, Malone, and Steevens interpret, "in the bag or wallet." Tyrwhitt proposed to remove the ambi guity by reading: "No salve in them all, sir;" which, if not decisive, is certainly a very ingenious conjecture. e-plantain !] "All the plantanes are singular good wound herbes, to heale fresh or old wounds and sores, either inward or outward."-PARKINSON'S Theater of Plantes, 1640, p. 498. f I will example it :] This, and the eight lines following it, are omitted in the folio 1623. ARM. Come hither, come hither; how did this argument begin? MOTH. By saying that a Costard was broken in a shin. Then called 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. Fell over the threshold, and broke my shin. ARM. We will talk no more of this matter. COST. Till there be more matter in the shin. ARM. Marry, Costard, I will enfranchise thee. COST. O, marry me to one Frances;-I smell some l'envoy, some goose, in this. ARM. By my 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 ARM. But tell me; how was there a Costard purgation, and let me loose. broken in a shin? COST. Thou hast no feeling of it, Moth; I will speak that l'envoy. I, Costard, running out, that was safely within, ARM. 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 (*) Old editions, Sirrah Costard. "Marry, Costard," was, I believe, first suggested in Mr. Knight's "Stratford Shakspere." Jaquenetta: there is remuneration [giving him money]; for the best ward of mine honour* is rewarding my dependents. Moth, follow. [Exit. MOTH. Like the sequel, I.-Signor Costard, adieu. COST. My swee 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 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. BIRON. O, why then, three-farthings-worth of silk. COST. I thank your worship: God be wi' you! COST. When would you have it done, sir? COST. Well, I will do it, sir: fare you well. And Rosaline they call her; ask for her, COST. Guerdon, O sweet guerdon! better than remuneration," eleven-pence farthing better: most sweet guerdon!-I will do it, sir, in print.Guerdon-remuneration. [Exit. BIRON. O 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 senior-junior,(4) 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 cod-pieces, Sole imperator, and great general Of trotting paritors." 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,* (5) 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 perjur'd, 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; е (*) First folio, honours. a My incony Jew!] Incony is defined to mean fine, delicate, pretty. It occurs occasionally in our old plays, and is repeated in the present one, Act IV. Sc. 1. Of Jew, as a term of endearment, I remember no other example, except that in "Midsummer Night's Dream," Act III. Sc. 1, where Thisbe calls Pyramus "Most lovely Jew." (See note (b), p. 71.) b Guerdon,-O sweet guerdon! better than remuneration,-] In reference to this passage, Farmer has pointed attention to a parallel one, which is given in a tract called "A Health to the Gentlemanly Profession of Serving-men," by J. M., 1598. "There was, sayth he, a man, (but of what estate, degree, or calling, I will not name, least thereby I might incurre displeasure of any,) that comming to his friend's house, who was a gentleman of good reckoning, and being there kindly entertayned and well used as well of his friende the gentleman, as of his servantes; one of the sayd servantes doing him some extraordinarie pleasure during his abode there, at his departure he comes unto the sayd servant and saith unto him, Holde thee, here is a remuneration for thy paynes; which the servant receyving, gave him utterly for it (besides his paynes) thankes, for it was but a three-farthing piece! and I holde thankes for the same a small price as the market goes. Now another comming to the sayd gentleman's house, it was the foresayd servant's good hap to be neare him at his going away, who, calling the servant unto him, sayd, Holde thee, heere is a guerdon (*) Old editions, cloake. for thy desartes. Now the servant payde no deerer for the guerdon than he did for the remuneration, though the guerdon was xj d. farthing better. for it was a shilling, and the other but a threefarthinges." The joke was probably older than either the play or the tract quoted. e This wimpled,-] Hooded, veiled, blindfolded. "Justice herself there sitteth wimpled about the eyes," &c. Comedy of Midas, 1592. d Of trotting paritors.] An apparitor is an officer of the spiritual court. As his duty, in former times, often consisted in summoning offenders against chastity, he is very properly described as under Cupid's command. e A corporal of his field,-] A corporal of the field, according to some authorities, was an officer like an aide-de camp, whose employment was to convey instructions from head-quarters, or from the higher officers of the field. f A whitely wanton-] The old editions have "A whitly wanton," which is, perhaps, a misprint for witty wanton. Whitely is not a suitable epithet to apply to a dark beauty. In Vicar's "Virgil," 1632, it is applied befittingly enough to the moon, "Night-gadding Cynthia with her whitely face." ACT IV. SCENE I.-Another part of the Park. Enter the PRINCESS, ROSALINE, MARIA, KATHARINE, BOYET, Lords, Attendants, and a Forester. 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. Well, lords, to-day we shall have our despatch; 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-liv'd pride! Not fair? alack for woe! A giving hand, though foul, shall have fair praise. But come, the bow :-now Mercy goes to kill, (*) First folio, and then again. a O heresy in fair,-] Mr. Collier's old annotator suggests, "O heresy in faith," &c.; but this alteration would destroy the point of the allusion. Fair is used here, as in many other instances, for beauty; and the heresy is, that merit should be esteemed equivalent to beauty. b Do not curst wives-] That is, sour, cross-grained, intractable wives. A very ancient sense of the word, and one in which it is repeatedly used by Shakespeare, Thus, in "Taming of the Shrew," Act I. Sc. 1: BOYET. Here comes a member of the commonwealth. COST. God dig-you-den all! Pray you, which is the head lady? C 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; 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. 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.d "Her elder sister is so curst and shrewd." Again, in Act I. Sc. 2, of the same Play, and as curst and shrewd As Socrates' Xantippe." e God dig-you-den all!] A vulgar corruption of God give you good even. It is sometimes contracted to God ye good den; as in "Romeo and Juliet," Act II. Sc. 4. d Break up this capon.] A Gallicism. Poulet, with the French, meaning both a young fowl and a billet-doux. The Italians use |