Love's Labour's Lost by William Shakespeare
Act 4 - Scene 2
The same.
Sir Nathaniel : Very reverend sport, truly; and done in the testimony
[p]of a good
conscience.
Holofernes : The deer was, as you know, sanguis, in blood; ripe
[p]as the
pomewater, who now hangeth like a jewel in
[p]the ear of caelo, the
sky, the welkin, the heaven;
[p]and anon falleth like a crab on the
face of terra,
[p]the soil, the land, the earth.
Sir Nathaniel : Truly, Master Holofernes, the epithets are sweetly
[p]varied, like a
scholar at the least: but, sir, I
[p]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
[p]insinuation, as it were,
in via, in way, of
[p]explication; facere, as it were, replication,
or
[p]rather, ostentare, to show, as it were, his
[p]inclination,
after his undressed, unpolished,
[p]uneducated, unpruned, untrained,
or rather,
[p]unlettered, or ratherest, unconfirmed fashion,
to
[p]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!
[p]O thou monster Ignorance, how
deformed dost thou look!
Sir Nathaniel : Sir, he hath never fed of the dainties that are bred
[p]in a book; he
hath not eat paper, as it were; he
[p]hath not drunk ink: his
intellect is not
[p]replenished; he is only an animal, only sensible
in
[p]the duller parts:
[p]And such barren plants are set before us,
that we
[p]thankful should be,
[p]Which we of taste and feeling are,
for those parts that
[p]do fructify in us more than he.
[p]For as it
would ill become me to be vain, indiscreet, or a fool,
[p]So were
there a patch set on learning, to see him in a school:
[p]But omne
bene, say I; being of an old father's mind,
[p]Many can brook the
weather that love not the wind.
Dull : You two are book-men: can you tell me by your wit
[p]What was a month
old at Cain's birth, that's not five
[p]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,
[p]And raught not to
five weeks when he came to
[p]five-score.
[p]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
[p]in the
exchange.
Dull : And I say, the pollusion holds in the exchange; for
[p]the moon is
never but a month old: and I say beside
[p]that, 'twas a pricket that
the princess killed.
Holofernes : Sir Nathaniel, will you hear an extemporal epitaph
[p]on the death of
the deer? And, to humour the
[p]ignorant, call I the deer the princess
killed a pricket.
Sir Nathaniel : Perge, good Master Holofernes, perge; so it shall
[p]please you to
abrogate scurrility.
Holofernes : I will something affect the letter, for it argues facility.
[p]The
preyful princess pierced and prick'd a pretty
[p]pleasing
pricket;
[p]Some say a sore; but not a sore, till now made
[p]sore
with shooting.
[p]The dogs did yell: put L to sore, then sorel
jumps
[p]from thicket;
[p]Or pricket sore, or else sorel; the people
fall a-hooting.
[p]If sore be sore, then L to sore makes fifty
sores
[p]one sorel.
[p]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
[p]him with a
talent.
Holofernes : This is a gift that I have, simple, simple; a
[p]foolish extravagant
spirit, full of forms, figures,
[p]shapes, objects, ideas,
apprehensions, motions,
[p]revolutions: these are begot in the
ventricle of
[p]memory, nourished in the womb of pia mater,
and
[p]delivered upon the mellowing of occasion. But the
[p]gift is
good in those in whom it is acute, and I am
[p]thankful for it.
Sir Nathaniel : Sir, I praise the Lord for you; and so may my
[p]parishioners; for
their sons are well tutored by
[p]you, and their daughters profit very
greatly under
[p]you: you are a good member of the commonwealth.
Holofernes : Mehercle, if their sons be ingenuous, they shall
[p]want no
instruction; if their daughters be capable,
[p]I will put it to them:
but vir sapit qui pauca
[p]loquitur; a soul feminine saluteth us.
Jaquenetta : God give you good morrow, master Parson.
Holofernes : Master Parson, quasi pers-on. An if one should be
[p]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
[p]tuft of earth;
fire enough for a flint, pearl enough
[p]for a swine: 'tis pretty; it
is well.
