»The hobby-horse is forgot.«

ARM. Call'st thou my love »hobby-horse«?

MOTH. No, master, the hobby-horse is but a colt, [aside] and your love perhaps a hackney. – But have you forgot your love?

ARM. Almost I had.

MOTH. Negligent student, learn her by heart.

ARM. By heart and in heart, boy.

MOTH. And out of heart, master; all those three I will prove.

ARM. What wilt thou prove?

MOTH. A man, if I live; and this, »by, in, and without,« upon the instant: by heart you love her, because your heart cannot come by her; in heart you love her, because your heart is in love with her; and out of heart you love her, being out of heart that you cannot enjoy her.

ARM. I am all these three.

MOTH. And three times as much more – [aside] and yet nothing at all.

ARM. Fetch hither the swain, he must carry me a letter.

MOTH. A message well sympathiz'd – a horse to be embassador for an ass.

ARM. Ha, ha? what sayest thou?

MOTH. Marry, sir, you must send the ass upon the horse, for he is very slow-gaited. But I go.

ARM. The way is but short, away!

MOTH. As swift as lead, sir.

ARM.

The meaning, pretty ingenious?

Is not lead a metal heavy, dull, and slow?

MOTH.

Minime, honest master, or rather, master, no.

ARM.

I say lead is slow.

MOTH.

You are too swift, sir, to say so.

Is that lead slow which is fir'd from a gun?

ARM.

Sweet smoke of rhetoric!

He reputes me a cannon, and the bullet, that's he;

I shoot thee at the swain.

MOTH.

Thump then, and I flee.

 

[Exit.]

ARM.

A most acute juvenal, volable and free of grace!

By thy favor, sweet welkin, I must sigh in thy face:

Most rude melancholy, valor gives thee place.

My herald is return'd.

 

Enter Page [Moth] and Clown [Costard].

 

MOTH.

A wonder, master! Here's a costard broken in a shin.

ARM.

Some enigma, some riddle – come, thy l'envoy – begin.

COST. No egma, no riddle, no l'envoy, no salve in the mail, sir. O sir, plantan, a plain plantan; no l'envoy, no l'envoy, no salve, sir, but a plantan!

ARM. By virtue thou enforcest laughter – thy silly thought, my spleen; the heaving of my lungs provokes me to ridiculous smiling – O, pardon me, my stars! Doth the inconsiderate take salve for l'envoy, and the word ›l'envoy‹ for a salve?

MOTH.

Do the wise think them other? is not l'envoy a salve?

ARM.

No, page, it is an epilogue or discourse, to make plain

Some obscure precedence that hath tofore been sain.

I will example it:

The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee

Were still at odds, being but three.

There's the moral. Now the l'envoy.

MOTH. I will add the l'envoy. Say the moral again.

ARM.

The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee

Were still at odds, being but three.

MOTH.

Until the goose came out of door,

And stayed the odds by adding four.

Now will I begin your moral, and do you follow with my l'envoy:

The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee

Were still at odds, being but three.

ARM.

Until the goose came out of door,

Staying the odds by adding four.

MOTH. A good l'envoy, ending in the goose; would you desire more?

COST.

The boy hath sold him a bargain, a goose, that's flat.

Sir, your pennyworth is good, and your goose be fat.

To sell a bargain well is as cunning as fast and loose:

Let me see: a fat l'envoy – ay, that's a fat goose.

ARM.

Come hither, come hither. How did this argument begin?

MOTH.

By saying that a costard was broken in a shin.

Then call'd you for the l'envoy.

COST.

True, and I for a plantan; thus came your argument in;

Then the boy's fat l'envoy, the goose that you bought,

And he ended the market.

ARM. But tell me, how was there a costard broken in a shin?

MOTH.