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  1. {Enter BRAGGART and PAGE.}
  2. BRAGGART. Warble child, make passionate my sense of hearing.
  3. PAGE. Concolinel.
  4. BRAGGART. 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.
  5. PAGE. Master, will you win your love with a French brawl?
  6. BRAGGART. How meanest thou? brawling in French.
  7. PAGE. No my complete Master, but to Jig off a tune at the tongue’s end, canary to it with your feet, humor it with turning up your eyelids, sigh a note and sing a note sometime through the throat, if you swallowed love with singing love sometime through: 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’s 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 humors, 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.
  8. BRAGGART. How hast thou purchased this experience?
  9. PAGE. By my penny of observation.
  10. BRAGGART. But Oh—, but Oh—
  11. PAGE. The Hobby-horse is forgot.
  12. BRAGGART. Callest thou my love Hobby-horse.
  13. PAGE. No Master, the Hobby-horse is but a colt, and your love perhaps, a hackney: But have you forgot your love?
  14. BRAGGART. Almost I had.
  15. PAGE. Negligent student, learn her by heart.
  16. BRAGGART. By heart, and in heart boy.
  17. PAGE. And out of heart Master: all those three I will prove.
  18. BRAGGART. What wilt thou prove?
  19. PAGE. 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.
  20. BRAGGART. I am all these three.
  21. PAGE. And three times as much more, and yet nothing at all.
  22. BRAGGART. Fetch hither the Swain, he must carry me a letter.
  23. PAGE. A message well sympathized, a Horse to be ambassador for an Ass.
  24. BRAGGART. Ha ha, What sayest thou?
  25. PAGE. Marry, sir, you must send the Ass upon the Horse, for he is very slow-gaited: but I go.
  26. BRAGGART. The way is but short, away.
  27. PAGE. As swift as Lead sir.
  28. BRAGGART. The meaning pretty ingenious, is not Lead a metal heavy, dull, and slow?
  29. PAGE. Minime honest Master, or rather Master no.
  30. BRAGGART. I say Lead is slow.
  31. PAGE. You are too swift sir to say so.
  32. Is that Lead slow which is fired from a Gun?
  33. BRAGGART. Sweet smoke of Rhetoric,
  34. He reputes me a Cannon, and the Bullet that’s he:
  35. I shoot thee at the Swain.
  36. PAGE. Thump then, and I flee.
  37. {Exit PAGE.}
  38. BRAGGART. A most acute Juvenal, voluble and free of grace,
  39. By thy favor sweet Welkin, I must sigh in thy face:
  40. Most rude melancholy, Valor gives thee place.
  41. My Herald is return’d.
  42. {Enter PAGE and COSTARD.}
  43. PAGE. A wonder Master, Here’s a Costard broken in a shin.
  44. BRAGGART. Some enigma, some riddle, come, thy L’envoy begin.
  45. COSTARD. No e’gma, no riddle, no lenvoy, no salve, in the mail sir. Oh sir, Plantain, a plain Plantain: no lenvoy, no lenvoy, no Salve sir, but a Plantain.
  46. BRAGGART. By virtue thou enforcest laughter, thy silly thought, my spleen, the heaving of my lungs provokes me to ridiculous smiling: Oh pardon me my stars, doth the inconsiderate take salve for l’envoy, and the word l’envoy for a salve?
  47. PAGE. Do the wise think them other, is not l’envoy a salve?
  48. BRAGGART. No Page, it is an epilogue or discourse to make plain,
  49. Some obscure precedence that hath tofore been sain.
  50. I will example it.
  51. {Declaims} The Fox, the Ape, and the Humble-Bee,
  52. Were still at odds being but three.
  53. {Says} There’s the moral: Now the l’envoy.
  54. PAGE. I will add the l’envoy, say the moral again.
  55. BRAGGART {declaims}. The Fox, the Ape, and the Humble-Bee,
  56. Were still at odds, being but three:
  57. PAGE {declaims}. Until the Goose came out of door,
  58. And stayed the odds by adding four.
  59. {Says} Now will I begin your moral, and do you follow with my l’envoy.
