Dull. Signior Arme—Arme—commends you. There’s villainy abroad; this letter will tell you more.
Cost. Sir, the contempts thereof are as touching me.
King. A letter from the magnificent Armado.
Ber. How low soever the matter, I hope in God for high words.
Long. A high hope for a low heaven. God grant us patience!
Ber. To hear, or forbear hearing?
Long. To hear meekly, sir, and to laugh moderately; or to forbear both.
Ber. Well, sir, be it as the style shall give us cause to climb in the merriness.
Cost. The matter is to me, sir, as concerning Jaquenetta: the manner of it is, I was taken with the manner.
Ber. In what manner?
Cost. In manner and form following, sir, all those three: I was seen with her in the manor-house, sitting with her upon the form, and taken following her into the park, which, put together, is in manner and form following. Now, sir, for the manner—it is the manner of a man to speak to a woman; for the form—in some form.
Ber. For the following, sir?
Cost. As it shall follow in my correction, and God defend the right!
King. Will you hear this letter with attention?
Ber. As we would hear an oracle.
Cost. Such is the simplicity of man to hearken after the flesh.
King [Reads.] “Great deputy, the welkin’s vicegerent, and sole dominator of Navarre, my soul’s earth’s god, and body’s fost’ring patron”—
Cost. Not a word of Costard yet.
King [Reads.] “So it is”—
Cost. It may be so; but if he say it is so, he is, in telling true—but so.
King. Peace!
Cost.—be to me, and every man that dares not fight!
King. No words!
Cost.—of other men’s secrets, I beseech you.
King [Reads.] “So it is, besieged with sable-colored melancholy, I did commend the black oppressing humor to the most wholesome physic of thy health- giving air; and as I am a gentleman, betook myself to walk: the time When? about the sixt hour, when beasts most graze, birds best peck, and men sit down to that nourishment which is called supper: so much for the time When. Now for the ground Which? which, I mean, I walk’d upon: it is ycliped thy park. Then for the place Where? where, I mean, I did encounter that obscene and most prepost’rous event that draweth from my snow-white pen the ebon-colored ink which here thou viewest, beholdest, surveyest, or seest. But to the place Where? It standeth north-north-east and by east from the west corner of thy curious-knotted garden. There did I see that low-spirited swain, that base minnow of thy mirth”—
Cost. Me?
King [Reads.] “that unlettered small-knowing soul”—
Cost. Me?
King [Reads.] “that shallow vassal”—
Cost. Still me?
King [Reads.] “which, as I remember, hight Costard”—
Cost. O! me.
King [Reads.] “sorted and consorted, contrary to thy established proclaimed edict and continent canon; which with—O, with—but with this I passion to say wherewith”—
Cost. With a wench.
King [Reads.] “with a child of our grandmother Eve, a female; or for thy more sweet understanding, a woman. Him I (as my ever-esteemed duty pricks me on) have sent to thee, to receive the meed of punishment, by thy sweet Grace’s officer, Anthony Dull, a man of good repute, carriage, bearing, and estimation.”
Dull. Me, an’t shall please you: I am Anthony Dull.
King [Reads.] “For Jaquenetta (so is the weaker vessel called), which I apprehended with the aforesaid swain, I keep her as a vessel of thy law’s fury, and shall, at the least of thy sweet notice, bring her to trial. Thine, in all complements of devoted and heart-burning heat of duty,
Don Adriano de Armado.”
Ber. This is not so well as I look’d for, but the best that ever I heard.
King. Ay, the best for the worst. But, sirrah, what say you to this?
Cost. Sir, I confess the wench.
King. Did you hear the proclamation?
Cost. I do confess much of the hearing it, but little of the marking of it.
King. It was proclaim’d a year’s imprisonment to be taken with a wench.
Cost. I was taken with none, sir, I was taken with a damsel.
King. Well, it was proclaim’d damsel.
Cost. This was no damsel neither, sir, she was a virgin.
[King.] It is so varied too, for it was proclaim’d virgin.
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 Berowne, see him delivered o’er,
And go we, lords, to put in practice that
Which each to other hath so strongly sworn.
[Exeunt King, Longaville, and Dumaine.]
Ber.
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]
Enter Armado and Moth, his page.
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 imp.
Moth. No, no, O Lord, sir, no.
Arm. How canst thou part sadness and melancholy, my tender juvenal?
Moth. By a familiar demonstration of the working, my tough signior.
Arm. Why tough signior? Why tough signior?
Moth.