Biron. What's her name, in the cap? Biron. You are welcome, sir; adieu! Boyet. Farewell to me, sir, and welcome to you. [Exit BIRON.-Ladies unmask. Mar. That last is Biron, the merry, mad-cap lord; Not a word with him but a jest. Boyet. word. Boyet. I was as willing to grapple, as he was to board. Mar. Two hot sheeps, marry! Boyet. And wherefore not ships? No sheep, sweet lamb, unless we feed on your lips. Mar. You sheep, and I pasture; shall that finish the jest? Boyet. So you grant pasture for me. [Offering to kiss her. Not so, gentle beast; 1 Mar. To my fortunes and me. Prin. Good wits will be jangling, but, gentles, agree; The civil war of wits were much better used lies,) By the heart's still rhetoric, disclosed with eyes, Prin. With what? Boyet. With that which we lovers entitle, affected. Prin. Your reason? 1 A quibble is here intended upon the word several, which, besides its ordinary signification of separate, distinct, signified also an inclosed pasture, as opposed to an open field or common. Bacon and others used it in this sense. Boyet. Why, all his behaviors did make their retire, Methought, all his senses were locked in his eye, Who, tend'ring their own worth, from where they were glassed, Did point you to buy them along as you passed. An you give him for my sake but one loving kiss. 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? Mar. - No. 1 Although the expression in the text is extremely odd, yet the sense appears to be, that his tongue envied the quickness of his eyes, and strove to be as rapid in its utterance, as they in their perception. 2 In Shakspeare's time, notes, quotations, &c. were usually printed in the exterior margin of bocks. ACT III. SCENE I Another part of the same. Enter ARMADO and MOTH. Arm. Warble, child; make passionate my sense of hearing. Moth. Concolinel [Singing. 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?2 Arm. How mean'st thou ? brawling in French? Moth. No, my complete master; but to jig off a tune at the tongue's end, canary3 to it with your feet, humor 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 penthouselike 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 These are complements, these are humors; these betray nice wenches-that would be betrayed without these; and make them men of note, (do you note, men?5) that most are affected to these. 4 away. 1 A song is apparently lost here. In old comedies, the songs are fre quently omitted. On this occasion, the stage direction is generally Here they sing —or Cantant. 2 A kind of dance; spelled bransle by some authors; being the French name for the same dance. 3 Canary was the name of a sprightly dance, sometimes accompanied by the castanets. 4 i. e. accomplishments. 5 One of the modern editors proposes to read "do you note me?” Arm. How hast thou purchased this experience? Arm. But O,--but 0, Moth. the hobby-horse is forgot. Arm. Callest thou my love hobby-horse? 2 Moth. No, master; the hobby-horse is but a colt, and your love perhaps a hackney. But have you forgot your love? Arm. Almost I had. Moth. Negligent student! learn her by heart. 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 enjoy her. Arm. I am all these three. Moth. And three times as much more, and yet nothing at all. Arm. Fetch hither the swain; he must carry me a letter. Moth. A message well sympathized; a horse to be an ambassador for an ass! Arm. 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. Arm. The way is but short; away. Moth. As swift as lead, sir. 1 The allusion is probably to the old popular pamphlet, "A Pennyworth of Wit." 2 The Hobby-horse was a personage belonging to the ancient Morris dance, when complete. It was the figure of a horse fastened round the waist of a man, his own legs going through the body of the horse, and enabling him to walk, but concealed by a long footcloth; while false legs appeared where those of the man should be, at the sides of the horse. Latterly the Hobby-horse was frequently omitted, which appears to have occasioned a popular ballad, in which was this line, or burden. Arm. Thy meaning, pretty ingenious? Is not lead a metal heavy, dull, and slow? Moth. Minimè, honest master; or rather, master, no Arm. I say, lead is slow. Moth. You are too swift, sir, to say so. Is that lead slow which is fired from a gun ? Arm. 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. Arm. A most acute juvenal; voluble and free of grace! By thy favor, sweet welkin, I must sigh in thy face. Re-enter MoтH and COSTARD. Moth. A wonder, master; here's a Costard1 broken in a shin. Arm. Some enigma, some riddle. l'envoy; 2-begin. Come,-thy Cost. No egma, 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 ! Arm. 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? 1 i. e. a head; a name adopted from an apple shaped like a man's head.. It must have been a common sort of apple, as it gave a name to the dealers in apples who were called costar-mongers. 2 An old French term for concluding verses, which served either to convey the moral, or to address the poem to some person. 3 A mail or male was a budget, wallet, or portmanteau. Costard, mistaking enigma, riddle, and l'envoy for names of salves, objects to the application of any salve in the budget, and cries out for a plantain leaf. There is a quibble upon salve and salvé, a word with which it was not unusual to conclude epistles, &c., and which therefore was a kind of l'envoy |