Cost. I am more bound to you than your fellows, for they are but lightly rewarded.
Arm. Take away this villain, shut him up.
Moth. Come, you transgressing slave, away.
Cost. Let me not be pent up, sir; I will fast, being loose.
Moth. No, sir, that were fast and loose; thou shalt to prison.
Cost. Well, if ever I do see the merry days of desolation that I have seen, some shall see.
Moth. What shall some see?
Cost. Nay, nothing, Master Moth, but what they look upon. It is not for prisoners to be too silent in their words, and therefore I will say nothing. I thank God I have as little patience as another man, and therefore I can be quiet.
Exit [with Moth].
Arm. I do affect the very ground (which is base) where her shoe (which is baser) guided by her foot (which is basest) doth tread. I shall be forsworn (which is a great argument of falsehood) if I love. And how can that be true love, which is falsely attempted? Love is a familiar; Love is a devil; there is no evil angel but Love. Yet was Sampson so tempted, and he had an excellent strength; yet was Salomon so seduced, and he had a very good wit. Cupid’s butt-shaft is too hard for Hercules’ club, and therefore too much odds for a Spaniard’s rapier. The first and second cause will not serve my turn; the passado he respects not, the duello he regards not: his disgrace is to be called boy, but his glory is to subdue men. Adieu, valor, rust, rapier, be still, drum, for your manager is in love; yea, he loveth. Assist me, some extemporal god of rhyme, for I am sure I shall turn sonnet. Devise, wit, write, pen, for I am for whole volumes in folio.
Exit.
¶
[ACT II]
[Scene I]
Enter the Princess of France with three attending Ladies [Rosaline, Maria, Katherine] and three Lords, [one named Boyet].
Boyet.
Now, madam, summon up your dearest spirits;
Consider who the King your father sends,
To whom he sends, and what’s his embassy:
Yourself, held precious in the world’s esteem,
To parley with the sole inheritor
Of all perfections that a man may owe,
Matchless Navarre; the plea of no less weight
Than Aquitaine, a dowry for a queen.
Be now as prodigal of all dear grace
As Nature was in making graces dear,
When she did starve the general world beside
And prodigally gave them all to you.
Prin.
Good Lord Boyet, my beauty, though but mean,
Needs not the painted flourish of your praise:
Beauty is bought by judgment of the eye,
Not utt’red by base sale of chapmen’s tongues.
I am less proud to hear you tell my worth
Than you much willing to be counted wise
In spending your wit in the praise of mine.
But now to task the tasker: good Boyet,
You are not ignorant all-telling fame
Doth noise abroad Navarre hath made a vow,
Till painful study shall outwear three years,
No woman may approach his silent court;
Therefore to ’s seemeth it a needful course,
Before we enter his forbidden gates,
To know his pleasure; and in that behalf,
Bold of your worthiness, we single you
As our best-moving fair solicitor.
Tell him, the daughter of the King of France,
On serious business craving quick dispatch,
[Importunes] personal conference with his Grace.
Haste, signify so much, while we attend,
Like humble[-visag’d] suitors, his high will.
Boyet.
Proud of employment, willingly I go.
Exit Boyet.
Prin.
All pride is willing pride, and yours is so.
Who are the votaries, my loving lords,
That are vow-fellows with this virtuous Duke?
[1.] Lord.
[Lord] Longaville is one.
Prin.
Know you the man?
[Mar.]
I know him, madam; at a marriage-feast,
Between Lord Perigort and the beauteous heir
Of Jaques Falconbridge, solemnized
In Normandy, saw I this Longaville,
A man of sovereign [parts, peerless] esteem’d,
Well fitted in arts, glorious in arms;
Nothing becomes him ill that he would well.
The only soil of his fair virtue’s gloss,
If virtue’s gloss will stain with any soil,
Is a sharp wit match’d with too blunt a will,
Whose edge hath power to cut, whose will still wills
It should none spare that come within his power.
Prin.
Some merry mocking lord belike, is’t so?
[Mar.]
They say so most that most his humors know.
Prin.
Such short-liv’d wits do wither as they grow.
Who are the rest?
[Kath.]
The young Dumaine, a well-accomplish’d youth,
Of all that virtue love for virtue loved;
Most power to do most harm, least knowing ill;
For he hath wit to make an ill shape good,
And shape to win grace though he had no wit.
I saw him at the Duke Alanson’s once,
And much too little of that good I saw
Is my report to his great worthiness.
[Ros.]
Another of these students at that time
Was there with him, if I have heard a truth.
Berowne they call him, but a merrier man,
Within the limit of becoming mirth,
I