One o’ these maids’ girdles for your waist should be fit.

Are not you the chief woman? You are the thickest here.

PRINCESS What’s your will, sir? What’s your will?

COSTARD

I have a letter from Monsieur Biron to one Lady Rosaline.

PRINCESS

O, thy letter, thy letter! (She takes it) He’s a good friend of mine.

(To Costard) Stand aside, good bearer. Boyet, you can carve.

Break up this capon.

She gives the letter to Boyet

BOYET I am bound to serve.

This letter is mistook. It importeth none here.

It is writ to Jaquenetta.

PRINCESS We will read it, I swear.

Break the neck of the wax, and everyone 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’s eye upon the penurious and indubitate beggar Zenelophon, and he it was that might rightly say “Veni, vidi, vicí”, which to annothanize in the vulgar—O base and obscure vulgar!—videlicet “He came, see, and overcame.” He came, one; see, 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 enriched. 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? 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.’

PRINCESS

What plume of feathers is he that indited this letter?

What vane? What weathercock? Did you ever hear

better?

BOYET

I am much deceived but I remember the style.

PRINCESS

Else your memory is bad, going o’er it erewhile.

BOYET

This Armado is a Spaniard that keeps here in court,

A phantasim, a Monarcho, and one that makes sport

To the Prince and his bookmates.

PRINCESS (to Costard) Thou, fellow, a word.

Who gave thee this letter?

COSTARD I told you—my lord.

PRINCESS

To whom shouldst thou give it?

COSTARD From my lord to my lady.

PRINCESS

From which lord to which lady?

COSTARD

From my lord Biron, a good master of mine,

To a lady of France that he called Rosaline.

PRINCESS

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

(To Rosaline, giving her the letter)

Here, sweet, put up this, ‘twill be thine another day.

Exit attended

BOYET

Who is the suitor? Who is the suitor?

ROSALINE

Shall I teach you to know?

BOYET

Ay, my continent of beauty.

ROSALINE

Why, she that bears the bow.

Finely put off.

BOYET

My lady goes to kill horns, but if thou marry,

Hang me by the neck if horns that year miscarry.

Finely put on.

ROSALINE

Well then, I am the shooter.

BOYET

And who is your deer?

ROSALINE

If we choose by the horns, yourself come not near.

Finely put on indeed!

MARIA

You still wrangle with her, Boyet, and she strikes at the brow.

BOYET

But she herself is hit tower—have I hit her now?

ROSALINE Shall I come upon thee with an old saying that was a man when King Pépin 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 Guinevere of Britain was a little wench, as touching the hit it.

ROSALINE (sings)

Thou canst not hit it, hit it, hit it,

Thou canst not hit it, my good man.

BOYET (sings)

An I cannot, cannot, cannot,

An I cannot, another can.

Exit Rosaline

COSTARD

By my troth, most pleasant How both did fit it!

MARIA

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.

MARIA

Wide o’ the bow hand—i’faith, your hand is out.

COSTARD

Indeed, a must shoot nearer, or he’ll ne’er hit the clout.

BOYET

An if my hand be out, then belike your hand is in.

COSTARD

Then will she get the upshoot by cleaving the pin.

MARIA

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

COSTARD

She’s too hard for you at pricks, sir. Challenge her to bowl.

BOYET

I fear too much rubbing. Goodnight, my good owl.

Exeunt Boyet, Maria, ⌈and Catherine⌉

COSTARD

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!

Armado o‘th’ t’other 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,

And his page o’ t’other side, that handful of wit—

Ah heavens, it is a most pathetical nit!

Shout within

Sola, sola!

Exit

4.2 Enter Dull, Holofernes the pedant, and Nathaniel the curate

NATHANIEL Very reverend sport, truly, and done in the testimony of a good conscience.

HOLOFERNES The deer was, as you know—sanguis—in blood, ripe as the pomewater who now hangeth like a jewel in the ear of caelo, the sky, the welkin, the heaven, and anon falleth like a crab on the face of terra, the soil, the land, the earth.

NATHANIEL 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.

HOLOFERNES Sir Nathaniel, haud credo.

DULL ‘Twas not a ‘auld grey doe’, ’twas a pricket.

HOLOFERNES 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.