Arm. My love is most immaculate white and red.

Moth. Most maculate thoughts, master, are masked under such colours.

Arm. Define, define, well-educated infant.

Moth. My father's wit and my mother's tongue assist me! Arm. Sweet invocation of a child; most pretty and pathetical!

Moth.

If she be made of white and red,
Her faults will ne'er be known,

90

For blushing cheeks by faults are bred,

95

And fears by pale white shown:

Then if she fear, or be to blame,

By this you shall not know,

For still her cheeks possess the same
Which native she doth owe.

A dangerous rhyme, master, against the reason of

white and red.

Arm. Is there not a ballad, boy, of the King and the

Beggar?

100

Moth. The world was very guilty of such a ballad some 105 three ages since; but I think now 'tis not to be found;

87. maculate] Q 1, Pope et seq.; immaculate Ff, Q 2. 3, 4; blush-in Qq, F 1.

catorie to Foure Letters, etc., says: "Greene (although pitifully blasted and how wofully faded) still flourish eth in the memory of some greene wits"; and Dekker has "frame his green wits in penning love ditties" Batchelars Banquet [Ğrosart, i. 153], 1603). Another instance occurs in Elizabetha Triumphans, by James Aske (Nichols' Progresses [1823], ii. 546): "I find that (thereby) this is the hardest world that might happen to grosse heads and grene wits" (1588).

86. white and red] Compare A Twelfe Night Merriment (Narcissus), 1602 (ed. M. Lee, p. 12): "Leave off to bragg thou boy of Venus breadd, I am as faire as thou for white and red." See Pericles, IV. vi. 27: "flesh and blood, sir, white and red."

89. define] explain your meaning. 92. pathetical] pathetic. The word in the text is the earliest form of this term,

95. blushing] Ff 2,

which was introduced and often used by Gabriel Harvey. He has it several times in his Letters to Spenser: "Dionisius

is reported in a certain Patheticall Ecstasie to haue cryed out" ("Earthquake Letter") (Grosart, i. 57), 1580; and earlier, in 1573, Letter-Book (Camden Soc.). Greene adopted it in his Tritameron of Love (part i.), 1584 (Grosart, iii. 103): "any patheticall impression." Schmidt has a very erroneous remark at this word, used again in As You Like It, IV. i. 196, as well as later in this play.

102. white and red] Alluding to the two "complexions" or cosmetics, as in the quotation from Dekker above (line 75); the "Ceruse and Vermillion " of the same author in his Gull's Horn Book. Ceruse was known as "Spanish white."

103, 104. King and the Beggar] See note at Iv. i. 65, 66.

or, if it were, it would neither serve for the writing nor the tune. Arm. I will have that subject newly writ o'er, that I may

example my digression by some mighty precedent. I10 Boy, I do love that country girl that I took in the park with the rational hind Costard: she deserves well. Moth. To be whipped; and yet a better love than my

master.

Arm. Sing, boy: my spirit grows heavy in love.

Moth. And that's great marvel, loving a light wench.
Arm. I say, sing.

Moth. Forbear till this company be past.

Enter DULL, COSTARD, and JAQUENETTA.

[Aside. 115

Dull. Sir, the duke's pleasure is that you keep Costard safe: and you must let him take no delight nor no 120 penance, but he must fast three days a week. For this damsel, I must keep her at the park; she is allowed for the day-woman. Fare you well.

Arm. I do betray myself with blushing. Maid.

Jaq. Man.

Arm. I will visit thee at the lodge.

125

110. precedent] Johnson; president (or presedent) Qq, Ff. 3, 4; loue Qq; ioue F 1. stable, and Wench Qq, Ff. he] a' Q I and edd.

115. love] Ff 2, Enter ]Steevens (1793); Enter Clown, Con120. let him] Ff, Q 2; suffer him to Q 1.

107, 108. for the . . . tune] The metre of Moth's song being widely different from that of the ballad.

