Page:Some Textual Difficulties in Shakespeare.djvu/72

54 the simple-minded swain, Costard, finds himself projected. It is a hunting scene consisting of the Princess and the ladies of her train. Excepting the huntsman who acts as their guide, the only representative of the stronger sex is Boyet. But presently, in the midst of the play of wit, another son of man appears in the person of Costard who has been sent to deliver a letter, and it is not long until this interested spectator is putting in an occasional word of his own. And when Boyet gracefully withdraws from Maria's parting shot and Costard is left standing alone, he is mightily puffed up with the idea that he and the ladies have vanquished such a personage as Boyet. It is right in this connection that the stubborn passage comes.

What Costard now does is very natural. Like all of us he wishes to set full value upon the qualities of the enemy, for thus we magnify our own prowess in the encounter. He therefore sets about characterizing Boyet, who, as we have seen, is both a fine courtier and a wit; and it immediately appears to Costard that in putting down such a man he has outdone an Armado and a Moth together, all in one person. As his rustic mind has little facility in abstract characterization, he goes about it somewhat after the fashion of those who describe a neighbor as being a Jones o' one side of the family and a Smith o' t'other. Boyet is "Armado o' th' one side" and "his page o' t'other side." Such