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. Arm. 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 making 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. Arm. Until the goose came out of door, Staying the odds by making four.

A good l'envoy.

Moth. 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.
Arm. 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.

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.

Arm. But tell me; how was there a Costard broken in a shin?

Moth. I will tell you sensibly.

Cost. 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. Arm. We will talk no more of this matter. Cost. Till there be more matter in the shin. Arm. Sirrah Costard, marry, 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 purgation, and let me be loose.

Arm. I give thee thy liberty, set thee free 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. [Exit. Cost. 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? 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. [Showing it.
Biron. O! why then, three-farthing-worth of silk.
Cost. I thank your worship. God be wi' you.
Biron. O, stay, slave! I must employ thee:
As thou wilt win my favour, good my knave,
Do one thing for me that I shall entreat.

Cost. When would you have it done, sir?
Biron. O! this afternoon.

Cost. Well, I will do it, sir. Fare you well.
Biron. O! thou knowest not what it is.
Cost. I shall know, sir, when I have done it.
Biron. Why, villain, thou must know first.
Cost. 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.
[Gives him money.

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 whimpled, whining, purblind, wayward boy;
This senior-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 cod-pieces,
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 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 witty 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.

Ros. Boyet.

Thou canst not hit it, hit it, hit it, Thou canst not hit it, my good man. An I cannot, cannot, cannot, An I cannot, another can. [Exeunt Ros. and KATH. Cost. By my troth, most pleasant: how both did fit it!

Mar. A mark marvellous well shot, for they both did hit it.

Boyet. A mark! O! mark but that mark: a mark, says my lady.

Let the mark have a prick in't, to mete at, if it may be.

Mar. Wide o' the bow hand: i'faith, your hand is out. Cost. Indeed, a' must shoot nearer, or he'll ne'er hit the clout.

Boyet. An if my hand be out, then belike your hand is in.

Cost. Then will she get the upshot by cleaving the pin. Mar. Come, come, you talk greasily; your lips grow foul.

Cost. She's too hard for you at pricks, sir: challenge her to bowl. Boyet. I fear too much rubbing. Good night, my good owl. [Exeunt BoYET and MARIA. Cost. By my soul, a swain! a most simple clown! Lord, lord! how the ladies and I have put him down! O' my troth, most sweet jests! most incony vulgar wit! When it comes so smoothly off, so obscenely, as it were, so fit.

Armado o' the one side,-O, a most dainty man!

To see him walk before a lady, and to bear her fan ! To see him kiss his hand! and how most sweetly a' will swear;

Looking babies in her eyes, his passion to declare.
And his page o' t' other side, that handful of small wit!
Ah, heavens, it is a most pathetical nit!
Sola, sola!

[Shouting within. [Exit COSTARD.

SCENE II.-The Same.

Enter HOLOFERNES, Sir NATHANIEL, and DULL. Nath. Very reverend sport, truly; and done in the testimony of a good conscience.

Hol. The deer was, as you know, sanguis,-in blood; ripe as the pomewater, who now hangeth like a jewel in the ear of cœlo,-the sky, the welkin, the heaven; and anon falleth like a crab, on the face of terra, the soil, the land, the earth.

Nath. Truly, master Holofernes, the epithets are sweetly varied, like a scholar at the least: but, sir, I assure ye, it was a buck of the first head.

Hol. Sir Nathaniel, haud credo.

Dull. 'Twas not a haud credo, 'twas a pricket. Hol. Most barbarous intimation! yet a kind of insinuation, as it were, in via, in way of explication; facere, as it were, replication, or, rather, ostentare, to show, as it were, his inclination,—after his undressed, unpolished, uneducated, unpruned, untrained, or rather unlettered, or, ratherest, unconfirmed fashion,—to insert again my haud credo for a deer.

a

Dull. I said, the deer was not a haud credo: 'twas pricket.

Hol. "Twice sod simplicity, bis coctus !— O, thou monster ignorance, how deformed dost thou look!

