Page:Some Textual Difficulties in Shakespeare.djvu/71

Rh about Armado and the Page primarily; he is soliloquizing about the nobleman Boyet who has just left. In order to appreciate Shakespeare's work in this place, it is necessary for us to call to mind the leading traits of certain characters in the play.

The page, Moth, stands for quick-wittedness. He is a cogging and bantering juvenile who is always catching somebody in a verbal trap. To the simple-minded Costard he is the nonpareil of wits because he always succeeds in "putting down" others. In that respect he is Costard's delight: "An' I had but one penny in the world thou should'st have it to buy gingerbread." Costard wishes the boy were his "bastard" so that he might be blessed with so bright a son (v, 1, 79).

Armado, on the other hand, was a dandy pure and simple. He is all courtliness and clothes. But as to intellect, his mind is a mere collection of bizarre phrases and knightly notions by which he affects the much-travelled courtier and man of wars. To Costard he would naturally seem the very paragon of ladies' men.

Now what sort of man is Boyet? He is the French nobleman who accompanied the Princess and her ladies to England. The conductor of such a party is, of course, your complete ladies' man; and as we see in this scene particularly, he has a nimble wit in their playful encounters with him.

It is into one of these wit encounters that