Cost. Pray you, sir, how much carnation ribbon may a man buy for a remuneration? Biron. What is a remuneration?

Cost. Marry, sir, half-penny farthing.

Biron. O, why then, three-farthings-worth of silk.
Cost. I thank your worship: God be with you!
Biron. O, stay, slave; I must employ thee:
As thou wilt win my favour, good my knave,
Do one thing for me that I shall entreat.

Cost. When would you have it done, sir?
Biron. O, this afternoon.

Cost. Well, I will do it, sir: Fare you well.
Biron. O, thou knowest not what it is.
Cost. I shall know, sir, when I have done it.
Biron. Why, villain, thou must know first.

Cost. I will come to your worship to-morrow morning.

Biron. It must be done this afternoon. slave, it is but this;

The princess comes to hunt here in the park,
And in her train there is a gentle lady;

Hark,

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 17; [Gives him money.

go. Cost. Guerdon,-O sweet guerdon! better than remuneration; eleven-pence farthing better: Most sweet guerdon!-I will do it, sir, in print 18. Guerdon-remuneration. [Exit.

17 Guerdon, Fr. is reward. Mr. Steevens prints a story of similar import from an old tract entitled 'A Health to the gentlemanly Profession of Serving-man; or, The Serving-man's Comfort,' 1578; which, if the date be correct, furnished Shakspeare with Costard's pleasantry about Guerdon and Remuneration. 18 With the utmost nicety.

Biron. O!

And I, forsooth, in love! I, that

have been love's whip;

A

very beadle to a humorous sigh;

A critick; nay, a night-watch constable;
A domineering pedant o'er the boy,
Than whom no mortal so magnificent 19!

This wimpled 20, 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 21, king of codpieces,
Sole imperator, and great general

Of trotting paritors 22-O my little heart!-
And I to be a corporal of his field 23,

And wear his colours 24 like a tumbler's hoop!
What? I! I love! I sue! I seek a wife!
A woman, that is like a German clock 25,
Still a repairing; ever out of frame;

19 Magnificent here means glorying, boasting.

20 To wimple is to veil, from guimple, Fr. which Cotgrave explains The crepine of a French hood,' i. e. the cloth going from the hood round the neck. Kersey explains it, 'The muffler or plaited linen cloth which nuns wear about their neck.' Shakspeare means no more than that Cupid was hood-winked. 21 Plackets were stomachers.

Act iv. Sc. 3.

See Note on Winter's Tale,

22 The officers of the spiritual courts who serve citations. 23 It appears from Lord Stafford's Letters, vol. ii. p. 199, that a corporal of the field was employed, as an aid-de-camp is now, 'in taking and carrying to and fro the directions of the general, or other higher officers of the field.'

24 It was once a mark of gallantry to wear a lady's colours. So in Cynthia's Revels by Jonson, 'dispatches his lacquey to her chamber early, to know what her colours are for the day.' It appears that a tumbler's hoop was usually dressed out with coloured ribands.

25 Clocks, which were usually imported from Germany at this time, were intricate and clumsy pieces of mechanism, soon deranged, and frequently '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!
Το 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.

[Exit.

ACT IV.

SCENE I. Another part of the same.

Enter the Princess, ROSALINE, MARIA, KATHARINE, BOYET, Lords, Attendants, and a Forester.

Prin. Was that the king, that spurr'd 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 he was, he show'd a mounting mind. Well, lords, to-day we shall have our despatch; 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. Here by, upon the edge of yonder coppice; 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-liv'd pride! Not fair? alack for woe!
For. Yes, madam, fair.

Prin.
Nay, never paint me now;
Where fair is not, praise cannot mend the brow.
Here, good my glass 1, take this for telling true;
[Giving him money.

Fair payment for foul words is more than due.
For. Nothing but fair is that which you inherit.
Prin. See, see, my beauty will be sav'd 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 shew 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 afford To any lady that subdues a lord.

1 Here Drs. Johnson and Farmer have each a note too long and too absurd to quote, to show it was the fashion for ladies to wear mirrors at their girdles. Steevens says justly (though he qualifies his assertion with perhaps) that Dr. Johnson is mistaken, and that the forester is the mirror. It is impossible for common sense to suppose otherwise.-Pye.

Enter COSTARD.

Here comes a member of the commonwealth. Cost. God dig-you-den3 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 of 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? what's your will? 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.] By heaven, that thou art fair, is most infallible; true, that thou art beauteous; truth

2 The princess calls Costard a member of the commonwealth, because he is one of the attendants on the king and his associates in their new modelled society.

3 A corruption of God give you good even. Juliet, Act ii. Sc. 4.

See Romeo and

4 i. e. open this letter. The poet uses this metaphor as the French do their poulet; which signifies both a young fowl and a love letter. To break up was a phrase for to carve.