will put it to them: But, vir sapit, qui pauca loquitur: a soul feminine saluteth us. Enter JAQUENETTA and COSTARD. Jaq. God give you good morrow, master person. Hol. Master person,-quasi pers-on. And if one should be pierced, which is the one? Cost. Marry, master Schoolmaster, he that is likest to a hogshead. Hol. Of 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. Jaq. Good master parson, be so good as read me this letter; it was given me by Costard, and sent me from Don Armatho: I beseech you, read it. Hol. Fauste, precor gelidâ quando pecus omne sub umbrá Ruminat, and so forth. Ah, good old Mantuan! I may speak of thee as the traveller doth of Venice: ·Vinegia, Vinegia, Chi non te vede, ei non te pregia. 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? Nath. Ay, sir, and very learned. Hol. Let me hear a staff, a stanza, a verse; Lege, domine. Nath. If love make me forsworn, how shall I swear to love? Ah! never faith could hold, if not to beauty vow'd! Though to myself forsworn, to thee I'll faithful prove; Those thoughts to me were oaks, to thee like osiers bow'd. 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 is dreadful thunder, Which, not to anger bent, is music and sweet fire. Celestial, as thou art, oh! pardon, love, this wrong, That sings heaven's praise with such an earthly tongue! Hol. You find not the apostrophes, 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 tyred horse his rider. But damosella virgin, was this directed to you? Jaq. Ay, sir, from one Monsieur Biron, one of the strange queen's lords. Hol. I will overglance the superscript. To the snowwhite 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, BIRON. Sir Nathaniel, this Biron 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. Jaq. Good Costard, go with me. Sir, God save your life! Cost. Have with thee, my girl. [Exeunt Cost. and JAQ. Nath. Sir, you have done this in the fear of God, very religiously; and, as a certain father saith Hol. Sir, tell not me of the father; I do fear colourable colours. But, to return to the verses; Did they please you, Sir Nathaniel? Nath. Marvellous well for the pen. Hol. 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. Nath. And thank you too: for society, (saith the text,) is the happiness of life. Hol. And, certes, the text most infallibly concludes it.-Sir, [To DULL.] 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.-Another part of the same. Enter BIRON, with a paper. Biron. The king he is hunting the deer; I am coursing myself: they have pitch'd a toil; I am toiling 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 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 on my side! I will not love: If I do, hang me; i'faith, I will not. Oh! but her eye,-by this light, but for her eye, I would not love her; yes, for her two eyes. Well, I do nothing in the world but lie, and lie in my throat. By heaven, I do love: and it hath taught me to rhyme, and to be melancholy; and here is part of my rhyme, and here my melancholy. Well, she hath one o' my sonnets already; the clown bore it, the fool sent it, and the lady hath it: sweet clown, sweeter fool, sweetest lady! By the world, I would not care a pin if the other three were in: Here comes one with a paper; God give him grace to groan! [Gets up into a tree. Enter the KING, with a paper. King. Ah me! Biron. [Aside.] Shot, by heaven!-Proceed, sweet Cupid; thou hast thumped him with thy bird-bolt under the left pap:-I'faith, secrets. King. [Reads.] So sweet a kiss the golden sur gives not To those fresh morning drops upon the rose, Through the transparent bosom of the deep, So ridest thou triumphing in my woe; And they thy glory through my grief will show : But do not love thyself; then thou wilt keep My tears for glasses, and still make me weep. O queen of queens, how far dost thou excel! No thought can think, nor tongue of mortal tell.How shall she know my griefs? I'll drop the paper. Sweet leaves, shade folly. Who is he comes here? [Steps aside. Enter LONGAVILLE, with a paper. What, Longaville! and reading! listen, ear. Biron. Now, in thy likeness, one more fool, appear! [Aside. Long. Ah me! I am forsworn. two, that I know: Thou mak'st the triumviry, the corner-cap of society, ('Gainst whom the world cannot hold argument,) If broken, then, it is no fault of mine; If by me broke, What fool is not so wise, To lose an oath, to win a paradise? Biron. [Aside.] This is the liver vein, which makes flesh a deity; A green goose, a goddess: pure, pure idolatry. God amend us, God amend! we are much out o' the way. Enter DUMAIN, with a paper. Long. By whom shall I send this ?