Act 3, Scene I - Page 2

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

ADRIANO DE ARMADO
The way is but short: away!

MOTH
As swift as lead, sir.
DON

ADRIANO DE ARMADO
The meaning, pretty ingenious?
Is not lead a metal heavy, dull, and slow?

MOTH
Minime, honest master; or rather, master, no.
DON

ADRIANO DE ARMADO
I say lead is slow.

MOTH
You are too swift, sir, to say so:
Is that lead slow which is fired from a gun?
DON

ADRIANO DE ARMADO
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

DON

ADRIANO DE ARMADO
A most acute juvenal; voluble and free of grace!
By thy favour, sweet welkin, I must sigh in thy face:
Most rude melancholy, valour gives thee place.
My herald is return'd.

Re-enter MOTH with COSTARD

MOTH
A wonder, master! here's a costard broken in a shin.
DON

ADRIANO DE ARMADO
Some enigma, some riddle: come, thy l'envoy; begin.

COSTARD
No enigma, no riddle, no l'envoy; no salve in the
mail, sir: O, sir, plantain, a plain plantain! no
l'envoy, no l'envoy; no salve, sir, but a plantain!
DON

ADRIANO DE ARMADO
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?
DON

ADRIANO DE ARMADO
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.
DON

ADRIANO DE ARMADO
The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee,
Were still at odds, being but three.

MOTH
Until the goose came out of door,
And stay'd 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.
DON

ADRIANO DE ARMADO
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?

COSTARD
The boy hath sold him a bargain, a goose, that's flat.
Sir, your pennyworth is good, an your goose be fat.
To sell a bargain well is as cunning as fast and loose:
Let me