The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, William Shakespeare [book recommendations based on other books txt] 📗

Did not I dance with you in Brabant once?

KATHARINE. Did not I dance with you in Brabant once?

BEROWNE. I know you did.

KATHARINE. How needless was it then to ask the question!

BEROWNE. You must not be so quick.

KATHARINE. ‘Tis long of you, that spur me with such questions.

BEROWNE. Your wit ‘s too hot, it speeds too fast, ‘twill tire.

KATHARINE. Not till it leave the rider in the mire.

BEROWNE. What time o’ day?

KATHARINE. The hour that fools should ask.

BEROWNE. Now fair befall your mask!

KATHARINE. Fair fall the face it covers!

BEROWNE. And send you many lovers!

KATHARINE. Amen, so you be none.

BEROWNE. Nay, then will I be gone.

KING. Madam, your father here doth intimate The payment of a hundred thousand crowns; Being but the one half of an entire sum Disbursed by my father in his wars.

But say that he or we, as neither have, Receiv’d that sum, yet there remains unpaid A hundred thousand more, in surety of the which, One part of Aquitaine is bound to us, Although not valued to the money’s worth.

If then the King your father will restore But that one half which is unsatisfied, We will give up our right in Aquitaine, And hold fair friendship with his Majesty.

But that, it seems, he little purposeth, For here he doth demand to have repaid A hundred thousand crowns; and not demands, On payment of a hundred thousand crowns, To have his title live in Aquitaine;

Which we much rather had depart withal, And have the money by our father lent, Than Aquitaine so gelded as it is.

Dear Princess, were not his requests so far From reason’s yielding, your fair self should make A yielding ‘gainst some reason in my breast, And go well satisfied to France again.

PRINCESS OF FRANCE. You do the King my father too much wrong, And wrong the reputation of your name, In so unseeming to confess receipt

Of that which hath so faithfully been paid.

KING. I do protest I never heard of it; And, if you prove it, I’ll repay it back Or yield up Aquitaine.

PRINCESS OF FRANCE. We arrest your word.

Boyet, you can produce acquittances

For such a sum from special officers

Of Charles his father.

KING. Satisfy me so.

BOYET. So please your Grace, the packet is not come, Where that and other specialties are bound; Tomorrow you shall have a sight of them.

KING. It shall suffice me; at which interview All liberal reason I will yield unto.

Meantime receive such welcome at my hand As honour, without breach of honour, may Make tender of to thy true worthiness.

You may not come, fair Princess, within my gates; But here without you shall be so receiv’d As you shall deem yourself lodg’d in my heart, Though so denied fair harbour in my house.

Your own good thoughts excuse me, and farewell.

Tomorrow shall we visit you again.

PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Sweet health and fair desires consort your Grace!

KING. Thy own wish wish I thee in every place.

Exit with attendants BEROWNE. Lady, I will commend you to mine own heart.

ROSALINE. Pray you, do my commendations; I would be glad to see it.

BEROWNE. I would you heard it groan.

ROSALINE. Is the fool sick?

BEROWNE. Sick at the heart.

ROSALINE. Alack, let it blood.

BEROWNE. Would that do it good?

ROSALINE. My physic says ‘ay.’

BEROWNE. Will YOU prick’t with your eye?

ROSALINE. No point, with my knife.

BEROWNE. Now, God save thy life!

ROSALINE. And yours from long living!

BEROWNE. I cannot stay thanksgiving. [Retiring]

DUMAIN. Sir, I pray you, a word: what lady is that same?

BOYET. The heir of Alencon, Katharine her name.

DUMAIN. A gallant lady! Monsieur, fare you well. Exit LONGAVILLE. I beseech you a word: what is she in the white?

BOYET. A woman sometimes, an you saw her in the light.

LONGAVILLE. Perchance light in the light. I desire her name.

BOYET. She hath but one for herself; to desire that were a shame.

LONGAVILLE. Pray you, sir, whose daughter?

BOYET. Her mother’s, I have heard.

LONGAVILLE. God’s blessing on your beard!

BOYET. Good sir, be not offended;

She is an heir of Falconbridge.

LONGAVILLE. Nay, my choler is ended.

She is a most sweet lady.

BOYET. Not unlike, sir; that may be. Exit LONGAVILLE

BEROWNE. What’s her name in the cap?

BOYET. Rosaline, by good hap.

BEROWNE. Is she wedded or no?

BOYET. To her will, sir, or so.

BEROWNE. You are welcome, sir; adieu!

BOYET. Farewell to me, sir, and welcome to you.

