BIRON. Is she wedded, or no?

BOYET. To her will, sir, or so.

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 madcap lord;

Not a word with him but a jest.

BOYET.
And every jest but a word.
PRIN. It was well done of you to take him at his 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.
MAR.

Not so, gentle beast;
My lips are no common, though several they be 5.
BOYET. Belonging to whom?

MAR.
To my fortunes and me.
PRIN. Good wits will be jangling; but, gentles, agree :
This civil war of wits were much better us'd

On Navarre and his book-men; for here 't is abus'd.
BOYET. If my observation, (which very seldom lies,)
By the heart's still rhetoric, disclosed with eyes,
Deceive me not now, Navarre is infected.

PRIN. With what?

BOYET. With that which we lovers entitle, affected.
PRIN. Your reason?

BOYET. Why, all his behaviours doa make their retire

To the court of his eye, peeping thorough desire:
His heart, like an agate, with your print impressed,
Proud with his form, in his eye pride expressed:
His tongue, all impatient to speak and not see,
Did stumble with haste in his eye-sight to be;
All senses to that sense did make their repair,

To feel only looking on fairest of fair:

Methought all his senses were lock'd in his eye,

As jewels in crystal for some prince to buy;

[Offering to kiss her.

Who, tend'ring their own worth, from whence they were glass'd,

Did point out to buy them, along as you pass'd.

His face's own margent did quote such amazes,

That all eyes saw his eyes enchanted with gazes :

⚫ Do in the folio. The subsequent change of the tense does not necessarily require this to be altered. Boyet gives a general answer to "your reason," in two lines; and then proceeds to particulars.

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

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 speakest 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.

BOYET.

No.

What, then, do you see?

Ros. Ay, our way to be gone.
BOYET.

You are too hard for me.

[Exeunt.

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. Will you win your love with a French brawl??

ARM. 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 b 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, men?) that most are affected to these.

ARM. How hast thou purchased this experience?

MоTH. By my penny of observation.

ARM. But 0,-but O

MOTH. the hobby-horse is forgot 10.

ARM. Callest 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?

ARM. Almost I had.

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 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 sympathised; a horse to be ambassador for an ass!
ARM. Ha, ha! what sayest thou?

MOTH. Marry, sir, you must send the ass upon the horse, for he is gaited: But I go.

ARM. The way is but short; away.

MOTH. As swift as lead, sir.

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.

Мотн.
Thump, then, and I flee.
ARM. 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 return'd.

See Note to Act I., Scene 1.

[Exit.

Re-enter MOTH and COSTARD.

MOTH. A wonder, master; here's a Costard 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: 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?

MOTH. Do the wise think them other? is not l'envoy a salved?

ARM. 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'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 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:
ARM. Until the goose came out of door,
Staying the odds by adding four®.

MOTH. A good l'envoy, ending in the goose; would you desire more?
COST. The boy hath sold him a bargain 11, 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?

No salve in them all. The common reading is "no salve in the mail," which is that of the old copies. We adopt Tyrwhitt's suggestion.

• When Moth quibbles about Costard and his shin, Armado supposes there is a riddle-and he calls for the l'envoy-the address of the old French poets, which conveyed their moral or explanation. Costard says he wants no such things-there is no salve in them all; he wants a plantain for his wound. (See Illustration to 'Romeo and Juliet,' Act I.)

But the arch page makes a joke out of Costard's blunder, and asks is not l'envoy a salve? He has read of the Salve! of the Romans, and has a pun for the eye ready. Dr. Farmer believes that Shakspere had here forgot his small Latin, and thought that the words had the same pronunciation. Poor Shakspere! what a dull dog he must have been at this Latin, according to the no-learning critics!

• So the quarto of 1599. But the folio makes Armado merely give the moral, and Moth the l'envoy, without these repetitions. The sport which so delights Costard is lost by the omission. (See Illustration 11.)