Act 3, Scene 1: The king of Navarre's park

SCENE I. The same.

    Enter DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO and MOTH

    DON

ADRIANO DE ARMADO

    Warble, child; make passionate my sense of hearing.

MOTH

    Concolinel.

    Singing
    DON

ADRIANO DE 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?
    DON

ADRIANO DE 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 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.
    DON

ADRIANO DE ARMADO

    How hast thou purchased this experience?

MOTH

    By my penny of observation.
    DON

ADRIANO DE ARMADO

    But O,--but O,--

MOTH

    'The hobby-horse is forgot.'
    DON

ADRIANO DE ARMADO

    Callest 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?
    DON

ADRIANO DE ARMADO

    Almost I had.

MOTH

    Negligent student! learn her by heart.
    DON

ADRIANO DE ARMADO

    By heart and in heart, boy.

MOTH

    And out of heart, master: all those three I will prove.
    DON

ADRIANO DE 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.
    DON

ADRIANO DE ARMADO

    I am all these three.

MOTH

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

ADRIANO DE ARMADO

    Fetch hither the swain: he must carry me a letter.

MOTH

    A message well sympathized; a horse to be ambassador
    for an ass.
    DON

ADRIANO DE 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.
    DON

ADRIANO DE ARMADO

    The way is but short: away!

MOTH

    As swift as lead, sir.
    DON

ADRIANO DE ARMADO

    The meaning, pretty ingenious?
    Is not lead a metal heavy, dull, and slow?

MOTH

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

ADRIANO DE 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?
    DON

ADRIANO DE 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
    DON

ADRIANO DE 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 return'd.

    Re-enter MOTH with COSTARD

MOTH

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

ADRIANO DE ARMADO

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

COSTARD

    No enigma, 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!
    DON

ADRIANO DE 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?
    DON

ADRIANO DE 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.
    DON

ADRIANO DE 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.
    DON

ADRIANO DE 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.
    DON

ADRIANO DE 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.
    DON

ADRIANO DE 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.
    DON

ADRIANO DE ARMADO

    We will talk no more of this matter.

COSTARD

    Till there be more matter in the shin.
    DON

ADRIANO DE ARMADO

    Sirrah Costard, I will enfranchise thee.

COSTARD

    O, marry me to one Frances: I smell some l'envoy,
    some goose, in this.
    DON

ADRIANO DE 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.
    DON

ADRIANO DE ARMADO

    I give thee thy liberty, set thee from durance; and,
    in lieu thereof, impose on thee nothing but this:
    bear this significant

    Giving a letter
    to the country maid Jaquenetta:
    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.

COSTARD

    My sweet 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?'--'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

    O, 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.

COSTARD

    Well, I will do it, sir: fare you well.

BIRON

    Thou knowest not what it is.

COSTARD

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

BIRON

    Why, villain, thou must know first.

COSTARD

    I will come to your worship to-morrow 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 seal'd-up counsel. There's thy guerdon; go.

    Giving him a shilling

COSTARD

    Gardon, O sweet gardon! better than remuneration,
    a'leven-pence farthing better: most sweet gardon! I
    will do it sir, in print. Gardon! 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 whimpled, whining, purblind, wayward boy;
    This senior-junior, 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 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! 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 watch'd 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 wightly 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

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