Love’s Labour’s Lost

1 Enter Holofernes, Sir Nathaniel and Dull.
2 HOLOFERNES.
3 _Satis quod sufficit._
4 NATHANIEL.
5 I praise God for you, sir. Your reasons at dinner have been sharp and
6 sententious, pleasant without scurrility, witty without affection,
7 audacious without impudency, learned without opinion, and strange
8 without heresy. I did converse this _quondam_ day with a companion of
9 the King’s, who is intituled, nominated, or called, Don Adriano de
10 Armado.
11 HOLOFERNES.
12 _Novi hominem tanquam te._ His humour is lofty, his discourse
13 peremptory, his tongue filed, his eye ambitious, his gait majestical
14 and his general behaviour vain, ridiculous, and thrasonical. He is too
15 picked, too spruce, too affected, too odd, as it were, too peregrinate,
16 as I may call it.
17 NATHANIEL.
18 A most singular and choice epithet.
19 [_Draws out his table-book._]
20 HOLOFERNES.
21 He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his
22 argument. I abhor such fanatical phantasimes, such insociable and
23 point-devise companions, such rackers of orthography, as to speak
24 “dout” _sine_ “b”, when he should say “doubt”, “det” when he should
25 pronounce “debt”—_d, e, b, t_, not _d, e, t_. He clepeth a calf “cauf”,
26 half “hauf”; neighbour _vocatur_ “nebour”, neigh abbreviated “ne”. This
27 is abhominable, which he would call “abominable”. It insinuateth me of
28 insanie. _Ne intelligis, domine?_ To make frantic, lunatic.
29 NATHANIEL.
30 _Laus Deo, bone intelligo._
31 HOLOFERNES.
32 _Bone? Bone_ for _bene?_ Priscian a little scratched; ’twill serve.
33 Enter Armado, Moth and Costard.
34 NATHANIEL.
35 _Videsne quis venit?_
36 HOLOFERNES.
37 _Video, et gaudeo._
38 ARMADO.
39 _Chirrah!_
40 HOLOFERNES.
41 _Quare_ “chirrah”, not “sirrah”?
42 ARMADO.
43 Men of peace, well encountered.
44 HOLOFERNES.
45 Most military sir, salutation.
46 MOTH.
47 [_Aside to Costard_.] They have been at a great feast of languages and
48 stolen the scraps.
49 COSTARD.
50 O, they have lived long on the almsbasket of words. I marvel thy master
51 hath not eaten thee for a word, for thou art not so long by the head as
52 _honorificabilitudinitatibus_. Thou art easier swallowed than a
53 flap-dragon.
54 MOTH.
55 Peace! The peal begins.
56 ARMADO.
57 [_To Holofernes_.] Monsieur, are you not lettered?
58 MOTH.
59 Yes, yes, he teaches boys the hornbook. What is _a, b_, spelt backward
60 with the horn on his head?
61 HOLOFERNES.
62 _Ba, pueritia_, with a horn added.
63 MOTH.
64 _Ba_, most silly sheep with a horn. You hear his learning.
65 HOLOFERNES.
66 _Quis, quis_, thou consonant?
67 MOTH.
68 The third of the five vowels, if you repeat them; or the fifth, if I.
69 HOLOFERNES.
70 I will repeat them: _a, e, i_—
71 MOTH.
72 The sheep. The other two concludes it: _o, u_.
73 ARMADO.
74 Now, by the salt wave of the Mediterraneum, a sweet touch, a quick
75 venue of wit! Snip, snap, quick and home! It rejoiceth my intellect.
76 True wit!
77 MOTH.
78 Offered by a child to an old man—which is wit-old.
79 HOLOFERNES.
80 What is the figure? What is the figure?
81 MOTH.
82 Horns.
83 HOLOFERNES.
84 Thou disputes like an infant. Go whip thy gig.
85 MOTH.
86 Lend me your horn to make one, and I will whip about your infamy _unum
87 cita_. A gig of a cuckold’s horn.