110. digression] deviation from the proper course; transgression. See Lucrece, 202. Ben Jonson has the word in a similar sense in Cynthia's Revels, 1. i., in a speech full of affectations by Amorphus. See the New Eng. Dict. for an earlier example from Hawes.

112. rational hind] intelligent clown. Theobald suggested a quibble on the two senses of hind, rustic and stag.

121.

1548) relating to fishing and fisher-
men, with injunctions "touching cer-
tain politick constitutions for the
maintenance of the Navy - that fish
should be eaten on Wednesdays and
Saturdays throughout the year-solely,
however, as a matter of national policy,
for Her Majesty also enjoins that any
man who teaches that eating fish has
the least connection with the service
of God shall be severely punished
(Dawson, St. Lawrence Basin, p. 224,
1905). These, with Friday, give the
three days.

123. allowed for the day-woman] admitted or passed as dairymaid. For day-woman (correctly dey), see the New Eng. Dict. Scott has it in The Fair Maid of Perth, and it is still in provincial use.

Dull. Come, Jaquenetta, away! [Exeunt Dull and Jaquenetta. Arm. Villain, thou shalt fast for thy offences ere thou be

Cost. Well, sir, I hope when I do it I shall do it on a full

131. that] Q 1, Ff 2, 3, 4; what F 1, Q 2.

Arm. Thou shalt be heavily punished.

Cost. I am more bound to you than your fellows, for they

are but lightly rewarded.

Arm. Take away this villain: shut him up.
Moth. Come, you transgressing slave: away!

145

Cost. Let him not be pent up, sir; I will fast, being loose.
Moth. No, sir, that were fast and loose: thou shalt to

prison.

Cost. Well, if ever I do see the merry days of desolation that I have seen, some shall see

150

Moth. What shall some see? Cost. Nay, nothing, Master Moth, but what they look upon. It is not for prisoners to be silent in their words, and therefore I will say nothing: I thank God I have as little patience as another man, and therefore I can be 155 quiet. [Exeunt Moth and Costard. Arm. I do affect the very ground, which is base, where her

153. not] omitted Q 2. be silent] Ff, Q 2; words] wards Johnson conj.

146. fast] be fast Ff 2, 3, 4. be too silent Q1, Malone, Cambridge. Nashe; and compare Captain Smith (Arber, p. 864), 1629: "Excellent, swift, stomack full, Tartarian horse." With a good heart.

142. fellows] servants. See 1 Henry

IV. IV. ii. 68.

147. fast and loose] a cheating trick. Most of the early examples refer it to the gipsies, as in Antony and Cleopatra, IV. x. 41; and a passage in Reginald Scot's Discoverie of Witchcraft, chap. xxix. (1584), is referred to by Nares to the same purpose. Compare Whetstone, Promos and Cassandra (pt. i.), ii. 5 (p. 24 in Six Old Plays), 1578: "At fast or loose, with my Giptian, I meane to have a cast: Tenne to one I read his fortune by the Marymas fast" (spoken by a hangman); and Lyly, Euphues and his England, 1580: "Thus with the Egyptian thou playest fast or loose" (Arber, p. 326). And Ben Jonson assigns it to a gipsy in his Masque of the Metamorphosed Gipsies. Oliphant (New English, i. 544) refers to Foxe's Book of Martyrs, 1558. An elaborate description of a "notable feat with beadstones in fast or loose" is given by R. Scot. I understand, from the editor of King John in this series, that this trick is not the

same as the well-known "trick ΟΙ "prick-of-the loop" to be seen on racecourses, fairs, etc. I believed it was; and I have Halliwell's support, and that of the New Eng. Dict. (Loop). 149. days of desolation] See Zephaniah i. 15.