  60. {Declaims} The Fox, the Ape, and the Humble-Bee,
  61. Were still at odds, being but three.
  62. BRAGGART {declaims}. Until the Goose came out of door,
  63. Staying the odds by adding four.
  64. PAGE. A good L’envoy, ending in the Goose: would you desire more?
  65. COSTARD. The boy hath sold him a bargain, a Goose, that’s flat.
  66. Sir, your penny-worth is good, and your Goose be fat.
  67. To sell a bargain well is as cunning as fast and loose:
  68. Let me see a fat Lenvoy, aye that’s a fat Goose.
  69. BRAGGART. Come hither, come hither: How did this argument begin?
  70. PAGE. By saying that a Costard was broken in a shin.
  71. Then call’d you for the L’envoy.
  72. COSTARD. True, and I for a Plantain, thus came your argument in,
  73. Then the boy’s fat Lenvoy, the Goose that you bought, and he ended the market.
  74. BRAGGART. But tell me, How was there a Costard broken in a shin?
  75. PAGE. I will tell you sensibly.
  76. COSTARD. Thou hast no feeling of it Moth, I will speak that Lenvoy.
  77. {Declaims} I, Costard running out, that was safely within,
  78. Fell over the threshold, and broke my shin.
  79. BRAGGART. We will talk no more of this matter.
  80. COSTARD. Till there be more matter in the shin.
  81. BRAGGART. Sirrah Costard, I will enfranchise thee.
  82. COSTARD. Oh marry me to one Francis, I smell some Lenvoy, some Goose in this.
  83. BRAGGART. By my sweet soul, I mean, setting thee at liberty. Enfreedoming thy person: thou wert immured, restrained, captivated, bound.
  84. COSTARD. True, true, and now you will be my purgation, and let me loose.
  85. BRAGGART. 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, for the best ward of mine honor, is rewarding my dependents.
  86. Moth, follow.
  87. {BRAGGART gives COSTARD a silver penny.}
  88. PAGE. Like the sequel I. Señor Costard adieu.
  89. {Exit BRAGGART and PAGE.}
  90. COSTARD. My sweet ounce of man’s flesh, my incony Jewel: Now will I look to his remuneration.
  91. Remuneration, Oh 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.
  92. {Enter BEROWNE.}
  93. BEROWNE. O my good knave Costard, exceedingly well met.
  94. COSTARD. Pray you sir, How much Carnation Ribbon may a man buy for a remuneration?
  95. BEROWNE. Oh what is a remuneration?
  96. COSTARD. Marry sir, half-penny farthing.
  97. BEROWNE. Oh, why then, three-farthings worth of Silk.
  98. COSTARD. I thank your worship, God be wi’ you.
  99. BEROWNE. Oh stay slave, I must employ thee.
  100. As thou wilt win my favor, good my knave,
  101. Do one thing for me that I shall entreat.
  102. COSTARD. When would you have it done sir?
  103. BEROWNE. Oh this afternoon.
  104. COSTARD. Well, I will do it sir: Fare you well.
  105. BEROWNE. O thou knowest not what it is.
  106. COSTARD. I shall know sir when I have done it.
  107. BEROWNE. Why villain, thou must know first.
  108. COSTARD. I will come to your worship to-morrow morning.
  109. BEROWNE. It must be done this afternoon,
  110. Hark slave, it is but this:
  111. The princess comes to hunt here in the Park,
  112. And in her train there is a gentle Lady:
  113. When tongues speak sweetly, then they name her name,
  114. And Rosaline they call her, ask for her:
  115. And to her white hand see thou do commend
  116. This seal’d-up counsel. There’s thy guerdon, go.
  117. {BEROWNE gives COSTARD a shilling.}
  118. COSTARD. Guerdon, O sweet guerdon, better than remuneration. A’leven-pence farthing better: most sweet guerdon. I will do it sir in print: guerdon remuneration.
  119. {Exit Costard.}
  120. BEROWNE. Oh and I forsooth in love, I that have been love’s whip?
  121. A very Beadle to a humorous sigh, a Critic, nay a night watch Constable,
  122. A domineering pedant o’er the Boy, than whom no mortal so magnificent.
  123. This wimpled whining purblind wayward Boy,
  124. This senior junior-giant dwarf, dan Cupid,
  125. Regent of Love-rhymes, Lord of folded arms,
  126. Th’anointed sovereign of sighs and groans:
  127. Liege of all loiterers and malcontents:
  128. Dread Prince of Plackets, King of Codpieces.
  129. Sole Imperator and great general
  130. Of trotting Paritors (Oh my little heart.)
  131. And I to be a Corporal of his field,
  132. And wear his colors like a Tumbler’s hoop.
  133. What? I love, I sue, I seek a wife,
  134. A woman that is like a German Clock,
  135. Still a repairing, ever out of frame,
  136. And never going aright, being a Watch:
  137. But being watch’d, that it may still go right.
  138. Nay to be perjur’d, which is worst of all:
  139. And among three to love the worst of all,
  140. A wightly wanton, with a velvet brow,
  141. With two pitch balls stuck in her face for eyes.
  142. Aye and by heaven, one that will do the deed,
  143. Though Argus were her eunuch and her guard.
  144. And I to sigh for her, to watch for her,
  145. To pray for her, go to: it is a plague
  146. That Cupid will impose for my neglect,
  147. Of his almighty dreadful little might.
  148. Well, I will love, write, sigh, pray, eschew, groan,
  149. Some men must love my Lady, and some Joan.
  150. {Exeunt.}

 

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