The Complete Works of William Shakespeare · William Shakespeare
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?
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.