157-159. base. . . baser . . . basest] This toying with a word, and bringing in its relatives to the feast, as it were, is a characteristic of Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia, rather than of Lyly, who repeats the letter and the sound, not the word itself. I may quote one or two passages from bk. iii.: "so terrible was his force, and yet was his quickness more forcible than his force, and his judgment more quick than his quickness "and yet did the one's strength excel in nimbleness, and the other's nimbleness excel in strength; but now nimbleness and strength were both gone"; "exceedingly sorry for Pamela, but exceedingly exceeding that exceedingness in fear for Philoclea." These ingenious affectations are distracting. How much better the plain English of a combat in Morte d'Arthur. See again Armado's letter, IV. i. 63-64; and compare Puttenham, p. 213: "Then have ye a figure which the

The first and

shoe, which is baser, guided by her foot, which is basest, doth tread. I shall be forsworn, which is a great argument of falsehood, if I love. And how 160 can that be true love which is falsely attempted? Love is a familiar; Love is a devil: there is no evil angel but Love. Yet Samson was so tempted, and he had an excellent strength; yet was Solomon so seduced, and he had a very good wit. Cupid's butt- 165 shaft is too hard for Hercules' club, and therefore too much odds for a Spaniard's rapier. 163. Samson was] Ff, Q 2; was Sampson Q I. Latines call Traductio, and I the tranlacer which is when ye turne and tranlace a word into many sundry shapes as the Tailor doth his garment, and after that sort to play with him in your dittie." This is Arcadianism exactly, but Armado does not go the whole length. Coleridge speaks of the "sublime tautology " of Judges v. 27 in a fine passage (quoted by Rolfe) in connection with the line above, “grace us in the disgrace of death" (1. i. 3). See elsewhere in Judges v., I Kings X. IO, etc. See Introduction.

160. argument] proof.

162. familiar] an attendant spirit; as in 1 Henry VI. III. ii. 122 and 2 Henry VI. IV. vii. 114 (Schmidt). "Behold there is a woman that hath a familiar spirit at Endor" (1 Samuel xxviii. 7).

165. Cupid's butt shaft] "strong unbarbed arrows used in the field exercises of the day" (Gifford). They hit hard but were easily extracted, so that they were suitable for Cupid's quiver. Compare Romeo and Juliet, II. iv. 15: "The very pin of his heart cleft with the blind bow-boy's butt-shaft." No other example has been adduced by the authorities, but I find it in Ben Jonson's Cynthia's Revels, v. iii. (again in Cupid's possession): "I fear thou hast not arrows for the purpose. Cupid. O yes, here be of all sorts-flights, rovers and butt-shafts." See note at "bird-bolt," IV. iii. 22.

167. Spaniard's rapier] See Merry Wives, 11. i. 227, note in Arden edition. 167, 168. first and second cause] Compare As You Like It, v. iv. 52, 69, and Romeo and Juliet, 11. iv. 26. Evidently technical terms in the duello, Halli

well gives a long extract (quoted by Furness) from Vincentio Saviola's Honor and Honorable Quarrels, 1594, which is not satisfactory. Furness says there may be a book not yet discovered where these causes of quarrels are clearly defined. This seems to me undoubted. Is Caranza's Grammar of Quarrels no longer extant? He was a native of Seville and governor of Honduras, who laid down the laws of duelling in De la Filosofia de las Armas, de su destreza, y de la agresion y defension Christiana, 1569, 1592 (Wheatley's ed. of Jonson's Every Man in his Humour); and that he had translated the many references in Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, and Massinger leave no doubt. See Love's Pilgrimage, v. iv., and especially Massinger's Guardian, III. iii.: "I have read Caranza, and find not in his Grammar of Quarrels that the injured man is bound to seek for reparation at an hour." Gifford says in a note to this, these writers spoke of him

generally with the ridicule which he deserves"-an adroit way of pretending he knew the book, which we may doubt. The Grammar was probably earlier than Saviola's work, which is too late for illustration of Love's Labour's Lost. Moreover Caranza was a Spaniard. Other allusions occur (as "fight by the booke" in Dekker's Gull's Horn Book), especially in Jonson's Alchemist, IV. i. (1610). Jonson was an enthusiastic collector of grammars; he refers several times to "the great Caranza," and he is always the best contemporary authority. Subtle instructs Kastril on the "grammar and logic and rhetoric of quarrelling," and