: Enter Armado, Moth and Costard.
Nath. Videfne quis venit ?
Hol. Video & gaudia.
Arm. Chirra.
Hol. Quare Chirra, not Sirrah?
Arm. Men of peace, well encountered.
Hul. Most military Sir, falutation.

Moth. They have been at a great feast of languages, and stole the scraps.

Coft. O, they have liv'd long on the alms-basket of words. I marvel, thy master hath not eaten thee for 2 word; for thou art not so long by the head as honorifisabilitudinitatibus : thou art easier swallow'd than a flapdragon.

Moth. Peace, the peal begins.
Arm. Monsieur, are you not letter'd ?

Moth. Yes, yes, he teaches boys the horn-book :
What is A B spelt backward with a horn on his head?

Họl. Ba, pueritia, with a horn added.

Moth. Ba, most filly Theep, with a horn. You hear his learning.

Hol. Quis, quis, thou consonant?

Moth. The third of the five vowels, if you repeat them ; or the fifth, if I. (37)

Hol. I will repeat them, a el.
Moth. The theep; the other two concludes it, 0, 0.

Arm. Now, by the salt wave of the Mediterranean, a sweet touch, a quick venew of wit; snip, Inap, quick and home ; it rejoiceth my intellect; true wit.

Moth. Offer'd by a child to an old man : which is wit-old.

(37) The last of the five vowels, if you repeat them; o tbe fifth if 1: Hol. I will repeat them, a e I.

Moth. be beep :-ibe ofber, two concludes it out.) Wonderful fagacity again ! all the editions agree in this reading ; but is not the last and the fifth, the fame vowel? tho' my correction reftores but a poor conundrum, yet if it reftores the poet's mcaning, it is the duty of an editor to trace him in his lowest conceits. By, o, u, Math would mean-oh, you,-ie.' You are the sheep fill, either way; no matter, which of us repeats them.

Hol.

the top

Hol. What is the figure ? what is the figure ?
Moth. Horns.
Hol. Thou disputest like an infant; go, whip thy gigg,

Moth. Lend me your horn to make one; and I will whip about your intamy (38) circum circà: a gigg of a cuckold's horn.

Coff. An I had but one penny in the world, thou shouldst have it to buy ginger-bread; hold, there is the very remuneration I had of thy master, thou half-penny purse of wit, thou pigeon-egg of discretion. O, that the heav'ns were so pleased, that thou wert but my bastard! what a joyful father wouldīt thou make me? go to, thou hast it ad dungbill; at the finger's ends, aś they say,

Hol. Oh, I smell false latin, dung hill for unguem.

Arn. Arts-man, præambula ; we will be fingled from the barbarous. Do you not educate youth at the chargehouse on

of the mountain ?
Hol, Or, Mons the hill:
Arm. At your sweet pleasure, for the mountain.
Hol. I do, sans question.

Arm. Sir, it is the King's most sweet pleasure and affection, to congratulate the Princess at her pavillion, in the posteriors of this day, which the rude multitude call the afternoon.

Hol. The posterior of the day, most generous Sir, is liable, congruent, and measureable for the afternoon : the world is well culld, choice, sweet, and apt, I do assure you, Sir, I do assure.

Arm. Sir, the King is a noble gentleman, and my familiar; I do assure ye, my very good friend ; for what is inward between us, let it pass I do beseech thee, remember thy curtesy — I beseech thee, apparel thy head, -and among other importunate and most ferious designs, and of great import indeed too-but let that pass :—for I must tell thee, it will please his Grace (by the world) fometime to lean upon my poor

(38) I will whip about your infamy unum cita ;] Here again all the editions give us jargon instead of Latin. But Moth would certainly say circum circa; i. about and about.

fhoulder,

Goulder, and with his royal finger thus dally with my excrement, with my mustachio; but sweet heart, let that pass. By the world, I recount no fable; some certain special" honours it pleafeth his. Greatness to impart to Armado, a soldier, a man of travel, that huur seen the world; but let that pafs--the very all of siis-but sweet heart, I do implore fecrecy--that the Sing would have me present the Princess (sweet chuck) with fome delightful oftentation, or show, or pageant, or antick, or fire-work. Now, understanding that the Curate and your sweet self are good at such eruptions, and sudden breaking out of mirth, (as it were) I have acquainted you withal, to the end to crave your affiftance.

Hol. Sir, you shall present before her the nine worthies. Sir, as concerning some entertainment of time, some show in the posterior of this day, to be rendered by our affiftants at the King's command, and this most gallant, illustrate and learned gentleman, before the Princess : I say, none fo fit as to present the nine worthies.

