Love's Labour's Lost

Act 4, Scene II

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.

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.

LOVE'S LABOURS LOST