88 COSTARD.
89 An I had but one penny in the world, thou shouldst have it to buy
90 gingerbread. Hold, there is the very remuneration I had of thy master,
91 thou halfpenny purse of wit, thou pigeon-egg of discretion. O, an the
92 heavens were so pleased that thou wert but my bastard, what a joyful
93 father wouldst thou make me! Go to, thou hast it _ad dunghill_, at the
94 fingers’ ends, as they say.
95 HOLOFERNES.
96 O, I smell false Latin! _Dunghill_ for _unguem_.
97 ARMADO.
98 Arts-man, preambulate. We will be singuled from the barbarous. Do you
99 not educate youth at the charge-house on the top of the mountain?
100 HOLOFERNES.
101 Or _mons_, the hill.
102 ARMADO.
103 At your sweet pleasure, for the mountain.
104 HOLOFERNES.
105 I do, _sans question_.
106 ARMADO.
107 Sir, it is the King’s most sweet pleasure and affection to congratulate
108 the Princess at her pavilion in the posteriors of this day, which the
109 rude multitude call the afternoon.
110 HOLOFERNES.
111 The posterior of the day, most generous sir, is liable, congruent, and
112 measurable for the afternoon. The word is well culled, chose, sweet,
113 and apt, I do assure you, sir, I do assure.
114 ARMADO.
115 Sir, the King is a noble gentleman, and my familiar, I do assure ye,
116 very good friend. For what is inward between us, let it pass. I do
117 beseech thee, remember thy courtesy; I beseech thee, apparel thy head.
118 And among other importunate and most serious designs, and of great
119 import indeed, too—but let that pass. For I must tell thee it will
120 please his Grace, by the world, sometime to lean upon my poor shoulder
121 and with his royal finger thus dally with my excrement, with my
122 mustachio. But, sweet heart, let that pass. By the world, I recount no
123 fable! Some certain special honours it pleaseth his greatness to impart
124 to Armado, a soldier, a man of travel, that hath seen the world. But
125 let that pass. The very all of all is—but, sweet heart, I do implore
126 secrecy—that the King would have me present the Princess, sweet chuck,
127 with some delightful ostentation, or show, or pageant, or antic, or
128 firework. Now, understanding that the curate and your sweet self are
129 good at such eruptions and sudden breaking-out of mirth, as it were, I
130 have acquainted you withal, to the end to crave your assistance.
131 HOLOFERNES.
132 Sir, you shall present before her the Nine Worthies. Sir Nathaniel, as
133 concerning some entertainment of time, some show in the posterior of
134 this day, to be rendered by our assistance, the King’s command, and
135 this most gallant, illustrate, and learned gentleman, before the
136 Princess, I say, none so fit as to present the Nine Worthies.
137 NATHANIEL.
138 Where will you find men worthy enough to present them?
139 HOLOFERNES.
140 Joshua, yourself; myself; and this gallant gentleman, Judas Maccabaeus.
141 This swain, because of his great limb or joint, shall pass Pompey the
142 Great; the page, Hercules.
143 ARMADO.
144 Pardon, sir; error. He is not quantity enough for that Worthy’s thumb;
145 he is not so big as the end of his club.
146 HOLOFERNES.
147 Shall I have audience? He shall present Hercules in minority. His enter
148 and exit shall be strangling a snake; and I will have an apology for
149 that purpose.
150 MOTH.
151 An excellent device! So, if any of the audience hiss, you may cry “Well
152 done, Hercules, now thou crushest the snake!” That is the way to make
153 an offence gracious, though few have the grace to do it.
154 ARMADO.
155 For the rest of the Worthies?
156 HOLOFERNES.
157 I will play three myself.
158 MOTH.
159 Thrice-worthy gentleman!
160 ARMADO.
161 Shall I tell you a thing?
162 HOLOFERNES.
163 We attend.
164 ARMADO.
165 We will have, if this fadge not, an antic. I beseech you, follow.
166 HOLOFERNES.
167 _Via_, goodman Dull! Thou has spoken no word all this while.
168 DULL.
169 Nor understood none neither, sir.
170 HOLOFERNES.
171 _Allons!_ we will employ thee.
172 DULL.
173 I’ll make one in a dance, or so; or I will play on the tabor to the
174 Worthies, and let them dance the hay.
175 HOLOFERNES.
176 Most dull, honest Dull! To our sport, away.
177 [_Exeunt._]