AMORETTO. So, sir, when we had rewarded our dogs with the small guts, and the lights, and the blood, the huntsmen hallooed, So ho! Venué, a coupler; and so coupled the dogs, and then returned homeward. Another company of hounds, that lay at advantage, had their couples cast off, and we might hear the huntsmen cry, Horse, decouple, avant; but straight we heard him cry, Le amond, and by that I knew that they had the hare, and on foot; and by and by I might see sore and resore, prick and reprick. What, is he gone! ha, ha, ha, ha! these scholars are the simplest creatures!
ACTUS II., SCAENA 6.
Enter Amoretto's PAGE.
PAGE. I wonder what is become of that Ovid de arte amandi.[90] My master, he that for the practice of his discourse is wont to court his hobby abroad and at home, in his chamber makes a set speech to his greyhound, desiring that most fair and amiable dog to grace his company in a stately galliard; and if the dog, seeing him practise his lusty points, as his cross-point back-caper, chance to bewray the room, he presently doft's his cap, most solemnly makes a low leg to his ladyship, taking it for the greatest favour in the world that she would vouchsafe to leave her civet-box or her sweet glove behind her.
[Enter AMORETTO, reading Ovid.]
Not a word more. Sir, an't please you, your hobby will meet you at the lane's end.
AMORETTO. What, Jack? i'faith, I cannot but vent unto thee a most witty jest of mine.
PAGE. I hope my master will not break wind. [Aside.] Will't please you, sir, to bless mine ears with the discourse of it?
AMORETTO. Good faith, the boy begins to have an elegant smack of my style. Why, then, thus it was, Jack, a scurvy mere Cambridge scholar, I know not how to define him—
PAGE. Nay, master, let me define a mere scholar. I heard a courtier once define a mere scholar to be animal scabiosum, that is, a living creature that is troubled with the itch; or, a mere scholar is a creature that can strike fire in the morning at his tinder-box, put on a pair of lined slippers, sit rheuming[91] till dinner, and then go to his meat when the bell rings: one that hath a peculiar gift in a cough, and a licence to spit. Or, if you will have him defined by negatives, he is one that cannot make a good leg; one that cannot eat a mess of broth cleanly; one that cannot ride a horse without spur-galling; one that cannot salute a woman, and look on her directly; one that cannot—