Complete Plays, The

Home > Fiction > Complete Plays, The > Page 275
Complete Plays, The Page 275

by William Shakespeare


  For every object that the one doth catch

  The other turns to a mirth-moving jest,

  Which his fair tongue, conceit’s expositor,

  Delivers in such apt and gracious words

  That aged ears play truant at his tales

  And younger hearings are quite ravished;

  So sweet and voluble is his discourse.

  Princess

  God bless my ladies! are they all in love,

  That every one her own hath garnished

  With such bedecking ornaments of praise?

  First Lord

  Here comes Boyet.

  Re-enter Boyet

  Princess

  Now, what admittance, lord?

  Boyet

  Navarre had notice of your fair approach;

  And he and his competitors in oath

  Were all address’d to meet you, gentle lady,

  Before I came. Marry, thus much I have learnt:

  He rather means to lodge you in the field,

  Like one that comes here to besiege his court,

  Than seek a dispensation for his oath,

  To let you enter his unpeopled house.

  Here comes Navarre.

  Enter Ferdinand, Longaville, Dumain, Biron, and Attendants

  Ferdinand

  Fair princess, welcome to the court of Navarre.

  Princess

  ‘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.

  Ferdinand

  You shall be welcome, madam, to my court.

  Princess

  I will be welcome, then: conduct me thither.

  Ferdinand

  Hear me, dear lady; I have sworn an oath.

  Princess

  Our Lady help my lord! he’ll be forsworn.

  Ferdinand

  Not for the world, fair madam, by my will.

  Princess

  Why, will shall break it; will and nothing else.

  Ferdinand

  Your ladyship is ignorant what it is.

  Princess

  Were my lord so, his ignorance were wise,

  Where now his knowledge must prove ignorance.

  I hear your grace hath sworn out house-keeping:

  Tis deadly sin to keep that oath, my lord,

  And sin to break it.

  But pardon me. I am too sudden-bold:

  To teach a teacher ill beseemeth me.

  Vouchsafe to read the purpose of my coming,

  And suddenly resolve me in my suit.

  Ferdinand

  Madam, I will, if suddenly I may.

  Princess

  You will the sooner, that I were away;

  For you’ll prove perjured if you make me stay.

  Biron

  Did not I dance with you in Brabant once?

  Rosaline

  Did not I dance with you in Brabant once?

  Biron

  I know you did.

  Rosaline

  How needless was it then to ask the question!

  Biron

  You must not be so quick.

  Rosaline

  ’Tis ’long of you that spur me with such questions.

  Biron

  Your wit’s too hot, it speeds too fast, ’twill tire.

  Rosaline

  Not till it leave the rider in the mire.

  Biron

  What time o’ day?

  Rosaline

  The hour that fools should ask.

  Biron

  Now fair befall your mask!

  Rosaline

  Fair fall the face it covers!

  Biron

  And send you many lovers!

  Rosaline

  Amen, so you be none.

  Biron

  Nay, then will I be gone.

  Ferdinand

  Madam, your father here doth intimate

  The payment of a hundred thousand crowns;

  Being but the one half of an entire sum

  Disbursed by my father in his wars.

  But say that he or we, as neither have,

  Received that sum, yet there remains unpaid

  A hundred thousand more; in surety of the which,

  One part of Aquitaine is bound to us,

  Although not valued to the money’s worth.

  If then the king your father will restore

  But that one half which is unsatisfied,

  We will give up our right in Aquitaine,

  And hold fair friendship with his majesty.

  But that, it seems, he little purposeth,

  For here he doth demand to have repaid

  A hundred thousand crowns; and not demands,

  On payment of a hundred thousand crowns,

  To have his title live in Aquitaine;

  Which we much rather had depart withal

  And have the money by our father lent

  Than Aquitaine so gelded as it is.

  Dear Princess, were not his requests so far

  From reason’s yielding, your fair self should make

  A yielding ’gainst some reason in my breast

  And go well satisfied to France again.

  Princess

  You do the king my father too much wrong

  And wrong the reputation of your name,

  In so unseeming to confess receipt

  Of that which hath so faithfully been paid.

  Ferdinand

  I do protest I never heard of it;

  And if you prove it, I’ll repay it back

  Or yield up Aquitaine.

  Princess

  We arrest your word.

  Boyet, you can produce acquittances

  For such a sum from special officers

  Of Charles his father.

  Ferdinand

  Satisfy me so.

  Boyet

  So please your grace, the packet is not come

  Where that and other specialties are bound:

  To-morrow you shall have a sight of them.

  Ferdinand

  It shall suffice me: at which interview

  All liberal reason I will yield unto.

  Meantime receive such welcome at my hand

  As honour without breach of honour may

  Make tender of to thy true worthiness:

  You may not come, fair princess, in my gates;

  But here without you shall be so received

  As you shall deem yourself lodged in my heart,

  Though so denied fair harbour in my house.

  Your own good thoughts excuse me, and farewell:

  To-morrow shall we visit you again.

  Princess

  Sweet health and fair desires consort your grace!

  Ferdinand

  Thy own wish wish I thee in every place!

  Exit

  Biron

  Lady, I will commend you to mine own heart.

  Rosaline

  Pray you, do my commendations; I would be glad to see it.

  Biron

  I would you heard it groan.

  Rosaline

  Is the fool sick?

  Biron

  Sick at the heart.

  Rosaline

  Alack, let it blood.

  Biron

  Would that do it good?

  Rosaline

  My physic says ‘ay.’

  Biron

  Will you prick’t with your eye?

  Rosaline

  No point, with my knife.

