go right.

Dread prince of plackets, king of codpieces :
Sole imperator, and great general
Of trotting parators: (o my little heart !)
And I to be a corporal of his file,
And wear his colours, like a tumbler's hoop!
What? I love! I sue! what? I seek a wife I
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
Nay, to be perjur’d, which is worst of all:
And, among three, to love the worst of all !
A whitely wanton with a velvet brow,
With two pitch balls stuck in her face for eyes,
Ay, and, by heav’n, one that will do the deed,
Though Argus were her eunuch and her guard :
And I to figh 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, figh, pray, sue, and groan :
Some men must love my lady, and some Joan.

[Exit.

ACT IV. SCENE I.

A pavilion in the park near the palace.
Enter the Princess, Rosaline, Maria, Catharine, Lords,

Attendants, and a Forester.

PRINCES S.
AS that the king that spurr’d his horse so hard
Against the steep uprising of

of the hill ?
Boyet. I know not, but, I think, it was not he.
Prin. Whoe'er he was, he show'd a mounting mind.
Vol. II.

P

Well,

Dread

4

2

}

Well, lords, to-day we shall have our despatch, ,
On saturday we will return to France.
Then, forester, my friend, where is the bush
That we must stand and play the murtherer in?

For. Hard by, upon the edge of yonder coppice;
A stand, where you may make the fairest shoot.*

Enter Costard.
Boyet. Here comes a member of the commonwealth: 6

the faireft shoot.
Prin. I thank my beauty, I am fair that shoot,
And thereupon thou speak'st the fairest shoot.

For. Pardon me, madam, for I meant not so.

Prin. What, what? first praife me, then again fay, 'no?
Oshort-liv'd pride! not fair? alack for wo!

For. Yes, madam, fair.
Prin. Nay, never paint 'me now;
Where fair is not, praise cannot mend the brow.
Here, good my glass, take this for telling 'true ;
Fair payment for foul words is more than due.

For. Nothing but fair is that which you inherit.
Prin. See, see, my beauty will be sav'd by merit.
O heresy in fair, fit for these days !
A giving hand, though foul, shall have fair praise.
But come, the bow : now mercy goes to kill,
And shooting well is then accounted ill.
Thus will I save my credit in the shoot,
Not wounding, pity would not let me do't ;
If wounding, then it was to show my skill,
That more for praise than purpose meant to kill.
And, out of question, so it is sometimes ;
Glory grows guilty of detefted crimes ;
When, for fame's fake, for praise, an outward part,
We bend to that the working of the heart.
As I, for praise alone, now seek to spill
The poor deer's blood, that my heart means no ill.

Boyet. Do not curst wives hold that self-sovereignty
Only for praise' fake, when they striue to be
Lords o'er their lords?

Prin. Only for praise ; and praise we may afford
To any lady that subdues her lord.

Enter Costard.

commonwealth.
Coff. God dig-you-den all! pray you, which is the head lady?
Prin. Thou shalt know her, fellow, by the rest that have no heads.
Coft. Which is the greatest lady, the highest ?
Prin. The thickest, and the tallest.

Cof. The 'thickest, and the tallest! it is so, truth is truth..
An your waist, mistress, were as slender as my wit,
One o' these girdles for your waist Thould be fit.
Are not you the chief woman? you are the thickest here.

Prin. What's your will, fir ? what's your will ?
Coff. I have, &c.

b

Coft.

a

B

Coff. I have a letter from monsieur Biron, to one lady Rosaline.

Prin. O, thy letter, thy letter : he's a good friend of mine.
Stand aside, good bearer. Boyet, you can carve;
Break up this capon.

Boyet. I am bound to serve.
This letter is mistook, it importeth none here;
It is writ to Jaquenetta.

Prin. We will read it, I swear.
Break the neck of the wax, and every one give ear.

