Printable version of this page

Love's Labour's Lost: Act 5 Scene 1

Scene I The same.

[Enter HOLOFERNES, SIR NATHANIEL, and DULL]

HOLOFERNES

Satis quod sufficit.

SIR NATHANIEL

I praise God for you, sir: your reasons at dinner

have been sharp and sententious; pleasant without

scurrility, witty without affection, audacious without

impudency, learned without opinion, and strange with-

out heresy. I did converse this quondam day with

a companion of the king's, who is intituled, nomi-

nated, or called, Don Adriano de Armado.

HOLOFERNES

Novi hominem tanquam te: his humour is lofty, his

discourse peremptory, his tongue filed, his eye

ambitious, his gait majestical, and his general

behavior vain, ridiculous, and thrasonical. He is

too picked, too spruce, too affected, too odd, as it

were, too peregrinate, as I may call it.

SIR NATHANIEL

A most singular and choice epithet.

[Draws out his table-book]

HOLOFERNES

He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer

than the staple of his argument. I abhor such

fanatical phantasimes, such insociable and

point-devise companions; such rackers of

orthography, as to speak dout, fine, when he should

say doubt; det, when he should pronounce debt,--d,

e, b, t, not d, e, t: he clepeth a calf, cauf;

half, hauf; neighbour vocatur nebor; neigh

abbreviated ne. This is abhominable,--which he

would call abbominable: it insinuateth me of

insanie: anne intelligis, domine? to make frantic, lunatic.

SIR NATHANIEL

Laus Deo, bene intelligo.

HOLOFERNES

Bon, bon, fort bon, Priscian! a little scratch'd,

'twill serve.

SIR NATHANIEL

Videsne quis venit?

HOLOFERNES

Video, et gaudeo.

[Enter DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO, MOTH, and COSTARD]

DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO

Chirrah!

[To MOTH]

HOLOFERNES

Quare chirrah, not sirrah?

DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO

Men of peace, well encountered.

HOLOFERNES

Most military sir, salutation.

MOTH

[Aside to COSTARD] They have been at a great feast

of languages, and stolen the scraps.

COSTARD

O, they have lived long on the alms-basket of words.

I marvel thy master hath not eaten thee for a word;

for thou art not so long by the head as

honorificabilitudinitatibus: thou art easier

swallowed than a flap-dragon.

MOTH

Peace! the peal begins.

DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO

[To HOLOFERNES]

Monsieur, are you not lettered?

MOTH

Yes, yes; he teaches boys the hornbook. What is a,

b, spelt backward, with the horn on his head?

HOLOFERNES

Ba, pueritia, with a horn added.

MOTH

Ba, most silly sheep with a horn. You hear his learning.

HOLOFERNES

Quis, quis, thou consonant?

MOTH

The third of the five vowels, if you repeat them; or

the fifth, if I.

HOLOFERNES

I will repeat them,--a, e, i,--

MOTH

The sheep: the other two concludes it,--o, u.

DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO

Now, by the salt wave of the Mediterraneum, a sweet

touch, a quick venue of wit! snip, snap, quick and

home! it rejoiceth my intellect: true wit!

MOTH

Offered by a child to an old man; which is wit-old.

HOLOFERNES

What is the figure? what is the figure?

MOTH

Horns.

HOLOFERNES

Thou disputest like an infant: go, whip thy gig.

MOTH

Lend me your horn to make one, and I will whip about

your infamy circum circa,--a gig of a cuckold's horn.

COSTARD

An I had but one penny in the world, thou shouldst

have it to buy gingerbread: hold, there is the very

remuneration I had of thy master, thou halfpenny

purse of wit, thou pigeon-egg of discretion. O, an

the heavens were so pleased that thou wert but my

bastard, what a joyful father wouldst thou make me!

Go to; thou hast it ad dunghill, at the fingers'

ends, as they say.

HOLOFERNES

O, I smell false Latin; dunghill for unguem.

DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO

Arts-man, preambulate, we will be singled from the

barbarous. Do you not educate youth at the

charge-house on the top of the mountain?

HOLOFERNES

Or mons, the hill.

DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO

At your sweet pleasure, for the mountain.

HOLOFERNES

I do, sans question.

DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO

Sir, it is the king's most sweet pleasure and

affection to congratulate the princess at her

pavilion in the posteriors of this day, which the

rude multitude call the afternoon.

HOLOFERNES

The posterior of the day, most generous sir, is

liable, congruent and measurable for the afternoon:

the word is well culled, chose, sweet and apt, I do

assure you, sir, I do assure.

DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO

Sir, the king is a noble gentleman, and my familiar,

I do assure ye, very good friend: for what is

inward between us, let it pass. I do beseech thee,

remember thy courtesy; I beseech thee, apparel thy

head: and among other important and most serious

designs, and of great import indeed, too, but let

that pass: for I must tell thee, it will please his

grace, by the world, sometime to lean upon my poor

shoulder, and with his royal finger, thus, dally

with my excrement, with my mustachio; but, sweet

heart, let that pass. By the world, I recount no

fable: some certain special honours it pleaseth his

greatness to impart to Armado, a soldier, a man of

travel, that hath seen the world; but let that pass.

The very all of all is,--but, sweet heart, I do

implore secrecy,--that the king would have me

present the princess, sweet chuck, with some

delightful ostentation, or show, or pageant, or

antique, or firework. Now, understanding that the

curate and your sweet self are good at such

eruptions and sudden breaking out of mirth, as it

were, I have acquainted you withal, to the end to

crave your assistance.

HOLOFERNES

Sir, you shall present before her the Nine Worthies.

Sir, as concerning some entertainment of time, some

show in the posterior of this day, to be rendered by

our assistants, at the king's command, and this most

gallant, illustrate, and learned gentleman, before

the princess; I say none so fit as to present the

Nine Worthies.

SIR NATHANIEL

Where will you find men worthy enough to present them?

HOLOFERNES

Joshua, yourself; myself and this gallant gentleman,

Judas Maccabaeus; this swain, because of his great

limb or joint, shall pass Pompey the Great; the

page, Hercules,--

DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO

Pardon, sir; error: he is not quantity enough for

that Worthy's thumb: he is not so big as the end of his club.

HOLOFERNES

Shall I have audience? he shall present Hercules in

minority: his enter and exit shall be strangling a

snake; and I will have an apology for that purpose.

MOTH

An excellent device! so, if any of the audience

hiss, you may cry 'Well done, Hercules! now thou

crushest the snake!' that is the way to make an

offence gracious, though few have the grace to do it.

DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO

For the rest of the Worthies?--

HOLOFERNES

I will play three myself.

MOTH

Thrice-worthy gentleman!

DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO

Shall I tell you a thing?

HOLOFERNES

We attend.

DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO

We will have, if this fadge not, an antique. I

beseech you, follow.

HOLOFERNES

Via, goodman Dull! thou hast spoken no word all this while.

DULL

Nor understood none neither, sir.

HOLOFERNES

Allons! we will employ thee.

DULL

I'll make one in a dance, or so; or I will play

On the tabour to the Worthies, and let them dance the hay.

HOLOFERNES

Most dull, honest Dull! To our sport, away!

[Exeunt]