Act 4, Scene 1

The King of Navarre's park.

[Enter the PRINCESS, ROSALINE, MARIA, KATHARINE, BOYET, LORDS, ATTENDANTS, and a FORESTER.]
Princess of France
895 Was that the King that spurr'd his horse so hard
896 Against the steep uprising of the hill?
Boyet
897 I know not; but I think it was not he.
Princess of France
898 Whoe'er a' was, a' show'd a mounting mind.
899 Well, lords, to-day we shall have our dispatch;
900 On Saturday we will return to France.
901 Then, forester, my friend, where is the bush
902 That we must stand and play the murderer in?
Forester
903 Hereby, upon the edge of yonder coppice;
904 A stand where you may make the fairest shoot.
Princess of France
905 I thank my beauty, I am fair that shoot,
906 And thereupon thou speak'st the fairest shoot.
Forester
907 Pardon me, madam, for I meant not so.
Princess of France
908 What, what? First praise me, and again say no?
909 O short-liv'd pride! Not fair? Alack for woe!
Forester
910 Yes, madam, fair.
Princess of France
911 Nay, never paint me now;
912 Where fair is not, praise cannot mend the brow.
913 Here, good my glass
[Gives money]
Princess of France
914 :—take this for telling true:
Princess of France
915 Fair payment for foul words is more than due.
Forester
916 Nothing but fair is that which you inherit.
Princess of France
917 See, see! my beauty will be sav'd by merit.
918 O heresy in fair, fit for these days!
919 A giving hand, though foul, shall have fair praise.
920 But come, the bow: now mercy goes to kill,
921 And shooting well is then accounted ill.
922 Thus will I save my credit in the shoot:
923 Not wounding, pity would not let me do't;
924 If wounding, then it was to show my skill,
925 That more for praise than purpose meant to kill.
926 And out of question so it is sometimes,
927 Glory grows guilty of detested crimes,
928 When, for fame's sake, for praise, an outward part,
929 We bend to that the working of the heart;
930 As I for praise alone now seek to spill
931 The poor deer's blood, that my heart means no ill.
Boyet
932 Do not curst wives hold that self-sovereignty
933 Only for praise' sake, when they strive to be
934 Lords o'er their lords?
Princess of France
935 Only for praise; and praise we may afford
936 To any lady that subdues a lord.
[Enter COSTARD.]
Boyet
937 Here comes a member of the commonwealth.
Costard
938 God dig-you-den all! Pray you, which is the head lady?
Princess of France
939 Thou shalt know her, fellow, by the rest that have no heads.
Costard
940 Which is the greatest lady, the highest?
Princess of France
941 The thickest and the tallest.
Costard
942 The thickest and the tallest! It is so; truth is truth.
943 An your waist, mistress, were as slender as my wit,
944 One o' these maids' girdles for your waist should be fit.
945 Are not you the chief woman? You are the thickest here.
Princess of France
946 What's your will, sir? What's your will?
Costard
947 I have a letter from Monsieur Berowne to one Lady Rosaline.
Princess of France
948 O! thy letter, thy letter; he's a good friend of mine.
949 Stand aside, good bearer. Boyet, you can carve;
950 Break up this capon.
Boyet
951 I am bound to serve.
952 This letter is mistook; it importeth none here.
953 It is writ to Jaquenetta.
Princess of France
954 We will read it, I swear.
955 Break the neck of the wax, and every one give ear.
Boyet
956 'By heaven, that thou art fair is most infallible;
957 true, that thou art beauteous; truth itself, that thou art
958 lovely. More fairer than fair, beautiful than beauteous, truer
959 than truth itself, have commiseration on thy heroical vassal! The
960 magnanimous and most illustrate king Cophetua set eye upon the
961 pernicious and indubitate beggar Zenelophon, and he it was that
962 might rightly say, Veni, vidi, vici; which to anatomize in
963 the vulgar— O base and obscure vulgar!—videlicet, he came, saw,
964 and overcame: he came, one; saw, two; overcame, three. Who came?
965 the king: Why did he come? to see: Why did he see? to overcome:
966 To whom came he? to the beggar: What saw he? the beggar. Who
967 overcame he? the beggar. The conclusion is victory; on whose
968 side? the king's; the captive is enriched: on whose side? the
969 beggar's. The catastrophe is a nuptial: on whose side? the
