True, true, and now you will be my purgation and let me loose.
Arm. I give thee thy liberty, set thee from durance, and in lieu thereof, impose on thee nothing but this: bear this significant [giving a letter] to the country maid Jaquenetta. There is remuneration, for the best ward of mine honor is rewarding my dependants. Moth, follow.
Moth. Like the sequel, I. Signior Costard, adieu.
Exit [Armado, followed by Moth].
Cost. My sweet ounce of man’s flesh, my incony Jew!
Now will I look to his remuneration. Remuneration! O, that’s the Latin word for three farthings: three farthings—remuneration. “What’s the price of this inkle?”—“One penny.”—“No, I’ll give you a remuneration”: why, it carries it. Remuneration: why, it is a fairer name than French crown! I will never buy and sell out of this word.
Enter Berowne.
Ber. O, my good knave Costard, exceedingly well met!
Cost. Pray you, sir, how much carnation ribbon may a man buy for a remuneration?
Ber. O, what is a remuneration?
Cost. Marry, sir, halfpenny farthing.
Ber. O, why then three-farthing worth of silk.
Cost. I thank your worship, God be wi’ you!
Ber.
O, stay, slave; I must employ thee.
As thou wilt win my favor, good my knave,
Do one thing for me that I shall entreat.
Cost. When would you have it done, sir?
Ber. O, this afternoon.
Cost. Well, I will do it, sir; fare you well.
Ber. O, thou knowest not what it is.
Cost. I shall know, sir, when I have done it.
Ber. Why, villain, thou must know first.
Cost. I will come to your worship to-morrow morning.
Ber.
It must be done this afternoon. Hark, slave, it is but this:
The Princess comes to hunt here in the park,
And in her train there is a gentle lady:
When tongues speak sweetly, then they name her name,
And Rosaline they call her. Ask for her,
And to her white hand see thou do commend
This seal’d-up counsel. There’s thy guerdon; go.
Cost. Garden, O sweet gardon! better than remuneration, aleven-pence-farthing better; most sweet gardon! I will do it, sir, in print. Gardon! Remuneration!
Exit.
Ber.
O, and I, forsooth, in love! I, that have been love’s whip,
A very beadle to a humorous sigh,
A critic, nay, a night-watch constable,
A domineering pedant o’er the boy,
Than whom no mortal so magnificent!
This wimpled, whining, purblind, wayward boy,
This senior[-junior], giant-dwarf, Dan Cupid,
Regent of love-rhymes, lord of folded arms,
Th’ anointed sovereign of sighs and groans,
Liege of all loiterers and malecontents,
Dread prince of plackets, king of codpieces,
Sole imperator and great general
Of trotting paritors (O my little heart!),
And I to be a corporal of his field,
And wear his colors like a tumbler’s hoop!
What! I love, I sue, I seek a wife—
A woman, that is like a German [clock],
Still a-repairing, ever out of frame,
And never going aright, being a watch,
But being watch’d that it may still go right!
Nay, to be perjur’d, which is worst of all;
And among three to love the worst of all,
A whitely wanton with a velvet brow,
With two pitch-balls stuck in her face for eyes;
Ay, and, by heaven, one that will do the deed
Though Argus were her eunuch and her guard.
And I to sigh for her, to watch for her,
To pray for her, go to! It is a plague
That Cupid will impose for my neglect
Of his almighty dreadful little might.
Well, I will love, write, sigh, pray, sue, groan:
Some men must love my lady, and some Joan.
[Exit.]
¶
[ACT IV]
[Scene I]
Enter the Princess, a Forester, her Ladies [Rosaline, Maria, Katherine], and her Lords, [among them Boyet].
Prin.
Was that the King that spurr’d his horse so hard
Against the steep-up rising of the hill?
For.
I know not, but I think it was not he.
Prin.
Whoe’er ’a was, ’a show’d a mounting mind.
Well,