  Biron

  Now, God save thy life!

  Rosaline

  And yours from long living!

  Biron

  I cannot stay thanksgiving.

  Retiring

  Dumain

  Sir, I pray you, a word: what lady is that same?

  Boyet

  The heir of Alencon, Katharine her name.

  Dumain

  A gallant lady. Monsieur, fare yo
u well.

  Exit

  Longaville

  I beseech you a word: what is she in the white?

  Boyet

  A woman sometimes, an you saw her in the light.

  Longaville

  Perchance light in the light. I desire her name.

  Boyet

  She hath but one for herself; to desire that were a shame.

  Longaville

  Pray you, sir, whose daughter?

  Boyet

  Her mother’s, I have heard.

  Longaville

  God’s blessing on your beard!

  Boyet

  Good sir, be not offended.

  She is an heir of Falconbridge.

  Longaville

  Nay, my choler is ended.

  She is a most sweet lady.

  Boyet

  Not unlike, sir, that may be.

  Exit Longaville

  Biron

  What’s her name in the cap?

  Boyet

  Rosaline, by good hap.

  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

  Maria

  That last is Biron, the merry madcap lord:

  Not a word with him but a jest.

  Boyet

  And every jest but a word.

  Princess

  It was well done of you to take him at his word.

  Boyet

  I was as willing to grapple as he was to board.

  Maria

  Two hot sheeps, marry.

  Boyet

  And wherefore not ships?

  No sheep, sweet lamb, unless we feed on your lips.

  Maria

  You sheep, and I pasture: shall that finish the jest?

  Boyet

  So you grant pasture for me.

  Offering to kiss her

  Maria

  Not so, gentle beast:

  My lips are no common, though several they be.

  Boyet

  Belonging to whom?

  Maria

  To my fortunes and me.

  Princess

  Good wits will be jangling; but, gentles, agree:

  This civil war of wits were much better used

  On Navarre and his book-men; for here ’tis abused.

  Boyet

  If my observation, which very seldom lies,

  By the heart’s still rhetoric disclosed with eyes,

  Deceive me not now, Navarre is infected.

  Princess

  With what?

  Boyet

  With that which we lovers entitle affected.

  Princess

  Your reason?

  Boyet

  Why, all his behaviors did make their retire

  To the court of his eye, peeping thorough desire:

  His heart, like an agate, with your print impress’d,

  Proud with his form, in his eye pride express’d:

  His tongue, all impatient to speak and not see,

  Did stumble with haste in his eyesight 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;

  Who, tendering 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 did quote such amazes

  That all eyes saw his eyes enchanted with gazes.

  I’ll give you Aquitaine and all that is his,

  An you give him for my sake but one loving kiss.

  Princess

  Come to our pavilion: Boyet is disposed.

  Boyet

  But to speak that in words which his eye hath disclosed.

  I only have made a mouth of his eye,

  By adding a tongue which I know will not lie.

  Rosaline

  Thou art an old love-monger and speakest skilfully.

  Maria

  He is Cupid’s grandfather and learns news of him.

  Rosaline

  Then was Venus like her mother, for her father is but grim.

  Boyet

  Do you hear, my mad wenches?

  Maria

  No.

  Boyet

  What then, do you see?

  Rosaline

  Ay, our way to be gone.

  Boyet

  You are too hard for me.

  Exeunt

  ACT III

  SCENE I. THE SAME.

  Enter Don Adriano de Armado and Moth

  Don

  Don Adriano de Armado

  Warble, child; make passionate my sense of hearing.

  Moth

  Concolinel.

  Singing

  Don Adriano de 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?

  Don Adriano de 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 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.

  Don Adriano de Armado

  How hast thou purchased this experience?

  Moth

  By my penny of observation.

  Don Adriano de Armado

  But O,— but O,—

  Moth

  ‘The hobby-horse is forgot.’

  Don Adriano de Armado

  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?

  Don Adriano de Armado

  Almost I had.

  Moth

  Negligent student! learn her by heart.

  Don Adriano de Armado

  By heart and in heart, boy.

  Moth

  And out of heart, master: all those three I will prove.

  Don Adriano de 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.

  Don Adriano de Armado

  I am all these three.

  Moth

  And three times as much more, and yet nothing at all.

  Don Adriano de Armado

  Fetch hither the swain: he must carry me a letter.

  Moth

  A message well sympathized; a horse to be ambassador for an ass.

  Don Adriano de 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.

  Don Adriano de Armado

  The way is but short: away!

  Moth

  As swift as lead, sir.

  Don Adriano de Armado

  The meaning, pretty ingenious?<
br />
  Is not lead a metal heavy, dull, and slow?

  Moth

  Minime, honest master; or rather, master, no.

  Don Adriano de 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?

  Don Adriano de 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

  Don Adriano de 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 return’d.

  Re-enter Moth with Costard

  Moth

  A wonder, master! here’s a costard broken in a shin.

  Don Adriano de Armado

  Some enigma, some riddle: come, thy l’envoy; begin.

  Costard

  No 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!

  Don Adriano de 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’envoy, and the word l’envoy for a salve?

  Moth

  Do the wise think them other? is not l’envoy a salve?

  Don Adriano de 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’envoy.

  Moth

  I will add the l’envoy. Say the moral again.

  Don Adriano de 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 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.

  Don Adriano de Armado

  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?

  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’envoy; ay, that’s a fat goose.

  Don Adriano de Armado

  Come hither, come hither. How did this argument begin?

  Moth

  By saying that a costard was broken in a shin.

  Then call’d you for the l’envoy.

 

‹ Prev