Nath. Sir, he hath never fed of the dainties that are bred in a book;

He hath not eat paper, as it were; he hath not drunk ink: His intellect is not replenished; he is only an animal not to think,

Only sensible in the duller parts; and such barren plants

Are set before us, that we thankful should be Which we, having taste and feeling, are for those parts that do fructify in us more than he: For as it would ill become me to be vain, indiscreet, or a fool,

So, were there a patch set on learning, to set him in a school:

But, omne bene, say I; being of an old father's mind, Many can brook the weather, that love not the wind. Dull. You two are book men: can you tell by your wit,

What was a month old at Cain's birth, that's not five weeks old as yet?

Hol. Doctissimè, good man Dull; Dictynna, good man Dull.

Dull. What is Dictynna?

Nath. A title to Phoebe, to Luna, to the moon.

Hol. The moon was a month old when Adam was

no more;

And raught not to five weeks, when he came to five

score.

The allusion holds in the exchange.

Dull. 'Tis true indeed: the collusion holds in the exchange.

Hol. God comfort thy capacity! I say, the allusion holds in the exchange.

Dull. And I say the pollusion holds in the exchange, for the moon is never but a month old; and I say beside, that 'twas a pricket that the princess kill'd Hol. Sir Nathaniel, will you hear an extempora epitaph on the death of the deer? and, to humour the ignorant, I have call'd the deer the princess kill'd, pricket.

Nath. Perge, good master Holofernes, perge; so i shall please you to abrogate scurrility. Hol. I will something affect the letter, for it argue facility. [Read The preyful princess pierc'd and prick'd a pretty pleasin pricket;

Some say, a sore; but not a sore, till now made so with shooting.

The dogs did yell; put I to sore, then sorel jumps fro thicket;

Or pricket sore, or else sorel; the people fall a hootin If sore be sore, then I to sore makes fifty sores; O sore Of one sore I an hundred make, by adding but one more Nath. A rare talent!

Dull. If a talent be a claw, look how he claws hi with a talent. [Asi Hol. This is a gift that I have, simple, simple;

foolish extravagant spirit, full of forms, figures, shapes, objects, ideas, apprehensions, motions, revolutions: these are begot in the ventricle of memory, nourished in the womb of pia mater, and delivered upon the mellowing of occasion. But the gift is good in those in whom it is acute, and I am thankful for it.

Nath. Sir, I praise the Lord for you, and so may my parishioners; for their sons are well tutored by you, and their daughters profit very greatly under you: you are a good member of the commonwealth.

Hol. Mehercle! if their sons be ingenious, they shall want no instruction: if their daughters be capable, I will put it to them; but, vir sapit, qui pauca loquitur. A soul feminine saluteth us.

Enter JAQUENETTA and COSTARD. Jaq. God give you good morrow, master person. Hol. Master person, quasi pers-on. An if one should be pierced, which is the one?

Cost. Marry, master schoolmaster, he that is likest to a hogshead.

Hol. Of piercing a hogshead! a good lustre of conceit in a turf of earth; fire enough for a flint, pearl enough for a swine: 'tis pretty; it is well.

Jaq. Good master parson, be so good as read me this letter: it was given me by Costard, and sent me from Don Armado: I beseech you, read it.

Hol. Fauste, precor gelidâ quando pecus omne sub umbrá

Ruminat,—and so forth. Ah, good old Mantuan! may speak of thee as the traveller doth of Venice: -Venegia, Venegia,

Chi non te vede, non te pregia.

I

Old Mantuan! old Mantuan! Who understandeth thee not, loves thee not.-Ut, re, sol, la, mi, fa.— Under pardon, sir, what are the contents? or, rather, as Horace says in his-What, my soul, verses? Nath. Ay, sir, and very learned.

Hol. Let me hear a staff, a stanza, a verse: lege, domine.

Nath. If love make me forsworn, how shall I swear to love?

Ah, never faith could hold, if not to beauty vowed! Though to myself forsworn, to thee I'll faithful prove; Those thoughts to me were oaks, to thee like osiers

bowed.

