This wimpled, whining, purblind, wayward boy;
This senior-junior, giant-dwarf, Dan Cupid;
Regent of love-rhymes, lord of folded arms,
The anointed sovereign of sighs and groans,
Liege of all loiterers and malcontents,
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 colours 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 perjured, 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!

181. wimpled, hooded, here blindfold. Lyly uses it thus of Justice, 'that sitteth wimpled about the eyes.'

186. plackets, codpieces, distinctive portions of female and masculine dress.

188. paritor, An officer of the bishop's court who carried out citations.'-Johnson.

189. corporal of the field, aidede-camp.

192, 193. German clock. Most clocks were then of German make. They were proverbially often in need of repair. 193. frame, order.

198. whitely, pale, whitish; perhaps to denote effeminacy. The epithet is hardly consistent with the dark or brunette complexion ascribed to Rosaline. Possibly, if an actual court lady was intended by Rosaline when the play was performed in 159798, an inexact epithet was expressly chosen in a passage which makes SO serious a charge against her as that in the following lines.

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 and

groan:

Some men must love my lady and some Joan.

Enter the Princess, and her train, a Forester, BOYET, ROSALINE, MARIA, and KATHARINE.

Prin. Was that the king, that spurred his horse so hard

Against the steep uprising of the hill?

Boyet. I know not; but I think it was not he. Prin. Whoe'er a' was, a' show'd a mounting mind.

Well, lords, to-day we shall have our dispatch:
On Saturday we will return to France.
Then, forester, my friend, where is the bush
That we must stand and play the murderer in?
For. Hereby, upon the edge of yonder cop-
pice;

A stand where you may make the fairest shoot.
Prin. I thank my beauty, I am fair that shoot,
And thereupon thou speak'st the fairest shoot.

For. Pardon me, madam, for I meant not so.
Prin. What, what? first praise me and again
say no?

O short-lived pride! Not fair? alack for woe!

10. stand, station.

ΤΟ

For. Yes, madam, fair.

Prin.
Where fair is not, praise cannot mend the brow.
Here, good my glass, take this for telling true:
Fair payment for foul words is more than due.
For. Nothing but fair is that which you in-
herit.

Nay, never paint me now:

Prin. See, see, my beauty will be saved by merit!

O heresy in fair, fit for these days!

A giving hand, though foul, shall have fair praise.
But come, the bow now mercy goes to kill,
And shooting well is then accounted ill.
Thus will I save my credit in the shoot:
Not wounding, pity would not let me do 't;
If wounding, then it was to show my skill,

That more for praise than purpose meant to kill.
And out of question so it is sometimes,
Glory grows guilty of detested crimes,

When, for fame's sake, for praise, an outward
part,

We bend to that the working of the heart;

As I for praise alone now seek to spill

The poor deer's blood, that my heart means no ill.

Boyet. Do not curst wives hold that self-
sovereignty

Only for praise sake, when they strive to be
Lords o'er their lords?

Prin. Only for praise: and praise we may

20

30

40

'sovereignty residing in oneself,' 'autocracy,' or self' same,' in which case the hyphen should be deleted.

E

Boyet. Here comes a member of the commonwealth.

Enter COSTARD.

Cost. God dig-you-den all! Pray you, which is the head lady?

Prin. Thou shalt know her, fellow, by the rest that have no heads.

Cost. Which is the greatest lady, the highest?
Prin. The thickest and the tallest.

Cost. The thickest and the tallest! it is so;
truth is truth.

An your waist, mistress, were as slender as my

wit,

One o' these maids' girdles for your waist should

be fit.

Are not you the chief woman? you are the

thickest here.

Prin. What's your will, sir?

will ?

what's your

Cost. I have a letter from Monsieur Biron to

one Lady Rosaline.

Prin. O, thy letter, thy letter! he's a good

friend of mine:

Stand aside, good bearer. Boyet, you can carve;
Break up this capon.

Boyet.

I am bound to serve. This letter is mistook, it importeth none here;

It is writ to Jaquenetta.

Prin.

We will read it, I swear.

Break the neck of the wax, and every one give

ear.

Boyet [reads].

50

By heaven, that thou art fair, 60

56. capon; a love-letter, Fr. poulet. 'Break up' and 'serve' in the next line of course con

tinue the play; 'break up' was
familiar both in the sense of
'open' and '
1 'carve.'

is most infallible; true, that thou art beauteous; truth itself, that thou art lovely. More fairer than fair, beautiful than beauteous, truer than truth itself, have commiseration on thy heroical vassal! The magnanimous and most illustrate king Cophetua set eye upon the pernicious and indubitate beggar Zenelophon; and he it was that might rightly say, Veni, vidi, vici; which to annothanize in the vulgar,-O base and obscure vulgar !—videlicet, He came, saw, and overcame: 70 he came, one; saw, two; overcame, three. Who came? the king: why did he come? to see: why did he see? to overcome: to whom came he? to the beggar: what saw he? the beggar: who overcame he? the beggar. The conclusion is victory : on whose side? the king's. The captive is enriched on whose side? the beggar's. The catastrophe is a nuptial: on whose side? the king's: no, on both in one, or one in both. I am the king; for so stands the comparison: thou the 80 beggar; for so witnesseth thy lowliness. Shall I command thy love? I may: shall I enforce thy love? I could: shall I entreat thy love? I will. What shalt thou exchange for rags? robes; for tittles? titles; for thyself? me. Thus, expecting

:

thy reply, I profane my lips on thy foot, my eyes on thy picture, and my heart on thy every part. Thine, in the dearest design of industry,

DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO.'

Thus dost thou hear the Nemean lion roar
'Gainst thee, thou lamb, that standest as his

prey.

Submissive fall his princely feet before,

67. Zenelophon; so Ff, Qq for Penelophon.'

90

69. annothanize. So Ff, Qq; Armado's quasi-learned blunder for 'anatomize.'