Part 2
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._]
ACT II
SCENE I. The King of Navarre’s park. A pavilion and tents at a distance
Enter the Princess of France, with three attending Ladies: Rosaline, Maria, Katharine and three Lords: Boyet, and two others.
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?
LORD. Lord Longaville is one.
PRINCESS. Know you the man?
MARIA. I know him, madam. At a marriage feast Between Lord Perigort and the beauteous heir Of Jaques Falconbridge, solemnized In Normandy, saw I this Longaville. 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?
KATHARINE. 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. Berowne 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?
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 learned: 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 King of Navarre, Longaville, Dumaine, Berowne and Attendants.
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.
[_The King reads the paper._]
BEROWNE. [_To Rosaline_.] Did not I dance with you in Brabant once?
ROSALINE. Did not I dance with you in Brabant once?
BEROWNE. I know you did.
ROSALINE. How needless was it then To ask the question!
BEROWNE. You must not be so quick.
ROSALINE. ’Tis long of you that spur me with such questions.
BEROWNE. Your wit’s too hot, it speeds too fast, ’twill tire.
ROSALINE. Not till it leave the rider in the mire.
BEROWNE. What time o’ day?
ROSALINE. The hour that fools should ask.
BEROWNE. Now fair befall your mask.
ROSALINE. Fair fall the face it covers.
BEROWNE. And send you many lovers!
ROSALINE. Amen, so you be none.
BEROWNE. Nay, then will I be gone.
KING. 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, in 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.
[_Exeunt the King, Longaville and Dumaine._]
BEROWNE. Lady, I will commend you to mine own heart.
ROSALINE. Pray you, do my commendations; I would be glad to see it.
BEROWNE. I would you heard it groan.
ROSALINE. Is the fool sick?
BEROWNE. Sick at the heart.
ROSALINE. Alack, let it blood.
BEROWNE. Would that do it good?
ROSALINE. My physic says “ay”.
BEROWNE. Will you prick’t with your eye?
ROSALINE. _Non point_, with my knife.
BEROWNE. Now, God save thy life.
ROSALINE. And yours from long living.
BEROWNE. I cannot stay thanksgiving.
[_He exits._]
Enter Dumaine.
DUMAINE. Sir, I pray you, a word. What lady is that same?
BOYET. The heir of Alençon, Katharine her name.
DUMAINE. A gallant lady. Monsieur, fare you well.
[_He exits._]
Enter Longaville.
LONGAVILLE. I beseech you a word. What is she in the white?
BOYET. A woman sometimes, an you saw her in the light.
LONGAVILLE. Perchance light in the light. I desire her name.
BOYET. She hath but one for herself; to desire that were a shame.
LONGAVILLE. Pray you, sir, whose daughter?
BOYET. Her mother’s, I have heard.
LONGAVILLE. God’s blessing on your beard!
BOYET. Good sir, be not offended. She is an heir of Falconbridge.
LONGAVILLE. Nay, my choler is ended. She is a most sweet lady.
BOYET. Not unlike, sir; that may be.
[_Exit Longaville._]
Enter Berowne.
BEROWNE. What’s her name in the cap?
BOYET. Rosaline, by good hap.
BEROWNE. Is she wedded or no?
BOYET. To her will, sir, or so.
BEROWNE. You are welcome, sir. Adieu.
BOYET. Farewell to me, sir, and welcome to you.
[_Exit Berowne._]
MARIA. That last is Berowne, 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.
KATHARINE. Two hot sheeps, marry!
BOYET. And wherefore not ships? No sheep, sweet lamb, unless we feed on your lips.
KATHARINE. You sheep and I pasture. Shall that finish the jest?
BOYET. So you grant pasture for me.
[_He tries to kiss her._]
KATHARINE. Not so, gentle beast. My lips are no common, though several they be.
BOYET. Belonging to whom?
KATHARINE. 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, tend’ring their own worth from where they were glassed, Did point you to buy them, along as you passed. 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. 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 speakest skilfully.
MARIA. 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?
ROSALINE. Ay, our way to be gone.
BOYET. You are too hard for me.
[_Exeunt._]
ACT III
SCENE I. The King of Navarre’s park
Enter Armado the Braggart and Moth his Boy.
ARMADO. Warble, child, make passionate my sense of hearing.
MOTH. [_Singing_.] 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 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 compliments, 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 sympathized: a horse to be ambassador for an ass.
ARMADO. Ha, ha, what sayest thou?
MOTH. 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!
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 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.
MOTH. 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 Moth and Costard.
MOTH. 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?_
MOTH. 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: The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee Were still at odds, being but three. There’s the moral. Now the _l’envoi_.
MOTH. 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.
MOTH. 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.
MOTH. 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?
MOTH. 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?
MOTH. I will tell you sensibly.
COSTARD. Thou hast no feeling of it, Moth. 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: [_Giving him a letter_.] bear this significant to the country maid Jaquenetta. [_Giving money_.] There is remuneration for the best ward of mine honour is rewarding my dependents. Moth, follow.
[_Exit._]
MOTH. Like the sequel, I. Signior Costard, adieu.
[_Exit Moth._]
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 Berowne.
BEROWNE. My good knave Costard, exceedingly well met.
COSTARD. Pray you, sir, how much carnation ribbon may a man buy for a remuneration?
BEROWNE. What is a remuneration?
COSTARD. Marry, sir, halfpenny farthing.
BEROWNE. Why, then, three-farthing worth of silk.
COSTARD. I thank your worship. God be wi’ you.
BEROWNE. 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?
BEROWNE. This afternoon.
COSTARD. Well, I will do it, sir. Fare you well.
BEROWNE. Thou knowest not what it is.
COSTARD. I shall know, sir, when I have done it.
BEROWNE. Why, villain, thou must know first.
COSTARD. I will come to your worship tomorrow morning.
BEROWNE. 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.
[_Gives him money._]
There’s thy guerdon. Go.
COSTARD. Gardon, O sweet gardon! Better than remuneration, a ’levenpence farthing better. Most sweet gardon! I will do it, sir, in print. Gardon! Remuneration!
[_Exit._]
BEROWNE. 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 Signior 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, and groan. Some men must love my lady, and some Joan.
[_Exit._]
ACT IV
SCENE I. The King of Navarre’s park
Enter the Princess, a Forester, Rosaline, Maria, Katharine, Boyet and other Lords.
PRINCESS. Was that the King that spurred his horse so hard Against the steep uprising of the hill?
BOYET. I know not, but I think it was not he.