Nath. Where will you find men worthy enough to présent them

Hol. Jobüa, yourself; this gallant man, Judas Macábeus ; this swain (because of his great limb or joint): fhall pass Pompey the great; and the page, Hercules,

Arm. Pardon, Sir, error: he is not quantity enough fir that worthy's thumb; he is not so big as the end of his club.

Hol. Shall I have audience ? he shall present Hercules in minority: his Enter and his Exit fall be strangling a snake; and I will have an apology for that purpose.

Moth. An excellent device: for if any of the audience hiss, you may cry; “ well done, Hercules, now thou “ crushest the snake;" that is the way to make an offence gracious, tho' few have the grace to do it.

Arm. For the rest of the worthies.
Hol. I will play three myself.
Moth. Thrice-worthy gentleman !
Arm. Shall I tell you a thing?

Hela

Hol. We attend.

Arm. We will have, if this fadge not, an antick. } beseech you, follow.

Hol. Via! good-man Dull, thou haft spoken no word all this while.

Dull. Nor understood none neither, Sir.
Hol. Allons; we will employ thee.

Dull. I'll make one in a dance, or fo : or I will play
on the taber to the worthies, and let them dance the
hay.
Hol. Mof dull, honest, Dull, to our sport away.

[Exeurt.

Enter Princess, and Ladies.
Prin. Weet hearts, we shall be rich ere we depart,

If fairings come thus plentifully in,
A Lady wall’d about with diamonds !
Look you, what I have from the loving King.

Rofa. Madam, came nothing else along with that?

Prin. Nothing but this? yes, as much love in rhime,(392
As would be cram'd up in a sheet of paper,
Writ on both sides the leaf, margent and all ;
That he was fain to seal on Cupid's name.

Rofu. That was the way to make his god-head wax,
For he hath been five thousand years a boy.

Catb. Ay, and a shrewd unhappy gallows too.
Roja. You'll ne'er be friends with him; he kill'd your

fifter.
Cath. He made her melancholy, fad and heavy,
And so she died; had the been light, like you,
Of fuch a merry, nimble, stirring spirit,
(39)

as much love in rbime,
As would be cram'd up in a face of paper,

Writ on both sides ebe icaf, margent ond all.]
I dara aot affirm this to be an imitac n, but it carries a mighty room
semblance of this passage in the beginning of Juvenal's first satire.

summi plenâ jam margine libri Scriptus, & in tergo nec dum finitus Orestesa

She

She might have been a grandam ere fhe dy'd.
And so may you; for a light heart lives long.
Rofa. What's your dark meaning, mouse, of this light

word?
Cath. A light condition, in a beauty dark.
Rosa. We need more light to find your meaning out.
Cath. You'll mar the light, by taking it in snuff:
Therefore I'll darkly end the argument.

Rofa. Look, what you do, and do it ftill i'th' dark.
Cath. So do not you, for you are a light wench.
Rofa. Indeed, I weigh not you; and therefore light.
Cath. You weigh me not;0, that's, you care not for me.
Rofa. Great reason ; for past cure is still past care.(40)

Prin. Well bandied both; a set of wit well play'd.
But, Rosaline, you have a favour too:
Who sent it? and what is it?

Rofa. I would, you knew.
And if my

face were but as fair as yours,
My favour were as great; be witness this.
Nay, I have verses too, I thank Biron.
The numbers true, and were the numbring too,
I were the fairelt goddess on the ground.
I am compar'd to twenty thousand fairs,
O, he hath drawn my picture in his letter.

Prin. Any thing like ?
Roja. Much in the letters, nothing in the praise.
Prin. Beauteous as ink; a good conclusion.
Çath. Fair as a text B in a copy-book.
Rofa. Ware pencils. How let me not die your debtor,
My red dominical, my golden letter.
Q, that your face were not so full of oes!
Cath. Pox of chat jest, and I beshrew all fhrews : (41)

Prin.

(40) – for past care is fill past cure.] The transposition which I have made in the two words, care and cure, is by the direction of the ingenious Dr. Thirlby. The reason speaks for itself.

(41) Prin. Pox of that jest, and I befrew all fhrews. As the Princess has behav'd with great decency all along hitherto, there. is no reason to be assign'd why the mould start all at once into this: course dialect. But I am persuaded, the editors only have made her go out of character. In thorc, Rosaline and Catbarine are rallying one

another