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Love's Labour's Lost: Act 4 Scene 2
Scene II The same.
- [Enter HOLOFERNES, SIR NATHANIEL, and DULL]
- SIR NATHANIEL
- Very reverend sport, truly; and done in the testimony
- of a good conscience.
- HOLOFERNES
- The deer was, as you know, sanguis, in blood; ripe
- as the pomewater, who now hangeth like a jewel in
- the ear of caelo, the sky, the welkin, the heaven;
- and anon falleth like a crab on the face of terra,
- the soil, the land, the earth.
- SIR NATHANIEL
- Truly, Master Holofernes, the epithets are sweetly
- varied, like a scholar at the least: but, sir, I
- assure ye, it was a buck of the first head.
- HOLOFERNES
- Sir Nathaniel, haud credo.
- DULL
- 'Twas not a haud credo; 'twas a pricket.
- HOLOFERNES
- Most barbarous intimation! yet a kind of
- insinuation, as it were, in via, in way, of
- explication; facere, as it were, replication, or
- rather, ostentare, to show, as it were, his
- inclination, after his undressed, unpolished,
- uneducated, unpruned, untrained, or rather,
- unlettered, or ratherest, unconfirmed fashion, to
- insert again my haud credo for a deer.
- DULL
- I said the deer was not a haud credo; twas a pricket.
- HOLOFERNES
- Twice-sod simplicity, his coctus!
- O thou monster Ignorance, how deformed dost thou look!
- SIR NATHANIEL
- Sir, he hath never fed of the dainties that are bred
- in a book; he hath not eat paper, as it were; he
- hath not drunk ink: his intellect is not
- replenished; he is only an animal, only sensible in
- the duller parts:
- And such barren plants are set before us, that we
- thankful should be,
- Which we of taste and feeling are, for those parts that
- do fructify in us more than he.
- For as it would ill become me to be vain, indiscreet, or a fool,
- So were there a patch set on learning, to see him in a school:
- But omne bene, say I; being of an old father's mind,
- Many can brook the weather that love not the wind.
- DULL
- You two are book-men: can you tell me by your wit
- What was a month old at Cain's birth, that's not five
- weeks old as yet?
- HOLOFERNES
- Dictynna, goodman Dull; Dictynna, goodman Dull.
- DULL
- What is Dictynna?
- SIR NATHANIEL
- A title to Phoebe, to Luna, to the moon.
- HOLOFERNES
- The moon was a month old when Adam was no more,
- And raught not to five weeks when he came to
- five-score.
- The allusion holds in the exchange.
- DULL
- 'Tis true indeed; the collusion holds in the exchange.
- HOLOFERNES
- God comfort thy capacity! I say, the allusion holds
- in the exchange.
- DULL
- And I say, the pollusion holds in the exchange; for
- the moon is never but a month old: and I say beside
- that, 'twas a pricket that the princess killed.
- HOLOFERNES
- Sir Nathaniel, will you hear an extemporal epitaph
- on the death of the deer? And, to humour the
- ignorant, call I the deer the princess killed a pricket.
- SIR NATHANIEL
- Perge, good Master Holofernes, perge; so it shall
- please you to abrogate scurrility.
- HOLOFERNES
- I will something affect the letter, for it argues facility.
- The preyful princess pierced and prick'd a pretty
- pleasing pricket;
- Some say a sore; but not a sore, till now made
- sore with shooting.
- The dogs did yell: put L to sore, then sorel jumps
- from thicket;
- Or pricket sore, or else sorel; the people fall a-hooting.
- If sore be sore, then L to sore makes fifty sores
- one sorel.
- Of one sore I an hundred make by adding but one more L.
- SIR NATHANIEL
- A rare talent!
- DULL
- [Aside] If a talent be a claw, look how he claws
- him with a talent.
- HOLOFERNES
- This is a gift that I have, simple, simple; a
- foolish extravagant spirit, full of forms, figures,
- shapes, objects, ideas, apprehensions, motions,
- revolutions: these are begot in the ventricle of
- memory, nourished in the womb of pia mater, and
- delivered upon the mellowing of occasion. But the
- gift is good in those in whom it is acute, and I am
- thankful for it.
- SIR NATHANIEL
- Sir, I praise the Lord for you; and so may my
- parishioners; for their sons are well tutored by
- you, and their daughters profit very greatly under
- you: you are a good member of the commonwealth.
- HOLOFERNES
- Mehercle, if their sons be ingenuous, they shall
- want no instruction; if their daughters be capable,
- I will put it to them: but vir sapit qui pauca
- loquitur; a soul feminine saluteth us.
