The Complete Works of William Shakespeare Part 297

PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Good wits will be jangling; but, gentles, agree; This civil war of wits were much better used On Navarre and his book-men, 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 OF FRANCE. With what?

BOYET. With that which we lovers ent.i.tle 'affected.'

PRINCESS OF FRANCE. 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 lock'd in his eye, As jewels in crystal for some prince to buy; Who, tend'ring their own worth from where they were gla.s.s'd, Did point you to buy them, along as you pa.s.s'd.

His face's own margent 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 OF FRANCE. Come, to our pavilion. Boyet is dispos'd.

BOYET. But to speak that in words which his eye hath disclos'd; I only have made a mouth of his eye, By adding a tongue which I know will not lie.

MARIA. Thou art an old love-monger, and speakest skilfully.

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

ROSALINE. 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?

MARIA. Ay, our way to be gone.

BOYET. You are too hard for me. Exeunt

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ACT III. SCENE I.

The park

Enter ARMADO and MOTH

ARMADO. Warble, child; make pa.s.sionate my sense of hearing.

[MOTH 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.

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

ARMADO. How meanest thou? Brawling in French?

MOTH. 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 snuff'd up love by smelling love, with your hat penthouse-like o'er the shop of your eyes, with your arms cross'd 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 me?- that most are affected to these.

ARMADO. How hast thou purchased this experience?

MOTH. By my penny of observation.

ARMADO. But O- but O- MOTH. The hobby-horse is forgot.

ARMADO. Call'st thou my love 'hobby-horse'?

MOTH. 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.

MOTH. Negligent student! learn her by heart.

ARMADO. By heart and in heart, boy.

MOTH. And out of heart, master; all those three I will prove.

ARMADO. 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.

ARMADO. I am all these three.

MOTH. And three times as much more, and yet nothing at all.

ARMADO. Fetch hither the swain; he must carry me a letter.

MOTH. A message well sympathiz'd- a horse to be amba.s.sador for an a.s.s.

ARMADO. Ha, ha, what sayest thou?

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

ARMADO. The way is but short; away.

MOTH. As swift as lead, sir.

ARMADO. The meaning, pretty ingenious?

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

MOTH. Minime, honest master; or rather, master, no.

ARMADO. I say lead is slow.

MOTH. You are too swift, sir, to say so: Is that lead slow which is fir'd 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.

MOTH. Thump, then, and I flee. Exit ARMADO. A most acute juvenal; volable 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 return'd.

Re-enter MOTH with COSTARD

MOTH. A wonder, master! here's a costard broken in a shin.

ARMADO. Some enigma, some riddle; come, thy l'envoy; begin.

COSTARD. 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!

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'envoy, and the word 'l'envoy' for a salve?

MOTH. Do the wise think them other? Is not l'envoy 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: 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.

ARMADO. The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee, Were still at odds, being but three.

MOTH. Until the goose came out of door, And stay'd the odds by adding four.

Now will I begin your moral, and do you follow with my l'envoy.

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.

MOTH. A good l'envoy, 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'envoy; ay, that's a fat goose.

ARMADO. 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.

COSTARD. 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.

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

MOTH. I will tell you sensibly.

COSTARD. Thou hast no feeling of it, Moth; I will speak that l'envoy.

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.