Page:Love's Labour's Lost (1925) Yale.djvu/44

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in the mail, sir. O! sir, plantain, a plain plan-

tain: no l'envoy, no l'envoy: no salve, sir, but a

plantain.

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 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.

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?

 76 mail: bag; cf. n.

80 spleen: mirth

86 l'envoy a salve; cf. n.

88 sain: said

98 adding: i.e. making

