Love's Labour's Lost by William Shakespeare
Act 5 - Scene 1
The same.
Holofernes : Satis quod sufficit.
Sir Nathaniel : I praise God for you, sir: your reasons at dinner
[p]have been sharp
and sententious; pleasant without
[p]scurrility, witty without
affection, audacious without
[p]impudency, learned without opinion,
and strange with-
[p]out heresy. I did converse this quondam day
with
[p]a companion of the king's, who is intituled, nomi-
[p]nated,
or called, Don Adriano de Armado.
Holofernes : Novi hominem tanquam te: his humour is lofty, his
[p]discourse
peremptory, his tongue filed, his eye
[p]ambitious, his gait
majestical, and his general
[p]behavior vain, ridiculous, and
thrasonical. He is
[p]too picked, too spruce, too affected, too odd,
as it
[p]were, too peregrinate, as I may call it.
Sir Nathaniel : A most singular and choice epithet.
Holofernes : He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer
[p]than the staple of
his argument. I abhor such
[p]fanatical phantasimes, such insociable
and
[p]point-devise companions; such rackers of
[p]orthography, as to
speak dout, fine, when he should
[p]say doubt; det, when he should
pronounce debt,--d,
[p]e, b, t, not d, e, t: he clepeth a calf,
cauf;
[p]half, hauf; neighbour vocatur nebor; neigh
[p]abbreviated ne.
This is abhominable,--which he
[p]would call abbominable: it
insinuateth me of
[p]insanie: anne intelligis, domine? to make
frantic, lunatic.
Sir Nathaniel : Laus Deo, bene intelligo.
Holofernes : Bon, bon, fort bon, Priscian! a little scratch'd,
[p]'twill serve.
Sir Nathaniel : Videsne quis venit?
Holofernes : Video, et gaudeo.
Don Adriano de Armado : Chirrah!
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
[p]of languages,
and stolen the scraps.
Costard : O, they have lived long on the alms-basket of words.
[p]I marvel thy
master hath not eaten thee for a word;
[p]for thou art not so long by
the head as
[p]honorificabilitudinitatibus: thou art
easier
[p]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,
[p]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
[p]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
[p]touch, a quick
venue of wit! snip, snap, quick and
[p]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
[p]your infamy
circum circa,--a gig of a cuckold's horn.
Costard : An I had but one penny in the world, thou shouldst
[p]have it to buy
gingerbread: hold, there is the very
[p]remuneration I had of thy
master, thou halfpenny
[p]purse of wit, thou pigeon-egg of discretion.
O, an
[p]the heavens were so pleased that thou wert but my
[p]bastard,
what a joyful father wouldst thou make me!
[p]Go to; thou hast it ad
dunghill, at the fingers'
[p]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
[p]barbarous. Do
you not educate youth at the
[p]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
[p]affection to
congratulate the princess at her
[p]pavilion in the posteriors of this
day, which the
[p]rude multitude call the afternoon.
Holofernes : The posterior of the day, most generous sir, is
[p]liable, congruent
and measurable for the afternoon:
[p]the word is well culled, chose,
sweet and apt, I do
[p]assure you, sir, I do assure.
Don Adriano de Armado : Sir, the king is a noble gentleman, and my familiar,
[p]I do assure
ye, very good friend: for what is
[p]inward between us, let it pass. I
do beseech thee,
[p]remember thy courtesy; I beseech thee, apparel
thy
[p]head: and among other important and most serious
[p]designs,
and of great import indeed, too, but let
[p]that pass: for I must tell
thee, it will please his
[p]grace, by the world, sometime to lean upon
my poor
[p]shoulder, and with his royal finger, thus, dally
[p]with my
excrement, with my mustachio; but, sweet
[p]heart, let that pass. By
the world, I recount no
[p]fable: some certain special honours it
pleaseth his
[p]greatness to impart to Armado, a soldier, a man
of
[p]travel, that hath seen the world; but let that pass.
[p]The very
all of all is,--but, sweet heart, I do
[p]implore secrecy,--that the
king would have me
[p]present the princess, sweet chuck, with
some
[p]delightful ostentation, or show, or pageant, or
[p]antique, or
firework. Now, understanding that the
[p]curate and your sweet self
are good at such
[p]eruptions and sudden breaking out of mirth, as
it
[p]were, I have acquainted you withal, to the end to
[p]crave your
assistance.
Holofernes : Sir, you shall present before her the Nine Worthies.
[p]Sir, as
concerning some entertainment of time, some
[p]show in the posterior
of this day, to be rendered by
[p]our assistants, at the king's
command, and this most
[p]gallant, illustrate, and learned gentleman,
before
[p]the princess; I say none so fit as to present the
[p]Nine
Worthies.
Sir Nathaniel : Where will you find men worthy enough to present them?
Holofernes : Joshua, yourself; myself and this gallant gentleman,
[p]Judas
Maccabaeus; this swain, because of his great
[p]limb or joint, shall
pass Pompey the Great; the
[p]page, Hercules,--
Don Adriano de Armado : Pardon, sir; error: he is not quantity enough for
[p]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
[p]minority: his
enter and exit shall be strangling a
[p]snake; and I will have an
apology for that purpose.
Moth : An excellent device! so, if any of the audience
[p]hiss, you may cry
'Well done, Hercules! now thou
[p]crushest the snake!' that is the way
to make an
[p]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
[p]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
[p]On the tabour to
the Worthies, and let them dance the hay.
Holofernes : Most dull, honest Dull! To our sport, away!
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Next: Act 5 - Scene 2
