Chapter XII: Act III: SCENE I. 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 5 hither: I must employ him in a letter to my love.

_Moth._ Master, 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 10 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 15 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 20 would be betrayed without these; and make them men of note—do you note me?—that most are affected to these.

_Arm._ How hast thou purchased this experience?

_Moth._ By my penny of observation.

_Arm._ But O,—but O,— 25

_Moth._ ‘The hobby-horse is forgot.’

_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? 30

_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. 35

_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, 40 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. 45

_Moth._ A message well sympathized; 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 very slow-gaited. But I go. 50

_Arm._ The way is but short: away!

_Moth._ As swift as lead, sir.

_Arm._ The meaning, pretty ingenious? Is not lead a metal heavy, dull, and slow?

_Moth._ Minimè, honest master; or rather, master, no. 55

_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._ 60

_Arm._ A most acute juvenal; volable 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. 65

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

_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 70 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? 75

_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. 80 There’s the moral. Now the l’envoy.

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

_Arm._ The fox, the ape, the humble-bee, Were still at odds, being but three.

_Moth._ Until the goose came out of door, 85 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. 90

_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, a goose, that’s flat. 95 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?

_Moth._ By saying that a Costard was broken in a shin. 100 Then call’d you for the l’envoy.

_Cost._ True, 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.

_Arm._ But tell me; how was there a Costard broken in 105 a shin?

_Moth._ I will tell you sensibly.

_Cost._ Thou hast no feeling of it, Moth: I will speak
that l’envoy:
I Costard, running out, that was safely within, 110
Fell over the threshold, and broke my shin.

_Arm._ We will talk no more of this matter.

_Cost._ Till there be more matter in the shin.

_Arm._ Sirrah Costard, I will enfranchise thee.

_Cost._ O, marry me to one Frances: I smell some 115 l’envoy, some goose, in this.

_Arm._ By my sweet soul, I mean setting thee at liberty, enfreedoming thy person: thou wert immured, restrained, captivated, bound.

_Cost._ True, true; and now you will be my purgation, 120 and let me loose.

_Arm._ I 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 125 honour is rewarding my dependents. Moth, follow. [_Exit._

_Moth._ Like the sequel, I. Signior Costard, adieu.

_Cost._ My 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— 130 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.

_Enter_ BIRON.

_Biron._ O, my good knave Costard! exceedingly well met. 135

_Cost._ Pray you, sir, how much carnation ribbon may a man buy for a remuneration?

_Biron._ What is a remuneration?

_Cost._ Marry, sir, halfpenny farthing.

_Biron._ Why, then, three-farthing worth of silk. 140

_Cost._ I thank your worship: God be wi’ you!

_Biron._ Stay, slave; I must employ thee: As thou wilt win my favour, good my knave, Do one thing for me that I shall entreat.

_Cost._ When would you have it done, sir? 145

_Biron._ This afternoon.

_Cost._ Well, I will do it, sir: fare you well.

_Biron._ Thou knowest not what it is.

_Cost._ I shall know, sir, when I have done it.

_Biron._ Why, villain, thou must know first. 150

_Cost._ I will come to your worship to-morrow morning.

_Biron._ It 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; 155 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._

_Cost._ Gardon, O sweet gardon! better than remuneration, 160 a ’leven-pence farthing better: most sweet gardon! I will do it, sir, in print. Gardon! Remuneration! [_Exit._

_Biron._ And I, forsooth, in love! I, that have been love’s whip; A very beadle to a humorous sigh; 165 A critic, nay, a night-watch constable; A domineering pedant o’er the boy; Than whom no mortal so magnificent! This wimpled, whining, purblind, wayward boy; This senior-junior, giant-dwarf, Dan Cupid; 170 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 175 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 love! I sue! I seek a wife! A woman, that is like a German clock, 180 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; 185 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! 190 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._ 195

~~~~~ Linenotes: _Love’s Labour’s Lost_, III, 1.