Boyet reads.
Y heaven, that thou art fair, is most infallible; true, that thou

art beauteous; truth itself, that thou art lovely: more fairer than fair, beautiful than beauteous, truer than truth itself, havę commiseration on thy heroical vaflal! The magnanimous and most illustrate king Cophetua set eye upon the pernicious and indubitate beggar Zenelophon; and he it was that might rightly say, veni, vidi, vici; which to anatomize in the vulgar, (o base and obscure vulgar !) videlicet, he came, faw, and overcame: he came, one; faw, two; overcame, three: who came? the king; why did he come ? to see; why did he see? to overcome: to whom came he? to the beggar; what saw he ? the beggar; whom overcame he? the beggar : the conclusion is victory; on whose fide ? the king's: the captive is enrich’d; on whose fide ? the beggar's: the catastrophe is a nuptial; on whose side ? the king's? no; on both in one, or one in both: I am the king, (for so stands the comparison) thou the beggar, for so witnesseth thy lowliness. Shall I command thy love? I may: shall I enforce thy love? I could : shall I entreat thy love? I will. What shalt thou exchange for

rags ? robes ; for tittles ? titles; for thyself? me. Thus, expecting thy reply, I profane my lips on thy foot, my eyes on thy picture, and my heart on thy every part. Tbine, in the dearest design of industry,

Don Adriano de Armado.

Thus dost thou hear the Nemean lion roar

'Gainst thee, thou lamb, that standest as his prey; Submissive fall his princely feet before,

And he from forage will incline to play.
But if thou strive, poor soul, what art thou then?
Food for his rage, repasture for his den.

Prin. What plume of feathers is he that endited this letter?
What vane? what weathercock ? did you ever hear better?

Boyet. I am much deceived, but I remember the style.
Prin. Else your memory is bad, going o'er it erewhile.

Boyet. This Armado is a Spaniard that keeps here in court,
A phantasm, a mammúccio, and one that makes sport
To the prince and his book-mates.

Prin. Thou fellow, a word:
Who
gave

thee this letter?
Coj. I told you, my lord.
Prin. To whom should'st thou give it?
Cost. From my lord to my lady.
Prin. From which lord to which lady?

Coft. From my lord Berown, a good master of mine,
To a lady of France that he callid Rosaline.

Prin. Thou hast mistaken his letter. Come, lords, away. Here, sweet, put up this, įtwill be thine another day.' [Exeunt.

. ---- another day.

Boyet. Who is the shooter? who is the shooter?
Rof. Shall I teach you to know?
Boyet. Ay, my continent of beauty.
Rof. Why, she that bears the bow. Finely put off.

Boyet. My lady goes to kill horns; but, if thou marry,
Hang me by the neck, if horns that year miscarry.
Finely put on.

Rs. Well then, I am the shooter.
Boset. And who is your deer?

Rof. If we choose by horns, yourself; come not near.
Finely put on, indeed.

Mar. You still wrangle with her, Boyet, and she strikes at the brow.
Boyet. But she herself is hit lower. Have I hit her now?

Rof. Shall I come upon thee with an old saying, that was a man when king Pippin of France was a little boy, as touching the hit it?

Boyet. So I may answer thee with one as old, that was a woman when queen Guinover of Britain was a little wench, as touching the hit it.

Rof. Thou can'st not hit it, hit it, hit it. Thou can'st not hit it, my good man.

Boyet.

ter: ?

V

a

[ Shoot within.] Enter Dull, Holofernes, and Nathaniel. Nath. ERY reverent sport, truly; and done in the testimony

of

a good conscience. Hol. The deer was, as you know, sanguis, in blood; ripe as a

, pomwater; who now hangeth like a jewel in the ear of cælo, the íky, the welkin, the heav'n; and anon falleth like a crab on the face of terra, the soil, the land, the earth.

Nath. Truly, master Holofernes, the epithets are sweetly varied, like a scholar at the least: but, fir, I assure ye, it was a buck of the first head.

Hol. Sir Nathaniel, haud credo.
Dull. 'Twas not a haud credo, 'twas a pricket.

Hol. Most barbarous intimation! yet a kind of insinuation, as it were, in via, in way of explication; facere, as it were, replication; or, rather, oftentare, to show, as it were, his

a