970 king's, no, on both in one, or one in both. I am the king, for so
971 stands the comparison; thou the beggar, for so witnesseth thy
972 lowliness. Shall I command thy love? I may: Shall I enforce thy
973 love? I could: Shall I entreat thy love? I will. What shalt thou
974 exchange for rags? robes; for tittles? titles; for thyself?
975 -me. Thus, expecting thy reply, I profane my lips on thy foot, my
976 eyes on thy picture, and my heart on thy every part.
977 Thine in the dearest design of industry,
978 DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO.
979 'Thus dost thou hear the Nemean lion roar
980 'Gainst thee, thou lamb, that standest as his prey;
981 Submissive fall his princely feet before,
982 And he from forage will incline to play.
983 But if thou strive, poor soul, what are thou then?
984 Food for his rage, repasture for his den.'
Princess of France
985 What plume of feathers is he that indited this letter?
986 What vane? What weathercock? Did you ever hear better?
Boyet
987 I am much deceiv'd but I remember the style.
Princess of France
988 Else your memory is bad, going o'er it erewhile.
Boyet
989 This Armado is a Spaniard, that keeps here in court;
990 A phantasime, a Monarcho, and one that makes sport
991 To the Prince and his book-mates.
Princess of France
992 Thou fellow, a word.
993 Who gave thee this letter?
Costard
994 I told you; my lord.
Princess of France
995 To whom shouldst thou give it?
Costard
996 From my lord to my lady.
Princess of France
997 From which lord to which lady?
Costard
998 From my Lord Berowne, a good master of mine,
999 To a lady of France that he call'd Rosaline.
Princess of France
1000 Thou hast mistaken his letter. Come, lords, away.
1001 Here, sweet, put up this: 'twill be thine another day.
[Exeunt PRINCESS and TRAIN.]
Boyet
1002 Who is the suitor? who is the suitor?
Rosaline
1003 Shall I teach you to know?
Boyet
1004 Ay, my continent of beauty.
Rosaline
1005 Why, she that bears the bow.
1006 Finely put off!
Boyet
1007 My lady goes to kill horns; but, if thou marry,
1008 Hang me by the neck, if horns that year miscarry.
1009 Finely put on!
Rosaline
1010 Well then, I am the shooter.
Boyet
1011 And who is your deer?
Rosaline
1012 If we choose by the horns, yourself: come not near.
1013 Finely put on indeed!
Maria
1014 You still wrangle with her, Boyet, and she strikes at the
1015 brow.
Boyet
1016 But she herself is hit lower: have I hit her now?
Rosaline
1017 Shall I come upon thee with an old saying, that was a man
1018 when King Pepin of France was a little boy, as touching the hit
1019 it?
Boyet
1020 So I may answer thee with one as old, that was a woman when
1021 Queen Guinever of Britain was a little wench, as touching the hit
1022 it.
Rosaline
1023 Thou canst not hit it, hit it, hit it,
1024 Thou canst not hit it, my good man.
Boyet
1025 An I cannot, cannot, cannot,
1026 An I cannot, another can.
[Exeunt ROSALINE and KATHARINE.]
Costard
1027 By my troth, most pleasant: how both did fit it!
Maria
1028 A mark marvellous well shot; for they both did hit it.
Boyet
1029 A mark! O! mark but that mark; A mark, says my lady!
1030 Let the mark have a prick in't, to mete at, if it may be.
Maria
1031 Wide o' the bow-hand! I' faith, your hand is out.
Costard
1032 Indeed, a' must shoot nearer, or he'll ne'er hit the clout.
Boyet
1033 An' if my hand be out, then belike your hand is in.
Costard
1034 Then will she get the upshoot by cleaving the pin.
Maria
1035 Come, come, you talk greasily; your lips grow foul.
Costard
1036 She's too hard for you at pricks, sir; challenge her to bowl.
Boyet
1037 I fear too much rubbing. Good-night, my good owl.
[Exeunt BOYET and MARIA.]
Costard
1038 By my soul, a swain! a most simple clown!
1039 Lord, Lord! how the ladies and I have put him down!
1040 O' my troth, most sweet jests, most incony vulgar wit!
1041 When it comes so smoothly off, so obscenely, as it were, so fit.
1042 Armado, o' the one side, O! a most dainty man!
1043 To see him walk before a lady and to bear her fan!
1044 To see him kiss his hand! and how most sweetly a' will swear!
1045 And his page o' t'other side, that handful of wit!
1046 Ah! heavens, it is a most pathetical nit.
[Shouting within.]
Costard
1047 Sola, sola!
[Exit running.]

