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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.

Moth.

Thump then, and I flee.

[Exit.

Arm. A most acute juvenal; voluble and free of

grace!

By thy favor, sweet welkin, I must sigh in thy face.
Most rude melancholy, valor gives thee place.
My herald is returned.

Re-enter MOTH and CoStard.

Moth. A wonder, master; here's a Costard1 broken

in a shin.

Arm. Some enigma, some riddle.

l'envoy; 2-begin.

Come,-thy

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 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?

1 i. e. a head; a name adopted from an apple shaped like a man's head. It must have been a common sort of apple, as it gave a name to the dealers in apples who were called costar-mongers.

2 An old French term for concluding verses, which served either to convey the moral, or to address the poem to some person.

3 A mail or male was a budget, wallet, or portmanteau. Costard, mistaking enigma, riddle, and l'envoy for names of salves, objects to the application of any salve in the budget, and cries out for a plantain leaf. There is a quibble upon salve and salvé, a word with which it was not unusual to conclude epistles, &c., and which therefore was a kind of l'envoy.

Moth. Do the wise think them other?

l'envoy a salve?

Is not

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 stayed 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 desire more?

you

Cost. 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.

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

Moth. By saying that a Costard was broken in a shin. Then called 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.1

Arm. But tell me ; how was there a Costard2 broken in a shin?

1 Alluding to the proverb, "Three women and a goose make a market.” 2 See p. 102, note 1.

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,
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
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, 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 to the country maid Jaquenetta. There is remuneration; [Giving him money.] for the best ward of mine honor is, rewarding my dependants. Moth, follow. [Exit. Moth. Like the sequel, I.-Seignior Costard, adieu. Cost. My sweet ounce of man's flesh! My incony1

Jew!

[Exit MOTH. Remuneration!

Now will I look to his remuneration. O, that's the Latin word for three farthings:, three farthings-remuneration.-What's the price of this inkle? A 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.

Cost. Pray you, sir, how much carnation riband may a man buy for a remuneration?

Incony or kony, says Warburton, signifies, in the north, fine or delicate. It seems to be substantially the same with canny, a familiar Scotch word.

Biron. What is a remuneration?

Cost. Marry, sir, half-penny farthing.

Biron. O, why, then, three farthings worth of silk.
Cost. I thank your worship. God be with you!
Biron. O, stay, slave; I must employ thee.

As thou wilt win my favor, good my knave,
Do one thing for me that I shall entreat.
Cost. When would you have it done, sir?
Biron. O, this afternoon.

Cost. Well, I will do it, sir. Fare you well.
Biron. O, thou knowest not what it is.
Cost. I shall know, sir, when I have done it.
Biron. Why, villain, thou must know first.

Cost. I will come to your worship to-morrow morning.

Biron. It must be done this afternoon. slave, it is but this.—

The princess comes to hunt here in the park,
And in her train there is a gentle lady;

Hark

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 sealed-up counsel. There's thy guerdon; go. [Gives him money.

Cost. Guerdon,-O sweet guerdon! better than remuneration; eleven-pence farthing better. Most sweet guerdon!—I will do it, sir, in print.'-Guerdon -remuneration. [Exit.

Biron. O! And 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!

2

This wimpled, whining, purblind, wayward boy;

1 With the utmost nicety.

2 Magnificent here means glorying, boasting.

3 To wimple is to veil, from guimple (Fr.). Shakspeare means no more than that Cupid was hood-winked.

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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 2-O my little heart-
And I to be a corporal of his field,3

And wear his colors 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 watched 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 whitely wanton with a velvet brow,
With too 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.

1 Plackets were stomachers.

2 The officers of the spiritual courts who serve citations.

3 It appears from Lord Stafford's Letters, vol. ii. p. 199, that a corporal of the field was employed, as an aid-de-camp is now, "in taking and carrying to and fro the directions of the general, or other higher officers of

the field."

4 It was once a mark of gallantry to wear a lady's colors. So in Cynthia's Revels, by Jonson, "despatches his lacquey to her chamber early, to know what her colors are for the day." It appears that a tumbler's hoop was usually dressed out with colored ribands.

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