King.
What say you, lords? Why, this was quite forgot.
Ber.
So study evermore is overshot:
While it doth study to have what it would,
It doth forget to do the thing it should;
And when it hath the thing it hunteth most,
’Tis won as towns with fire—so won, so lost.
King.
We must of force dispense with this decree,
She must lie here on mere necessity.
Ber.
Necessity will make us all forsworn
Three thousand times within this three years’ space;
For every man with his affects is born,
Not by might mast’red, but by special grace.
If I break faith, this word shall speak for me:
I am forsworn ‘on mere necessity.’
So to the laws at large I write my name,
[Subscribes.]
And he that breaks them in the least degree
Stands in attainder of eternal shame.
Suggestions are to other as to me;
But I believe, although I seem so loath,
I am the last that will last keep his oath.
But is there no quick recreation granted?
King.
Ay, that there is. Our court you know is haunted
With a refined traveller of Spain,
A man in all the world’s new fashion planted,
That hath a mint of phrases in his brain;
One who the music of his own vain tongue
Doth ravish like enchanting harmony;
A man of complements, whom right and wrong
Have chose as umpeer of their mutiny.
This child of fancy, that Armado hight,
For interim to our studies shall relate,
In high-borne words, the worth of many a knight
From tawny Spain, lost in the world’s debate.
How you delight, my lords, I know not, I,
But I protest I love to hear him lie,
And I will use him for my minstrelsy.
Ber.
Armado is a most illustrious wight,
A man of fire-new words, fashion’s own knight.
Long.
Costard the swain and he shall be our sport,
And so to study three years is but short.
Enter a Constable [Dull] with a letter, with Costard.
Dull. Which is the Duke’s own person?
Ber. This, fellow. What wouldst?
Dull. I myself reprehend his own person, for I am his Grace’s farborough; but I would see his own person in flesh and blood.
Ber. This is he.
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?