Reading mode

Word definitions on hover

Notes

TLN 898archaic vocab
“a' show'd a mounting mind”
'A'' is an Elizabethan shortened form of 'he.' 'Mounting mind' means an ambitious, aspiring spirit — someone eager to climb to the top, here literally and figuratively, since the rider spurred up a steep hill.
TLN 903archaic vocab
“upon the edge of yonder coppice; A stand where you may make the fairest shoot”
A 'coppice' is a thicket of small trees cut back regularly to produce straight, usable poles. A 'stand' is a hunter's fixed position — a spot to wait motionless for game to pass. The Forester is directing the Princess to the best place to shoot deer as they break out of the wood.
TLN 905wordplay
“I thank my beauty, I am fair that shoot”
The Princess turns the Forester's hunting term 'fairest shoot' into a compliment on her looks: 'fair' = beautiful, and 'that shoot' = who does the shooting. She then spins a small theological joke (line 917-918): 'my beauty will be sav'd by merit' mocks the Protestant doctrine that salvation is by faith alone, not by good works ('merit'). She is saying, with mock-piety, that a woman's beauty should 'save' her by its own intrinsic worth — 'heresy in fair.'
TLN 949wordplay
“you can carve; Break up this capon”
'Carve' means to cut up food at table — a courtly skill, since carving was considered an art gentlemen should master. To 'break up' a capon (a castrated rooster fattened for eating) was the technical term for opening and portioning a fowl. The Princess is using poultry-carving slang to mean 'open this sealed letter' — a letter from Armado is compared to a fat, hollow bird.
TLN 960rhetorical device
“magnanimous and most illustrate king Cophetua set eye upon the pernicious and indubitate beggar Zenelophon”
King Cophetua was a legendary African king who, despite despising women, fell in love with a beggar-girl named Zenelophon and made her his queen. Armado is casting himself as Cophetua and Jaquenetta as Zenelophon. The joke is in the inflated language: 'magnanimous and most illustrate' (grand-spirited and illustrious) for the king, 'pernicious and indubitate' (harmful and undoubted) for the beggar-girl — absurd modifiers that parody the style of chivalric romance.
TLN 962historical topical
“Veni, vidi, vici; which to anatomize in the vulgar”
'Veni, vidi, vici' — Latin for 'I came, I saw, I conquered' — was Julius Caesar's famous report of his swift victory at the Battle of Zela (47 BCE), quoted by the ancient biographer Plutarch. Armado's letter borrows Caesar's words to describe King Cophetua falling in love with a beggar-girl, which reduces the most celebrated military dispatch of antiquity to a joke about romantic conquest. 'Anatomize in the vulgar' means 'explain in the common tongue' (i.e., English, not Latin).
TLN 979classical allusion
“Thus dost thou hear the Nemean lion roar 'Gainst thee, thou lamb”
The Nemean lion was a ferocious beast whose hide no weapon could pierce; strangling it was the first of the twelve labours of Hercules. Armado compares himself to this invincible monster ('the Nemean lion') roaring at the meek Jaquenetta ('thou lamb'), commanding her to submit or be devoured. The poem turns a love declaration into a mock-heroic threat.
classical The Nemean lion (Hercules' first labour)
TLN 990historical topical
“A phantasime, a Monarcho, and one that makes sport”
A 'phantasime' (fantasm) is an extravagant fantasist, someone out of touch with reality. 'Monarcho' was the nickname of a real Italian eccentric in Elizabethan London — a deluded man who styled himself emperor of the world and was tolerated at court as a comic figure. Boyet is telling the Princess that Armado is a well-known type of court fool: a grandiose, self-important entertainer like that famous pretender.
TLN 1017historical topical
“an old saying, that was a man when King Pepin of France was a little boy”
King Pepin (Pepin the Short, d. 768 CE) was the father of Charlemagne and the first Carolingian king of France — a figure so remote in time that 'since King Pepin's day' had become an Elizabethan phrase meaning 'since ancient times, time out of mind.' Rosaline and Boyet exchange mock-ancient proverbs about whether she has been hit or not, each claiming the other's saying is 'as old' as a famous medieval figure.
TLN 1040archaic vocab
“most incony vulgar wit! When it comes so smoothly off, so obscenely”
'Incony' (also spelled 'inkony') is an Elizabethan dialect word meaning delicate, fine, or exquisite — used here with comic affection. Costard, the clown, is praising the wit-combat he has just watched as exquisitely crude ('incony vulgar'): the combination of a refined term with 'vulgar' (common, coarse) is itself the joke. He then adds 'so obscenely' — clearly meaning something like 'so fittingly, so neatly,' not the modern sense, though the bawdy overtone is deliberate.
TLN 1046archaic vocab
“it is a most pathetical nit”
'Pathetical' means moving, touching, or pitiable — an emphatic compliment, not an insult. 'Nit' here means a small, insignificant creature (the louse-egg sense was current, reinforcing Moth's tiny size). Costard is praising Armado's tiny page Moth as a touchingly clever little thing — 'a most moving little creature.'
TLN 1047cultural context
“Sola, sola!”
'Sola!' (sometimes 'soho!') was a traditional hunting cry used to rally the chase or signal a quarry had been spotted — the stage direction says Costard exits 'running,' and he is calling the chase cry as he bolts after the hunt. The cry signals that the scene's sustained hunting metaphor is still literally in play.