Love’s Labour’s Lost

1 Enter Dull, Holofernes, the Pedant and Nathaniel.
2 NATHANIEL.
3 Very reverend sport, truly, and done in the testimony of a good
4 conscience.
5 HOLOFERNES.
6 The deer was, as you know, _sanguis_, in blood, ripe as the pomewater,
7 who now hangeth like a jewel in the ear of _caelo_, the sky, the
8 welkin, the heaven, and anon falleth like a crab on the face of
9 _terra_, the soil, the land, the earth.
10 NATHANIEL.
11 Truly, Master Holofernes, the epithets are sweetly varied, like a
12 scholar at the least. But, sir, I assure ye it was a buck of the first
13 head.
14 HOLOFERNES.
15 Sir Nathaniel, _haud credo_.
16 DULL.
17 ’Twas not a “auld grey doe”, ’twas a pricket.
18 HOLOFERNES.
19 Most barbarous intimation! Yet a kind of insinuation, as it were, _in
20 via_, in way, of explication; _facere_, as it were, replication, or
21 rather, _ostentare_, to show, as it were, his inclination, after his
22 undressed, unpolished, uneducated, unpruned, untrained, or rather,
23 unlettered, or ratherest, unconfirmed fashion, to insert again my _haud
24 credo_ for a deer.
25 DULL.
26 I said the deer was not a “auld grey doe”, ’twas a pricket.
27 HOLOFERNES.
28 Twice-sod simplicity, _bis coctus!_
29 O, thou monster Ignorance, how deformed dost thou look!
30 NATHANIEL.
31 Sir, he hath never fed of the dainties that are bred of a book.
32 He hath not eat paper, as it were; he hath not drunk ink.
33 His intellect is not replenished; he is only an animal, only sensible
34 in the duller parts.
35 And such barren plants are set before us that we thankful should be—
36 Which we of taste and feeling are—for those parts that do fructify in
37 us more than he.
38 For as it would ill become me to be vain, indiscreet, or a fool,
39 So, were there a patch set on learning, to see him in a school.
40 But, _omne bene_, say I, being of an old father’s mind;
41 Many can brook the weather that love not the wind.
42 DULL.
43 You two are bookmen. Can you tell me by your wit
44 What was a month old at Cain’s birth, that’s not five weeks old as yet?
45 HOLOFERNES.
46 Dictynna, goodman Dull. Dictynna, goodman Dull.
47 DULL.
48 What is Dictynna?
49 NATHANIEL.
50 A title to Phoebe, to Luna, to the moon.
51 HOLOFERNES.
52 The moon was a month old when Adam was no more,
53 And raught not to five weeks when he came to five-score.
54 Th’ allusion holds in the exchange.
55 DULL.
56 ’Tis true, indeed. The collusion holds in the exchange.
57 HOLOFERNES.
58 God comfort thy capacity! I say, th’ allusion holds in the exchange.
59 DULL.
60 And I say the pollution holds in the exchange, for the moon is never
61 but a month old; and I say beside that ’twas a pricket that the
62 Princess killed.
63 HOLOFERNES.
64 Sir Nathaniel, will you hear an extemporal epitaph on the death of the
65 deer? And, to humour the ignorant, call I the deer the Princess killed
66 a pricket.
67 NATHANIEL.
68 _Perge_, good Master Holofernes, _perge_, so it shall please you to
69 abrogate scurrility.
70 HOLOFERNES.
71 I will something affect the letter; for it argues facility.
72 The preyful Princess pierced and pricked a pretty pleasing pricket;
73 Some say a sore; but not a sore till now made sore with shooting.
74 The dogs did yell, put “l” to sore, then sorel jumps from thicket;
75 Or pricket sore, or else sorel, the people fall a-hooting.
76 If sore be sore, then “L” to “sore” makes fifty sores o’ sorel.
77 Of one sore I an hundred make, by adding but one more “L”.
78 NATHANIEL.
79 A rare talent!
80 DULL.
81 [_Aside_.] If a talent be a claw, look how he claws him with a talent.
82 HOLOFERNES.
83 This is a gift that I have, simple, simple; a foolish extravagant
84 spirit, full of forms, figures, shapes, objects, ideas, apprehensions,
85 motions, revolutions. These are begot in the ventricle of memory,
86 nourished in the womb of _pia mater_, and delivered upon the mellowing
87 of occasion. But the gift is good in those in whom it is acute, and I
88 am thankful for it.
89 NATHANIEL.
90 Sir, I praise the Lord for you, and so may my parishioners, for their
91 sons are well tutored by you, and their daughters profit very greatly
92 under you. You are a good member of the commonwealth.
93 HOLOFERNES.
94 _Mehercle!_ If their sons be ingenious, they shall want no instruction;
95 if their daughters be capable, I will put it to them. But, _vir sapit
96 qui pauca loquitur_. A soul feminine saluteth us.
