Delivers in such apt and gracious words, King. Madam, I will, if suddenly I may. Prin. God bless my ladies! are they all in love, | once? That every one her own hath garnished With such bedecking ornaments of praise ? First Lord. Here comes Boyet. Prin. Re-enter BOYET. Now, what admittance, lord? Boyet. Navarre had notice of your fair ap- And he and his competitors 10 in oath [The Ladies mask. Enter KING, LONGAVILLE, DUMAIN, BIRON, and Attendants. Ros. Did not I dance with you in Brabant once? Ros. How needless was it, then, to ask the question! Biron. You must not be so quick. Ros. 'Tis 'long of you that spur me with such questions. Biron. Your wit's too hot, it speeds too fast, 'twill tire. Ros. Not till it leave the rider in the mire. Ros. The hour that fools should ask. Biron. Nay, then will I be gone. King. Madam, your father here doth intimate The payment of a hundred thousand crowns; King. Fair princess, welcome to the court of Being but the one-half of an entire sum Navarre. Prin. "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. Disbursed by my father in his wars. But say that he or we—as neither have— King. You shall be welcome, madam, to my Although not valu'd to the money's worth. court. Prin. I will be welcome, then: conduct me thither. King. Hear me, dear lady,-1 have sworn an oath. Prin. Our lady help my lord! he'll be forsworn. King. Your ladyship is ignorant what it is. But pardon me, I am too sudden-bold: 13 [Gives a paper. 10. Competitors. Used for confederates, consociates. 11. Address'd. Prepared. 12. Where. Here used for 'whereas.' 13. Suddenly. Formerly used for immediately, without delay. 14. 'Tis 'long of you. A pun upon "long" in its sense of lengthily or slowly (in reference to Biron's word "quick"); and in its sense of "long" as used in the colloquial phrase, 'it's If, then, the king your father will restore 16 Prin. You do the king my father too much And wrong the reputation of your name, all along of you;' meaning, it's all through you, or owing to you. 15. His title live in Aquitain. The meaning of the entire passage is-' He here demands repayment of a hundred thousand crowns, instead of offering to repay us the hundred thousand crowns which would restore him his right to Aquitain.' 16. Depart withal. Here used for 'part with,' or 'relinquish.' Where that and other specialties are bound: King. It shall suffice me: at which interview, All liberal reason I will yield unto. Meantime, receive such welcome at my hand, Prin. Sweet health and fair desires consort your grace! King. Thy own wish wish I thee in every place! [Exeunt KING and his train. Biron. Lady, I will commend you to mine own heart. Ros. Pray you, do my commendations; I would be glad to see it. Biron. I would you heard it groan. Ros. Is the fool sick? Biron. Sick at the heart. Ros. Alack! let it blood. Biron. Would that do it good? Ros. My physic says, ay. Biron. Will you prick't with your eye? Ros. And yours from long living! Biron. I cannot stay thanksgiving. [Retiring. Dum. Sir, I pray you, a word: what lady is that same? Boyet. The heir of Alençon, Katharine her name.18 17. No point. A quibble on the point of a knife, and the French negative, point, none, not at all, by no means. 18. Katharine. In the Folio this name is here misprinted Rosaline; as, a little farther on, "Rosaline" is misprinted 'Katharine,' evident transpositions of the printer. Not only do the gentlemen interested in the respective ladies inquire after their particular fair one, recognising them in spite of their wearing masks, but the word "Alençon" in this speech tallies with what Katharine says previously:-"I saw him at the Duke Alençon's once." Dum. A gallant lady. Monsieur, fare you well. [Exit. Long. I beseech you a word: what is she in the white ? Boyet. A woman sometimes, an you saw her in the light. Long. Perchance, light in the light. I desire her name. Boyet. She hath but one for herself; to desire that, were a shame. Long. Pray you, sir, whose daughter? Long. Nay, my choler is ended. Boyet. Not unlike, sir; that may be. [Exit LONG. Biron. [Coming forward.] What's her name in the cap? Who, tend ring their own worth from where they were glass'd, Did point you to buy them, along as you pass'd: His face's own margent 25 did quote such amazes, That all eyes saw his eyes enchanted with gazes. I'll give you Aquitain, and all that is his, An you give him for my sake but one loving kiss. Prin. Come to our pavilion: Boyet is dispos'd.26 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. Ros. Thou art an old love-monger, and speak'st skilfully. Mar. He is Cupid's grandfather, and learns news of him. Ros. Then was Venus like her mother; for her father is but grim. Boyet. Do you hear, my mad wenches? Boyet. No. What, then, do you see? You are too hard for me. [Exeunt. Ros. Ay, our way to be gone. Boyet. ACT III. SCENE I-Another part of the park. Before ARMADO's house. Enter ARMADO and MOTH. Arm. Warble, child; make passionate my sense of hearing. Moth. [Singing.] Concolinel-1 21. Gentles. Shakespeare uses this word as more modern diction uses 'gentle folk,' persons of good birth and good breeding. 