Imagini ale paginilor
PDF
ePub

Prin. What's your will, sir? what's your will? Cost. 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.R

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.] By 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, have commiseration on thy heroical vassal! 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, (0 base and obscure vulgar!) videlicet, he came, saw, and overcame: he came, one; saw, 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; Who overcame he? the beggar: The conclusion is victory; On whose side? the king's: the captive is enrich'd; On whose side? 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?

8 Break up this capon.] i. e. open this letter. Our poet uses this metaphor, as the French do their poulet; which signifies both a young fowl and a love-letter.

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.

Thine, 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 indited this letter?

What vane? what weather-cock? 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 ere

while.9

Boyet. This Armado is a Spaniard, that keeps here in court;

A phantasm, a Monarcho, and one that makes sport To the prince, and his book-mates.

Prin. Who gave Cost.

Thou, fellow, a word:

thee this letter?

I told you; my lord.

From my lord to my lady.

Prin. To whom shouldst thou give it?
Cost.

Prin. From which lord, to which lady?

Cost. From my lord Biron, a good master of mine; To a lady of France, that he call'd Rosaline.

1

erewhile.] Just now; a little while ago.

a Monarcho;] The allusion is to a fantastical character of the time.

Prin. Thou hast mistaken his letter. Come, lords,

away.

day.

Here, sweet, put up this; 'twill be thine another [Exit Princess and Train. Boyet. Who is the suitor? who is the suitor? Ros. Shall I teach you to know?

Boyet. Ay, my continent of beauty.

Ros.

Finely put off!.

Why, she that bears the bow.

Boyet. My lady goes to kill horns; but, if thou

marry,

Hang me by the neck, if horns that year mis

[blocks in formation]

Ros. Well then, I am the shooter.

Boyet.

And who is your deer?

Ros. If we choose by the horns, yourself: come

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?

Ros. Shall I come upon thee with an old saying, that was a man when king Pepin 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 Guinever' of Britain was a little wench, as touching the hit it.

Ros. Thou canst not hit it, hit it, hit it, [Singing. Thou canst not hit it, my good man.

Boyet. An I cannot, cannot, cannot,

An I cannot, another can.

[Exeunt Ros. and KATH.

queen Guinever -] This was king Arthur's queen, not

over famous for fidelity to her husband.

Cost. By my troth, most pleasant' how both did fit it!

Mar. A mark marvellous well shot; for they both did hit it.

Boyet. A mark! O, mark but that mark; A mark, says my lady!

Let the mark have a prick in't, to mete at, if it may be. Mar. Wide o' the bow hand! I'faith your hand

is out.

Cost. Indeed, a' must shoot nearer, or he'll ne'er hit the clout.4

Boyet. An if my hand be out, then, belike your

hand is in.

Cost. Then will she get the upshot by cleaving

the pin.

Mar. Come, come, you talk greasily,' your lips grow foul.

Cost. She's too hard for you at pricks, sir; challenge her to bowl.

Boyet. I fear too much rubbing; Good night, my good owl.

[Exeunt BOYET and MARIA. Cost. By my soul, a swain! a most simple clown! Lord, lord! how the ladies and I have put him down! O' my troth, most sweet jests! most incony vulgar

wit!

When it comes so smoothly off, so obscenely, as it were, so fit.

Armatho o' the one side,-O, a most dainty man! To see him walk before a lady, and to bear her fan! To see him kiss his hand! and how most sweetly a' will swear!

' Wide o' the bow hand!] i. e. a good deal to the left of the mark; a term still retained in modern archery.

the clout.] The clout was the white mark at which archers took aim. The pin was the wooden nail that upheld it. you talk greasily,] i. e. grossly.

5

And his page o' t' other side, that handful of wit! Ah, heavens, it is a most pathetical nit!

Sola, sola!

[Shouting within. [Exit COSTARD, running.

SCENE II.

The same.

Enter HOLOFERNES, Sir NATHANIEL, and DULL.

Nath. Very reverent sport, truly; and done in the testimony of a good conscience.

Hol. The deer was, as you know, in sanguis,blood; ripe as a pomewater, who now hangeth like a jewel in the ear of cœlo,-the sky, the welkin, the heaven; 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, sir, 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, ostentare, to show, as it were, his inclination,-after his undressed, unpolished, uneducated, unpruned, untrained, or rather unlettered, or, ratherest, unconfirmed fashion,-to insert again my haud credo for a deer.

• Enter Holofernes,] By Holofornes is designed a pedant and schoolmaster of our author's time, one John Florio, a teacher of the Italian tongue in London, who has given us a small dictionary of that language under the title of A World of Words.

7 ripe as a pomewater,] A species of apple formerly much esteemed. Malus Carbonaria.

« ÎnapoiContinuă »