- [Enter JAQUENETTA and COSTARD]
- JAQUENETTA
- God give you good morrow, master Parson.
- HOLOFERNES
- Master Parson, quasi pers-on. An if one should be
- pierced, which is the one?
- COSTARD
- Marry, master schoolmaster, he that is likest to a hogshead.
- HOLOFERNES
- Piercing a hogshead! a good lustre of conceit in a
- tuft of earth; fire enough for a flint, pearl enough
- for a swine: 'tis pretty; it is well.
- JAQUENETTA
- Good master Parson, be so good as read me this
- letter: it was given me by Costard, and sent me
- from Don Armado: I beseech you, read it.
- HOLOFERNES
- Fauste, precor gelida quando pecus omne sub umbra
- Ruminat,--and so forth. Ah, good old Mantuan! I
- may speak of thee as the traveller doth of Venice;
- Venetia, Venetia,
- Chi non ti vede non ti pretia.
- Old Mantuan, old Mantuan! who understandeth thee
- not, loves thee not. Ut, re, sol, la, mi, fa.
- Under pardon, sir, what are the contents? or rather,
- as Horace says in his--What, my soul, verses?
- SIR NATHANIEL
- Ay, sir, and very learned.
- HOLOFERNES
- Let me hear a staff, a stanze, a verse; lege, domine.
- SIR NATHANIEL
- [Reads]
- If love make me forsworn, how shall I swear to love?
- Ah, never faith could hold, if not to beauty vow'd!
- Though to myself forsworn, to thee I'll faithful prove:
- Those thoughts to me were oaks, to thee like
- osiers bow'd.
- Study his bias leaves and makes his book thine eyes,
- Where all those pleasures live that art would
- comprehend:
- If knowledge be the mark, to know thee shall suffice;
- Well learned is that tongue that well can thee commend,
- All ignorant that soul that sees thee without wonder;
- Which is to me some praise that I thy parts admire:
- Thy eye Jove's lightning bears, thy voice his dreadful thunder,
- Which not to anger bent, is music and sweet fire.
- Celestial as thou art, O, pardon, love, this wrong,
- That sings heaven's praise with such an earthly tongue.
- HOLOFERNES
- You find not the apostraphas, and so miss the
- accent: let me supervise the canzonet. Here are
- only numbers ratified; but, for the elegancy,
- facility, and golden cadence of poesy, caret.
- Ovidius Naso was the man: and why, indeed, Naso,
- but for smelling out the odouriferous flowers of
- fancy, the jerks of invention? Imitari is nothing:
- so doth the hound his master, the ape his keeper,
- the tired horse his rider. But, damosella virgin,
- was this directed to you?
- JAQUENETTA
- Ay, sir, from one Monsieur Biron, one of the strange
- queen's lords.
- HOLOFERNES
- I will overglance the superscript: 'To the
- snow-white hand of the most beauteous Lady
- Rosaline.' I will look again on the intellect of
- the letter, for the nomination of the party writing
- to the person written unto: 'Your ladyship's in all
- desired employment, BIRON.' Sir Nathaniel, this
- Biron is one of the votaries with the king; and here
- he hath framed a letter to a sequent of the stranger
- queen's, which accidentally, or by the way of
- progression, hath miscarried. Trip and go, my
- sweet; deliver this paper into the royal hand of the
- king: it may concern much. Stay not thy
- compliment; I forgive thy duty; adieu.
- JAQUENETTA
- Good Costard, go with me. Sir, God save your life!
- COSTARD
- Have with thee, my girl.
- [Exeunt COSTARD and JAQUENETTA]
- SIR NATHANIEL
- Sir, you have done this in the fear of God, very
- religiously; and, as a certain father saith,--
- HOLOFERNES
- Sir tell me not of the father; I do fear colourable
- colours. But to return to the verses: did they
- please you, Sir Nathaniel?
- SIR NATHANIEL
- Marvellous well for the pen.
- HOLOFERNES
- I do dine to-day at the father's of a certain pupil
- of mine; where, if, before repast, it shall please
- you to gratify the table with a grace, I will, on my
- privilege I have with the parents of the foresaid
- child or pupil, undertake your ben venuto; where I
- will prove those verses to be very unlearned,
- neither savouring of poetry, wit, nor invention: I
- beseech your society.
- SIR NATHANIEL
- And thank you too; for society, saith the text, is
- the happiness of life.
- HOLOFERNES
- And, certes, the text most infallibly concludes it.
- [To DULL]
- Sir, I do invite you too; you shall not
- say me nay: pauca verba. Away! the gentles are at
- their game, and we will to our recreation.
- [Exeunt]
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