Cost. If it were, I deny her virginity; I was taken with a maid.

King. This maid will not serve your turn, sir. Cost. This maid will serve my turn, sir. King. Sir, I will pronounce your sentence; You shall fast a week with bran and water. Cost. I had rather pray a month with mutton and porridge.

King. And Don Armado shall be your keeper.
-My lord Biron, see him deliver'd o'er.—

And go we, lords, to put in practice that
Which each to other hath so strongly sworn.—

[Exeunt King, LONGAVILLE, and DUMAIN. Biron. I'll lay my head to any good man's hat, These oaths and laws will prove an idle Scorn.Sirrah, come on.

Cost. I suffer for the truth, sir: for true it is, I was taken with Jaquenetta, and Jaquenetta is a true girl; and therefore, Welcome the sour cup of prosperity! Affliction may one day smile again, and till then, Sit thee down, sorrow! [Exeunt.

SCENE II. Another part of the same.

Armado's House.

Enter ARMADO and MOTH.

Arm. Boy, what sign is it, when a man of great

spirit grows melancholy?

Moth. A great sign, sir, that he will look sad. Arm. Why, sadness is one and the self-same thing, dear imp1.

Moth. No, no; O lord, sir, no.

1 Imp literally means a graft, slip, scion, or sucker and by metonymy is used for a child or boy. Cromwell, in his last letter to Henry VIII. prays for the imp his son. It was then perJaps growing obsolete. It is now used only to signify young fiends; as the Devil and his imps.

Arm. How canst thou part sadness and melancholy, my tender juvenal ??

Moth. By a familiar demonstration of the working, my tough senior.

Arm. Why tough senior? why tough senior? Moth. Why, tender juvenal? why tender juvenal? Arm. I spoke it, tender juvenal, as a congruent epitheton, appertaining to thy young days, which we may nominate tender.

Moth. And I, tough senior, as an appertinent title to your old time, which we may name tough. Arm. Pretty, and apt.

Moth. How mean you, sir? I pretty, and my saying apt? or I apt, and my saying pretty? Arm. Thou pretty, because little.

Moth. Little pretty, because little: Wherefore apt? Arm. And therefore apt, because quick.

Moth. Speak you this in my praise, master?

Arm. In thy condign praise.

Moth. I will praise an eel with the same praise. Arm. What? that an eel is ingenious?

Moth. That an eel is quick.

Arm. I do say, thou art quick in answers:

Thou heatest my blood.

Moth. I am answered, sir.

Arm. I love not to be crossed.

Moth. He speaks the mere contrary, crosses love not him.

[Aside.

3

Arm. I have promised to study three years with the duke.

Moth. You may do it in an hour, sir.
Arm. Impossible.

2 i. e. youth.

3 By crosses he means money.

Clown says to Celia ' If I should bear

So in As You Like It: the
I should bear no cross.'

you,

Many coins were anciently marked with a Cross on one side,

Moth. How many is one thrice told?

Arm. I am ill at reckoning, it fitteth the spirit of

a tapster.

Moth. You are a gentleman, and a gamester, sir. Arm. I confess both; they are both the varnish of a complete man.

Moth. Then, I am sure, you know how much the gross sum of deuce-ace amounts to.

Arm. It doth amount to one more than two.

Moth. Which the base vulgar do call three.
Arm. True.

Moth. Why, sir, is this such a piece of study? Now here is three studied, ere you'll thrice wink : and how easy it is to put years to the word three, and study three years in two words, the dancing horse will tell 4

you.

Arm. A most fine figure!
Moth. To prove you a cipher.

[Aside.

Arm. I will hereupon confess, I am in love: and, as it is base for a soldier to love, so am in love with a base wench. If drawing my sword against the humour of affection would deliver me from the reprobate thought of it, I would take desire prisoner, and ransom him to any French courtier for a new devised courtesy. I think scorn to sigh; methinks, I should out-swear Cupid. Comfort me, boy: What great men have been in love?

Moth. Hercules, master.

Arm. Most sweet Hercules!-More authority,

4 This alludes to the celebrated bay horse Morocco, belonging to one Bankes, who exhibited his docile and sagacious animal through Europe. Many of his remarkable pranks are mentioned by cotemporary writers, and he is alluded to by numbers besides Shakspeare. The fate of man and horse is not known with certainty, but it has been asserted that they were both burnt at Rome, as magicians, by order of the Pope. The best account of Bankes and his horse is to be found in the notes to a French translation of Apuleius's Golden Ass, by Jean de Montlyard, 1602.

dear boy, name more; and, sweet my child, let them be men of good repute and carriage.

Moth. Samson, master: he was a man of good carriage, great carriage! for he carried the towngates on his back, like a porter: and he was in love.

Arm. O well-knit Samson! strong-jointed Samson! I do excel thee in my rapier, as much as thou didst me in carrying gates. I am in love too,— Who was Samson's love, my dear Moth?

Moth. A woman, master.

Arm. Of what complexion?

Moth. Of all the four, or the three, or the two; or one of the four.

Arm. Tell me precisely of what complexion?
Moth. Of the sea-water green, sir.

Arm. Is that one of the four complexions? Moth. As I have read, sir; and the best of them too.

Arm. Green, indeed, is the colour of lovers 5: but to have a love of that colour, methinks, Samson had small reason for it. He, surely, affected her

for her wit.

Moth. It was so, sir; for she had a green wit. Arm. My love is most immaculate white and red. Moth. Most maculate thoughts, master, are masked under such colours.

Arm. Define, define, well-educated infant.

Moth. My father's wit, and my mother's tongue, assist me!

Arm. Sweet invocation of a child; most pretty, and pathetical!

Moth. If she be made of white and red,
Her faults will ne'er be known;

For blushing cheeks by faults are bred,
And fears by pale-white shown:

5 The allusion probably is to the willow, the supposed ornament of unsuccessful lovers.

Then, if she fear, or be to blame,

By this

you shall not know;

For still her cheeks possess the same,
Which native she doth owe".

A dangerous rhyme, master, against the reason of white and red.

Arm. Is there not a ballad, boy, of the King and the Beggar??

Moth. The world was very guilty of such a ballad some three ages since but, I think, now 'tis not to be found; or, if it were, it would neither serve for the writing, nor the tune.

Arm. I will have the subject newly writ o'er, that I may example my digression 8 by some mighty precedent. Boy, I do love that country girl, that I took in the park with the rational hind 9 Costard: she deserves well.

Moth. To be whipped; and yet a better love than my master. [Aside. Arm. Sing, boy; my spirit grows heavy in love. Moth. And that's great marvel, loving a light wench.

Arm. I say, sing.

Moth. Forbear till this company be past.

Enter DULL, COSTARD, and JAQUENETTA. Dull. Sir, the duke's pleasure is, that you keep Costard safe and you must let him take no delight, nor no penance; but a' must fast three days a-week:

6 Of which she is naturally possessed. 7 See Percy's Reliques of Antient Poetry, fourth edit. vol. i p. 198.

8 Digression is here used for the act of going out of the right way, transgression. So in Shakspeare's Rape of Lucrecemy digression is so vile, so base,

That it will live engraven on my face.'

9 Armado applies this epithet ironically to Costard.