The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare (moboreader .TXT) 📕

BOYET. Ay, my continent of beauty.

ROSALINE. Why, she that bears the bow.

Finely put off!

BOYET. My lady goes to kill horns; but, if thou marry, Hang me by the neck, if horns that year miscarry.

Finely put on!

ROSALINE. Well then, I am the shooter.

BOYET. And who is your deer?

ROSALINE. If we choose by the horns, yourself come not near.

Finely put on indeed!

MARIA. You Still wrangle with her, Boyet, and she strikes at the brow.

BOYET. But she herself is hit lower. Have I hit her now?

ROSALINE. Shall I come upon thee with an old saying, that was a man when King Pepin of France was a little boy, as touching the hit it?

BOYET. So I may answer thee with one as old, that was a woman when Queen Guinever of Britain was a little wench, as touching the hit it.

ROSALINE. [Singing]

Thou canst not hit it, hit it, hit it, Thou canst not hit it, my good man.

BOYET. An I cannot, cannot, cannot,

An I cannot, another can.

Exeunt ROSALINE and KATHARINE

COSTARD. By my troth, most pleasant! How both did fit it!

MARIA. A mark marvellous well shot; for they both did hit it.

BOYET. A mark! O, mark but that mark! A mark, says my lady!

Let the mark have a prick in’t, to mete at, if it may be.

MARIA. Wide o’ the bow-hand! I’ faith, your hand is out.

COSTARD. Indeed, ‘a must shoot nearer, or he’ll ne’er hit the clout.

BOYET. An if my hand be out, then belike your hand is in.

COSTARD. Then will she get the upshoot by cleaving the pin.

MARIA. Come, come, you talk greasily; your lips grow foul.

COSTARD. She’s too hard for you at pricks, sir; challenge her to bowl.

BOYET. I fear too much rubbing; goodnight, my good owl.

Exeunt BOYET and MARIA COSTARD. By my soul, a swain, a most simple clown!

Lord, Lord! how the ladies and I have put him down!

O’ my troth, most sweet jests, most incony vulgar wit!

When it comes so smoothly off, so obscenely, as it were, so fit.

Armado a th’ t’one side-O, a most dainty man!

To see him walk before a lady and to bear her fan!

To see him kiss his hand, and how most sweetly ‘a will swear!

And his page a t’ other side, that handful of wit!

Ah, heavens, it is a most pathetical nit!

Sola, sola! Exit COSTARD

SCENE II.

The park

From the shooting within, enter HOLOFERNES, SIR NATHANIEL, and DULL

NATHANIEL. Very reverent 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.

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, bis coctus!

O thou monster Ignorance, how deformed dost thou look!

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?

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.

Th’ allusion holds in the exchange.

DULL. ‘Tis true, indeed; the collusion holds in the exchange.

HOLOFERNES. God comfort thy capacity! I say th’ allusion holds in the exchange.

DULL. And I say the polusion holds in the exchange; for the moon is never but a month old; and I say, beside, that ‘twas a pricket that the Princess kill’d.

HOLOFERNES. Sir Nathaniel, will you hear an extemporal epitaph on the death of the deer? And, to humour the ignorant, call the deer the Princess kill’d a pricket.

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 pierc’d 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 el 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 o’ sorel.

Of one sore I an hundred make by adding but one more L.

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, nourish’d 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.

NATHANIEL. Sir, I praise the Lord for you, and so may my parishioners; for their sons are well tutor’d by you, and their daughters profit very greatly under you. You are a good member of the commonwealth.

HOLOFERNES. Mehercle, if their sons be ingenious, 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 Person.

HOLOFERNES. Master Person, quasi pers-one. And if one should be pierc’d 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 turf 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?

NATHANIEL. Ay, sir, and very learned.

HOLOFERNES. Let me hear a staff, a stanze, a verse; lege, domine.

NATHANIEL. [Reads] ‘If love make me forsworn, how shall I swear to love?

Ah, never faith could hold, if not to beauty vowed!

Though to myself forsworn, to thee I’ll faithful prove; Those thoughts to me were oaks, to thee like osiers bowed.

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 singes heaven’s praise with such an earthly tongue.’

HOLOFERNES. You find not the apostrophas, 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 odoriferous 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 Berowne, 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, Berowne.’ Sir Nathaniel, this Berowne 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 NATHANIEL. Sir, you have done this in the fear of God, very religiously; and, as a certain father saith-HOLOFERNES. Sir, tell not me of the father; I do fear colourable colours. But to return to the verses: did they please you, Sir Nathaniel?

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.

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

SCENE III.

The park

Enter BEROWNE, with a paper his band, alone BEROWNE. The King he is hunting the deer: I am coursing myself.

They have pitch’d a toil: I am tolling in a pitch-pitch that defiles. Defile! a foul word. Well, ‘set thee down, sorrow!’ for so they say the fool said, and so say I, and I am the fool. Well proved, wit. By the Lord, this love is as mad as Ajax: it kills sheep; it kills me-I a sheep. Well proved again o’ my side. I will not love; if I do, hang me. I’ faith, I will not. O, but her eye! By this light, but for her eye, I