Study his bias leaves, and makes his book thine eyes, Where all those pleasures live, that art would comprehend:

If knowledge be the mark, to know thee shall suffice. Well learned is that tongue, that well can thee commend;

All ignorant that soul, that sees thee without wonder; Which is to me some praise, that I thy parts admire. Thy eye Jove's lightning bears, thy voice his dreadful thunder,

Which, not to anger bent, is music, and sweet fire. Celestial, as thou art, O! pardon, love, this wrong, That sings heaven's praise with such an earthly tongue!

Hol. You find not the apostrophes, and so miss the accent: let me supervise the canzonet. Here are only numbers ratified; but, for the elegancy, facility, and golden cadence of poesy, caret. Ovidius Naso was the man: and why, indeed, Naso, but for smelling out the odoriferous flowers of fancy, the jerks of invention? Imitating is nothing: so doth the hound his master, the ape his keeper, the trained horse his rider. But damosella, virgin, was this directed to you?

Jaq. Ay, sir, from one Monsieur Biron, one of the strange queen's lords.

Hol. I will overglance the superscript. "To the snow-white hand of the most beauteous Lady Rosaline." I will look again on the intellect of the letter, for the nomination of the party writing to the person written unto: "Your ladyship's, in all desired employment, Biron." Sir Nathaniel, this Biron is one of the votaries with the king; and here he hath framed a letter to a sequent of the stranger queen's, which, accidentally, or by the way of progression, hath miscarried.-Trip and go, my sweet: deliver this paper into the royal hand of the king; it may concern much. Stay not thy compliment; I forgive thy duty: adieu. Jaq. Good Costard, go with me.-Sir, God save your life!

Cost. Have with thee, my girl.

[Exeunt CosT. and JAQ. Nath. Sir, you have done this in the fear of God, very religiously; and, as a certain father saith

Hol. Sir, tell not me of the father; I do fear colourable colours. But, to return to the verses: did they please you, sir Nathaniel?

pen.

Nath. Marvellous well for the Hol. I do dine to-day at the father's of a certain pupil of mine; where, if before repast it shall please you to gratify the table with a grace, I will, on my privilege I have with the parents of the foresaid child or pupil, undertake your ben venuto; where I will prove those verses to be very unlearned, neither savouring of poetry, wit, nor invention. I beseech your society.

Nath. And thank you too; for society (saith the text) is the happiness of life.

Hol. And, certes, the text most infallibly concludes it.—Sir, [To DULL,] I do invite you too: you shall not say me nay: pauca verba. Away! the gentles are at their game, and we will to our recreation. [Exeunt. SCENE III.—Another part of the Same. Enter BIRON, with a paper.

Biron. The king he is hunting the deer; I am coursing myself: they have pitch'd a toil; I am toiling in a pitch-pitch that defiles. Defile? a foul word. Well, set thee down, sorrow! for so, they say, the fool said, and so say I, and I the fool. Well proved, wit! By the lord, this love is as mad as Ajax: it kills sheep; it kills me, I a sheep. Well proved again o' my side! I will not love; if I do, hang me: i'faith, I will not. O! but her eye,—by this light, but for her eye, I would not love her! yes, for her two eyes. Well, I do nothing in the world but lie, and lie in my throat. By heaven, I do love, and it hath taught me to rhyme, and to be melancholy; and here is part of my rhyme, and here my melancholy. Well, she hath one o' my sonnets already: the clown bore it, the fool sent it, and the lady hath it: sweet clown, sweeter fool, sweetest lady! By the world, I would not care a pin, if the other three were in. Here comes one with a paper: God give him grace to groan!

[Gets up into a tree. Enter the KING, with a paper.

King. Ay me! Biron. [Aside.] Shot, by heaven !-Proceed, sweet Cupid: thou hast thump'd him with thy bird-bolt under the left pap.-In faith, secrets!—

King. [Reads.] So sweet a kiss the golden sun gives not To those fresh morning drops upon the rose, As thine eye-beams, when their fresh rays have smote The dew of night that on my cheeks down flows: Nor shines the silver moon one half so bright Through the transparent bosom of the deep,

K