COSTARD.
Gardon, O sweet gardon! Better than remuneration, a ’levenpence farthing better. Most sweet gardon! I will do it, sir, in print. Gardon! Remuneration!
[Exit.]
BEROWNE.
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 Signior 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 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 watched 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,
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.
[Exit.]
ACT IV
SCENE I. The King of Navarre’s park
Enter the Princess, a Forester, Rosaline, Maria, Katharine, Boyet and other Lords.
PRINCESS.
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.
PRINCESS.
Whoe’er he was, he showed a mounting mind.
Well, lords, today 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?