-Company! stay. [Stepping aside. Biron. [Aside.] All hid, all hid, an old infant play. Like a demi-god here sit I in the sky, And wretched fools' secrets heedfully o'er-eye. Dum. On a day, (alack the day!) Love, whose month is ever May, This will I send; and something else more plain, Would from my forehead wipe a perjur'd note; [Aside. Long. Dumain, [Advancing.] thy love is far from charity, That in love's grief desir'st society. You may look pale, but I should blush, I know, King. Come, sir, [Advancing.] you blush; as his your case is such; You chide at him, offending twice as much. [To LONGAVILLE. And Jove, for your love, would infringe an oath. [To DUMAIN. What will Biron say, when that he shall lear A faith infring'd, which such a zeal did swear? How will he scorn? how will he spend his wit? How will he triumph, leap, and laugh at it? For all the wealth that ever I did see, I would not have him know so much by me. Where lies thy grief, Oh! tell me, good Dumain? Long. It did move him to passion, and therefore let's hear it. Dum. It is Biron's writing, and here is his is name. [Picks up the pieces. Biron. Ah, you whoreson loggerhead, [To CosTARD.] you were born to do me shame.Guilty, my lord, guilty; I confess, I confess. King. What? Biron. That you three fools lack'd me fool to make up the mess: He, he, and you, my liege, and I, Are pick-purses in love, and we deserve to die. Will these turtles be gone? King. True, true; we are four: Hence, sirs, away. Cost. Walk aside the true folk, and let the traitors King. What, did these rent lines show some love of thine ? Biron. Did they, quoth you? Who sees the heavenly Rosaline, That, like a rude and savage man of Inde, At the first opening of the gorgeous east, Bows not his vassal head; and, strucken blind, Kisses the base ground with obedient breast? What peremptory eagle-sighted eye Dares look upon the heaven of her brow, That is not blinded by her majesty? King. What zeal, what fury, hath inspir'd thee now? My love, her mistress, is a gracious moon; She, an attending star, scarce seen a light. Do meet, as at a fair, in her fair cheek; Fie, painted rhetoric! Oh! she needs it not. She passes praise; then praise too short doth blot. And gives the crutch the cradle's infancy. No face is fair, that is not full so black. Oh! if in black my lady's brows be deck'd, It mourns, that painting, and usurping hair, Should ravish doters with a false aspect; And therefore is she born to make black fair. Her favour turns the fashion of the days; For native blood is counted painting now; And therefore red, that would avoid dispraise, Paints itself black, to imitate her brow. Dum. To look like her, are chimney-sweepers black. Long. And, since her time, are colliers counted bright. King. And Ethiops of their sweet complexion crack. I'll find a fairer face not wash'd to-day. see. Biron. I'll prove her fair, or talk till doomsday here. sworn. King. Then leave this chat; and, good Biron, now prove Our loving lawful, and our faith not torn. Dum. Ay, marry, there;-some flattery for this evil. Long. Oh! some authority how to proceed; Some tricks, some quillets, how to cheat the devil. Dum. Some salve for perjury. Biron. And where that you have vow'd to study, lords, | Without the beauty of a woman's face? The nimble spirits in the arteries; As motion, and long-during action, tires Still climbing trees in the Hesperides? As bright Apollo's lute, strung with his hair; From women's eyes this doctrine I derive. King. Saint Cupid, then! and, soldiers, to the field. Biron. Advance your standards, and upon them, lords. Pell-mell, down with them, but be first advis'd, Long. Now to plain-dealing: lay these glozes by. King. And win them too: therefore, let us devise Then, homeward, every man attach the hand ACT V. SCENE I.-Another part of the same. Enter HOLOFERNES, Sir NATHANIEL, and DULL. Hol. Satis quod sufficit. Nath. I praise God for you, Sir: your reasons at dinner have been sharp and sententious; pleasant without scurrility, witty without affection, audacious without impudency, learned without opinion, and strange without heresy. I did converse this quondam day with a companion of the king's, who is intituled, nominated, or called, Don Adriano de Armado. Hol. Novi hominem tanquam te: His humour is lofty, his discourse peremptory, his tongue filed, his eye ambitious, his gait majestical, and his general behaviour vain, ridiculous, and thrasonical. He is too picked, too spruce, too affected, too odd, as it were, too peregrinate, as I may call it. Nath. A most singular and choice epithet. [Takes out his table-book. Hol. He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument. I abhor such fanatical phantasms, such insociable and point-devise companions; such rackers of orthography, as to speak, dout, fine, when he should say doubt; det, when he should pronounce, debt; d, e, b, t; not, d, e, t: he clepeth a calf, cauf; half, hauf; neighbour, vocatur, nebour; neigh, abbreviated, ne: This is abhominable, (which he would call abominable,) it insinuateth me of insanie; Ne intelligis, domine? to make frantic, lunatic. Nath. Laus deo, bone, intelligo. Hol. Bone?-bone, for bené: Priscian a little scratch'd; 'twill serve. Enter ARMADO, MOTH, and COSTARD. Arm. Men of peace, well encounter'd. Hol. Most military sir, salutation. [TO MOTH. Moth. They have been at a great feast of languages, and stolen the scraps. [To COSTARD, aside. Cost. Oh! they have lived long in the alms-basket of words! I marvel, thy master hath not eaten thee for a word; for thou art not so long by the head as honorificabilitudinitatibus: thou art easier swallowed than a flap dragon. Moth. Peace: the peal begins. Arm. Monsieur, [To HOL.] are you not letter'd? Moth. