wits will be jangling, but, gentles, agree:
This civil war of wits were much better used
On Navarre and his book-men, for here ’tis abused.
Boyet.
If my observation (which very seldom lies),
By the heart’s still rhetoric, disclosed with eyes,
Deceive me not now, Navarre is infected.
Prin.
With what?
Boyet.
With that which we lovers entitle ‘affected.’
Prin.
Your reason?
Boyet.
Why, all his behaviors did make their retire
To the court of his eye, peeping thorough desire:
His heart like an agot with your print impressed,
Proud with his form, in his eye pride expressed;
His tongue, all impatient to speak and not see,
Did stumble with haste in his eyesight to be;
All senses to that sense did make their repair,
To feel only looking on fairest of fair:
Methought all his senses were lock’d in his eye,
As jewels in crystal for some prince to buy,
Who tend’ring their own worth from where they were glass’d,
Did point you to buy them, along as you pass’d;
His face’s own margent did cote such amazes
That all eyes saw his eyes enchanted with gazes.
I’ll give you Aquitaine and all that is his,
And you give him for my sake but one loving kiss.
Prin.
Come to our pavilion—Boyet is dispos’d.
Boyet.
But to speak that in words which his eye hath disclos’d.
I only have made a mouth of his eye,
By adding a tongue which I know will not lie.
[Mar.]
Thou art an old love-monger and speakest skillfully.
[Kath.]
He is Cupid’s grandfather, and learns news of him.
[Ros.]
Then was Venus like her mother, for her father is but grim.
Boyet.
Do you hear, my mad wenches?
[Mar.]
No.
Boyet.
What then, do you see?
[Mar.]
Ay, our way to be gone.
Boyet.
You are too hard for me.
Exeunt omnes.
¶
[ACT III]
[Scene I]
Enter Braggart [Armado] and his Boy [Moth].
Arm. Warble, child, make passionate my sense of hearing.
Moth [Sings the song.] “Concolinel.”
Arm. Sweet air! Go, tenderness of years, take this key, give enlargement to the swain, bring him festinately hither. I must employ him in a letter to my love.
Moth. Master, will you win your love with a French brawl?
Arm. How meanest thou? Brawling in French?
Moth. No, my complete master, but to jig off a tune at the tongue’s end, canary to it with your feet, humor it with turning up your eyelids, sigh a note and sing a note, sometime through the throat, [as] if you swallow’d love with singing love, sometime through [the] nose, as if you snuff’d up love by smelling love; with your hat penthouse-like o’er the shop of your eyes; with your arms cross’d on your thin[-bellied] doublet like a rabbit on a spit; or your hands in your pocket like a man after the old painting; and keep not too long in one tune, but a snip and away: these are complements, these are humors, these betray nice wenches that would be betray’d without these; and make them men of note—do you note?—men that most are affected to these.
Arm. How hast thou purchased this experience?
Moth. By my [penny] of observation.
Arm. But O—but O—
Moth. “The hobby-horse is forgot.”
Arm. Call’st thou my love “hobby-horse”?
Moth. No, master, the hobby-horse is but a colt, [aside] and your love perhaps a hackney.—But have you forgot your love?
Arm. Almost I had.
Moth. Negligent student, learn her by heart.
Arm. By heart and in heart, boy.
Moth. And out of heart, master; all those three I will prove.
Arm. What wilt thou prove?
Moth. A man, if I live; and this, “by, in, and without,” upon the instant: by heart you love her, because your heart cannot come by her; in heart you love her, because your heart is in love with her; and out of heart you love her, being out of heart that you cannot enjoy her.
Arm. I am all these three.
Moth. And three times as much more—[aside]