22. Thorough. Sometimes used for 'through;' as "throughly" was for 'thoroughly.' 23. Like an agate, with your print impress'd. It was the fashion to engrave or sculpture figures on agates. ་ 24. To speak and not see. This passage has been pronounced by the commentators to be "extremely odd:" but if we take "not see" to imply not see, because it is not the tongue's faculty to see,' the sentence means that his tongue hurried to his eyes that it might express what they beheld. 25. His face's own margent. It was the custom to print notes, quotations, &c., in the margin (or "margent," as it was then spelt) of books. 26. Dispos'd. This word was used by Shakespeare, and writers of his time, to express 'inclined to be too free in talk,' 'inclined to unseemly merriment.' The princess, rebuking Arm. 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?3 Arm. How meanest thou ? brawling in French? Poyet's freedom of speech, uses the word in this sense; but the old courtier parries the reproof, by taking the word in its more simple and ordinary acceptation, and framing his rejoinder accordingly. 1. Concolinel. This has been conjectured to be probably the beginning or name of an old song usually sung by the boy who performed Moth; it being frequently the way to leave still more indefinitely the song to be introduced in a play-merely inserting the Latin word cantant, or the words 'Here they sing.' But we think that "Concolinel" may have been merely a few syllables strung together to express warbling, or humming a tune, as we now use 'la li ra, la li ra,' &c. 2. Festinately. Hastily, speedily. Latin, festinato. 3. Brawl. The name of a dance, wherein the dancers held hands, and swayed or moved to and fro, from the French branle, movement. Moth. No, my complete master: but to jig off a tune at the tongue's end, canary3 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 body's 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, -men)-that most are affected to these. Arm. How hast thou purchased this experience? Moth. Negligent student! learn her by heart. Arm. By heart, and in heart, boy Moth. And out of heart, master: all those three I will prove. Arm. 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 obtain her, Arm. I am all these three. Moth. And three times as much more,-and yet nothing at all 4 Complete. Here, as elsewhere, used for accomplished. 5. Canary. The name of a sprightly dance, sometimes accompanied by castanets, and supposed to have derived its name from the Canary Islands, where it was much in favour. 6. Complements. Accomplishments; niceties which are the completion of excellence. See Note 20, Act i., and Note 4, Act iii. 7. Penny. Sometimes used formerly to express an indefinite sum. See Note 12, Act i., "Merry Wives of Windsor." 8. The hobby-horse is forgot. Armado sighing forth, "But oh, --but oh," Moth follows it up by adding the remainder of a line of a song, probably written when the hobby-horse was omitted from the May games at the instance of the Puritans; which was their first step in doing their utmost to suppress these popular sports. See Note 28, Act iii., “Much Ado about Nothing." 9 Minimè. Not in the least, by no means. 10. Swift. Moth plays on the word in its sense of 'readywitted,' and in its sense of 'rash,'' hasty.' 11. Welkin. The sky; the region of air. 12. Gives thee place. This seems to have been an idiom tantamount to gives thee warrant,' 'forms thine excuse.' Armado's Spanish grandiloquence and courtesy-praying leave to Re-enter MoтH with COSTARD. Moth. A wonder, master! here's a Costard is broken in a shin. Arm. Some enigma, some riddle; come,-thy l'envoy; begin. Cost. No egma, no riddle, no l'envoy; no salve in them all, sir: oh, sir, plantain, a plain plantain! no l'envoy, no l'envoy; no salve, sir, but a plantain ! 16 Arm. By virtue, thou enforcest laughter; thy sigh in the sky's face, and saying that his valour will warrant this rudeness of his melancholy-although deteriorated by affectation, smacks strongly of Don Quixote's lofty style in amenities of this kind. Any connecting link between those large-minded thinkers, Shakespeare and Cervantes, is pleasant; and although strict accuracy prevents our still saying they died on the same day, yet they wrote and benefited the world at the same period. 13. Costard. A name for the head; which supplies the pun that Moth calls "a wonder." 14. L envoy. A term used in old French poetry for certain concluding verses which served to point the application of the story, or addressed it to the reader, or to some special person. The term was adopted in ancient English poems. 15. No salve in them all. The Folio misprints this 'no salve, in thee male sir.' This has been given by some editors, altering 'thee' to 'the,' and explained to mean 'no salve in the bag, or trunk;' but we adopt Tyrrwhitt's reading, which seems to accord with what follows of Costard's taking enigma, riddle, and l'envoy to be various kinds of salve. 16. Plantain. A herb, the healing properties of which were highly esteemed; and it was reckoned a sovereign cure for wounds. VOL. 1. 36 |