Jaquenetta : Good master Parson, be so good as read me this
[p]letter: it was given
me by Costard, and sent me
[p]from Don Armado: I beseech you, read
it.
Holofernes : Fauste, precor gelida quando pecus omne sub umbra
[p]Ruminat,--and so
forth. Ah, good old Mantuan! I
[p]may speak of thee as the traveller
doth of Venice;
[p]Venetia, Venetia,
[p]Chi non ti vede non ti
pretia.
[p]Old Mantuan, old Mantuan! who understandeth thee
[p]not,
loves thee not. Ut, re, sol, la, mi, fa.
[p]Under pardon, sir, what
are the contents? or rather,
[p]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]
[p]If love make me forsworn, how shall I swear to love?
[p]Ah,
never faith could hold, if not to beauty vow'd!
[p]Though to myself
forsworn, to thee I'll faithful prove:
[p]Those thoughts to me were
oaks, to thee like
[p]osiers bow'd.
[p]Study his bias leaves and makes
his book thine eyes,
[p]Where all those pleasures live that art
would
[p]comprehend:
[p]If knowledge be the mark, to know thee shall
suffice;
[p]Well learned is that tongue that well can thee
commend,
[p]All ignorant that soul that sees thee without
wonder;
[p]Which is to me some praise that I thy parts admire:
[p]Thy
eye Jove's lightning bears, thy voice his dreadful thunder,
[p]Which
not to anger bent, is music and sweet fire.
[p]Celestial as thou art,
O, pardon, love, this wrong,
[p]That sings heaven's praise with such
an earthly tongue.
Holofernes : You find not the apostraphas, and so miss the
[p]accent: let me
supervise the canzonet. Here are
[p]only numbers ratified; but, for
the elegancy,
[p]facility, and golden cadence of poesy,
caret.
[p]Ovidius Naso was the man: and why, indeed, Naso,
[p]but for
smelling out the odouriferous flowers of
[p]fancy, the jerks of
invention? Imitari is nothing:
[p]so doth the hound his master, the
ape his keeper,
[p]the tired horse his rider. But, damosella
virgin,
[p]was this directed to you?
Jaquenetta : Ay, sir, from one Monsieur Biron, one of the strange
[p]queen's
lords.
Holofernes : I will overglance the superscript: 'To the
[p]snow-white hand of the
most beauteous Lady
[p]Rosaline.' I will look again on the intellect
of
[p]the letter, for the nomination of the party writing
[p]to the
person written unto: 'Your ladyship's in all
[p]desired employment,
BIRON.' Sir Nathaniel, this
[p]Biron is one of the votaries with the
king; and here
[p]he hath framed a letter to a sequent of the
stranger
[p]queen's, which accidentally, or by the way
of
[p]progression, hath miscarried. Trip and go, my
[p]sweet; deliver
this paper into the royal hand of the
[p]king: it may concern much.
Stay not thy
[p]compliment; I forgive thy duty; adieu.
Jaquenetta : Good Costard, go with me. Sir, God save your life!
Costard : Have with thee, my girl.
Sir Nathaniel : Sir, you have done this in the fear of God, very
[p]religiously; and,
as a certain father saith,--
Holofernes : Sir tell me not of the father; I do fear colourable
[p]colours. But to
return to the verses: did they
[p]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
[p]of mine; where,
if, before repast, it shall please
[p]you to gratify the table with a
grace, I will, on my
[p]privilege I have with the parents of the
foresaid
[p]child or pupil, undertake your ben venuto; where I
[p]will
prove those verses to be very unlearned,
[p]neither savouring of
poetry, wit, nor invention: I
[p]beseech your society.
Sir Nathaniel : And thank you too; for society, saith the text, is
[p]the happiness of
life.
Holofernes : And, certes, the text most infallibly concludes it.
[p][To
DULL]
[p]Sir, I do invite you too; you shall not
[p]say me nay: pauca
verba. Away! the gentles are at
[p]their game, and we will to our
recreation.
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Next: Act 4 - Scene 3