97 Enter Jaquenetta and Costard.
98 JAQUENETTA.
99 God give you good morrow, Master Person.
100 HOLOFERNES.
101 Master Person, _quasi_ pierce one. And if one should be pierced, which
102 is the one?
103 COSTARD.
104 Marry, Master schoolmaster, he that is likest to a hogshead.
105 HOLOFERNES.
106 Of piercing a hogshead! A good lustre or conceit in a turf of earth;
107 fire enough for a flint, pearl enough for a swine. ’Tis pretty; it is
108 well.
109 JAQUENETTA.
110 Good Master Parson, be so good as read me this letter. It was given me
111 by Costard, and sent me from Don Armado. I beseech you read it.
112 [_Giving a letter to Nathaniel._]
113 HOLOFERNES.
114 _Fauste precor, gelida quando pecus omne sub umbra Ruminat_—
115 and so forth. Ah, good old Mantuan, I may speak of thee as the
116 traveller doth of Venice:
117 _Venetia, Venetia,
118 Chi non ti vede, non ti pretia._
119 Old Mantuan, old Mantuan! Who understandeth thee not, loves thee not.
120 [_He sings_.]
121 Ut, re, sol, la, mi, fa.
122 Under pardon, sir, what are the contents? Or rather as Horace says in
123 his—What, my soul, verses?
124 NATHANIEL.
125 Ay, sir, and very learned.
126 HOLOFERNES.
127 Let me hear a staff, a stanze, a verse,
128 _Lege, domine_.
129 NATHANIEL.
130 [_Reads_.]
131 _If love make me forsworn, how shall I swear to love?
132 Ah, never faith could hold, if not to beauty vowed.
133 Though to myself forsworn, to thee I’ll faithful prove.
134 Those thoughts to me were oaks, to thee like osiers bowed.
135 Study his bias leaves, and makes his book thine eyes,
136 Where all those pleasures live that art would comprehend.
137 If knowledge be the mark, to know thee shall suffice.
138 Well learned is that tongue that well can thee commend,
139 All ignorant that soul that sees thee without wonder;
140 Which is to me some praise, that I thy parts admire.
141 Thy eye Jove’s lightning bears, thy voice his dreadful thunder,
142 Which, not to anger bent, is music and sweet fire.
143 Celestial as thou art, O, pardon love this wrong,
144 That sings heaven’s praise with such an earthly tongue._
145 HOLOFERNES.
146 You find not the apostrophus, and so miss the accent. Let me supervise
147 the canzonet. [_He takes the letter_.] Here are only numbers ratified,
148 but, for the elegancy, facility, and golden cadence of poesy, _caret_.
149 Ovidius Naso was the man. And why indeed “Naso,” but for smelling out
150 the odoriferous flowers of fancy, the jerks of invention? _Imitari_ is
151 nothing: so doth the hound his master, the ape his keeper, the tired
152 horse his rider. But, damosella virgin, was this directed to you?
153 JAQUENETTA.
154 Ay, sir, from one Monsieur Berowne, one of the strange queen’s lords.
155 HOLOFERNES.
156 I will overglance the superscript: _To the snow-white hand of the most
157 beauteous Lady Rosaline._ I will look again on the intellect of the
158 letter, for the nomination of the party writing to the person written
159 unto: _Your Ladyship’s in all desired employment, Berowne._ Sir
160 Nathaniel, this Berowne is one of the votaries with the King, and here
161 he hath framed a letter to a sequent of the stranger queen’s, which
162 accidentally, or by the way of progression, hath miscarried. Trip and
163 go, my sweet, deliver this paper into the royal hand of the King. It
164 may concern much. Stay not thy compliment. I forgive thy duty. Adieu.
165 JAQUENETTA.
166 Good Costard, go with me. Sir, God save your life.
167 COSTARD.
168 Have with thee, my girl.
169 [_Exeunt Costard and Jaquenetta._]
170 NATHANIEL.
171 Sir, you have done this in the fear of God, very religiously; and, as a
172 certain Father saith—
173 HOLOFERNES.
174 Sir, tell not me of the Father, I do fear colourable colours. But to
175 return to the verses: did they please you, Sir Nathaniel?
176 NATHANIEL.
177 Marvellous well for the pen.
178 HOLOFERNES.
179 I do dine today at the father’s of a certain pupil of mine, where if,
180 before repast, it shall please you to gratify the table with a grace, I
181 will, on my privilege I have with the parents of the foresaid child or
182 pupil, undertake your _ben venuto;_ where I will prove those verses to
183 be very unlearned, neither savouring of poetry, wit, nor invention. I
184 beseech your society.
185 NATHANIEL.
186 And thank you too; for society, saith the text, is the happiness of
187 life.
188 HOLOFERNES.
189 And certes, the text most infallibly concludes it. [_To Dull_.] Sir, I
190 do invite you too. You shall not say me nay. _Pauca verba_. Away! The
191 gentles are at their game, and we will to our recreation.
192 [_Exeunt._]