Exit BEROWNE. LADIES Unmask MARIA. That last is Berowne, the merry mad-cap lord; Not a word with him but a jest.

BOYET. And every jest but a word.

PRINCESS OF FRANCE. It was well done of you to take him at his word.

BOYET. I was as willing to grapple as he was to board.

KATHARINE. Two hot sheeps, marry!

BOYET. And wherefore not ships?

No sheep, sweet lamb, unless we feed on your lips.

KATHARINE. You sheep and I pasture-shall that finish the jest?

BOYET. So you grant pasture for me. [Offering to kiss her]

KATHARINE. Not so, gentle beast;

My lips are no common, though several they be.

BOYET. Belonging to whom?

KATHARINE. To my fortunes and me.

PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Good wits will be jangling; but, gentles, agree;

This civil war of wits were much better used On Navarre and his book-men, for here ‘tis abused.

BOYET. If my observation, which very seldom lies, By the heart’s still rhetoric disclosed with eyes, Deceive me not now, Navarre is infected.

PRINCESS OF FRANCE. With what?

BOYET. With that which we lovers entitle ‘affected.’

PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Your reason?

BOYET. Why, all his behaviours did make their retire To the court of his eye, peeping thorough desire.

His heart, like an agate, with your print impressed, Proud with his form, in his eye pride expressed; His tongue, all impatient to speak and not see, Did stumble with haste in his eyesight to be; All senses to that sense did make their repair, To feel only looking on fairest of fair.

Methought all his senses were lock’d in his eye, As jewels in crystal for some prince to buy; Who, tend’ring their own worth from where they were glass’d, Did point you to buy them, along as you pass’d.

His face’s own margent did quote such amazes That all eyes saw his eyes enchanted with gazes.

I’ll give you Aquitaine and all that is his, An you give him for my sake but one loving kiss.

PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Come, to our pavilion. Boyet is dispos’d.

BOYET. But to speak that in words which his eye hath disclos’d; I only have made a mouth of his eye,

By adding a tongue which I know will not lie.

MARIA. Thou art an old love-monger, and speakest skilfully.

KATHARINE. He is Cupid’s grandfather, and learns news of him.

ROSALINE. Then was Venus like her mother; for her father is but grim.

BOYET. Do you hear, my mad wenches?

MARIA. No.

BOYET. What, then; do you see?

MARIA. Ay, our way to be gone.

BOYET. You are too hard for me. Exeunt

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ACT III. SCENE I.

The park

 

Enter ARMADO and MOTH

 

ARMADO. Warble, child; make passionate my sense of hearing.

[MOTH sings Concolinel]

ARMADO. 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.

MOTH. Master, will you win your love with a French brawl?

ARMADO. How meanest thou? Brawling in French?

MOTH. No, my complete master; but to jig off a tune at 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 snuff’d up love by smelling love, with your hat penthouse-like o’er the shop of your eyes, with your arms cross’d 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 would be betrayed without these; and make them men of note-do you note me?- that most are affected to these.

ARMADO. How hast thou purchased this experience?

MOTH. By my penny of observation.

ARMADO. But O-but O—

MOTH. The hobbyhorse is forgot.

ARMADO. Call’st thou my love ‘hobbyhorse’?

MOTH. No, master; the hobbyhorse is but a colt, and your love perhaps a hackney. But have you forgot your love?

ARMADO. Almost I had.

MOTH. Negligent student! learn her by heart.

ARMADO. By heart and in heart, boy.

MOTH. And out of heart, master; all those three I will prove.

ARMADO. 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, being out of heart that you cannot enjoy her.

ARMADO. I am all these three.

MOTH. And three times as much more, and yet nothing at all.

ARMADO. Fetch hither the swain; he must carry me a letter.

MOTH. A message well sympathiz’d-a horse to be ambassador for an ass.

ARMADO. 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.

ARMADO. The way is but short; away.

MOTH. As swift as lead, sir.

ARMADO. The meaning, pretty ingenious?

Is not lead a metal heavy, dull, and slow?

MOTH. Minime, honest master; or rather, master, no.

ARMADO. I say lead is slow.

MOTH. You are too swift, sir, to say so: Is that lead slow which is fir’d from a gun?

ARMADO. 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 ARMADO. 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.

ARMADO. Some enigma, some riddle; come, thy l’envoy; begin.

COSTARD. 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!

ARMADO. 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?

MOTH. Do the wise think them other? Is not l’envoy a salve?

ARMADO. 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.

ARMADO. The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee, Were