ARKCODEX
Act III, Scene 1
1The same.
2Enter Armado and Moth.
3ArmadoWarble, child; make passionate my sense of hearing.
4MothConcolinel. Singing.
5ArmadoSweet 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.
6MothMaster, will you win your love with a French brawl?
7ArmadoHow meanest thou? brawling in French?
8MothNo, 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.
9ArmadoHow hast thou purchased this experience?
10MothBy my penny of observation.
11ArmadoBut O—but O—
12Moth“The hobby-horse is forgot.”
13ArmadoCallest thou my love “hobby-horse”?
14MothNo, master; the hobby-horse is but a colt, and your love perhaps a hackney. But have you forgot your love?
15ArmadoAlmost I had.
16MothNegligent student! learn her by heart.
17ArmadoBy heart and in heart, boy.
18MothAnd out of heart, master: all those three I will prove.
19ArmadoWhat wilt thou prove?
20MothA 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.
21ArmadoI am all these three.
22MothAnd three times as much more, and yet nothing at all.
23ArmadoFetch hither the swain: he must carry me a letter.
24MothA message well sympathized; a horse to be ambassador for an ass.
25ArmadoHa, ha! what sayest thou?
26MothMarry, sir, you must send the ass upon the horse, for he is very slow-gaited. But I go.
27ArmadoThe way is but short: away!
28MothAs swift as lead, sir.
29ArmadoThe meaning, pretty ingenious? Is not lead a metal heavy, dull, and slow?
30MothMinimè, honest master; or rather, master, no.
31ArmadoI say lead is slow.
32MothYou are too swift, sir, to say so:
Is that lead slow which is fired from a gun?
33ArmadoSweet smoke of rhetoric!
He reputes me a cannon; and the bullet, that’s he:
I shoot thee at the swain.
34MothThump then and I flee. Exit.
35ArmadoA 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.
36Reenter Moth with Costard.
37MothA wonder, master! here’s a costard broken in a shin.
38ArmadoSome enigma, some riddle: come, thy l’envoy; begin.
39CostardNo 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!
40ArmadoBy 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?
41MothDo the wise think them other? is not l’envoy a salve?
42ArmadoNo, 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.
43MothI will add the l’envoy. Say the moral again.
44ArmadoThe fox, the ape, and the humble-bee,
Were still at odds, being but three.
45MothUntil 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.
46ArmadoUntil the goose came out of door,
Staying the odds by adding four.
47MothA good l’envoy, ending in the goose: would you desire more?
48CostardThe 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.
49ArmadoCome hither, come hither. How did this argument begin?
50MothBy saying that a costard was broken in a shin.
Then call’d you for the l’envoy.
51CostardTrue, 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.
52ArmadoBut tell me; how was there a costard broken in a shin?
53MothI will tell you sensibly.
54CostardThou 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.
55ArmadoWe will talk no more of this matter.
56CostardTill there be more matter in the shin.
57ArmadoSirrah Costard, I will enfranchise thee.
58CostardO, marry me to one Frances: I smell some l’envoy, some goose, in this.
59ArmadoBy my sweet soul, I mean setting thee at liberty, enfreedoming thy person: thou wert immured, restrained, captivated, bound.
60CostardTrue, true; and now you will be my purgation and let me loose.
61ArmadoI 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.
62MothLike the sequel, I. Signior Costard, adieu.
63CostardMy 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.
64Enter Biron.
65BironO, my good knave Costard! exceedingly well met.
66CostardPray you, sir, how much carnation ribbon may a man buy for a remuneration?
67BironWhat is a remuneration?
68CostardMarry, sir, halfpenny farthing.
69BironWhy, then, three-farthing worth of silk.
70CostardI thank your worship: God be wi’ you!
71BironStay, slave; I must employ thee:
As thou wilt win my favour, good my knave,
Do one thing for me that I shall entreat.
72CostardWhen would you have it done, sir?
73BironThis afternoon.
74CostardWell, I will do it, sir: fare you well.
75BironThou knowest not what it is.
76CostardI shall know, sir, when I have done it.
77BironWhy, villain, thou must know first.
78CostardI will come to your worship to-morrow morning.
79BironIt 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.
80CostardGardon, O sweet gardon! better than remuneration, a ’leven-pence farthing better: most sweet gardon! I will do it, sir, in print. Gardon! Remuneration! Exit.
81BironAnd 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.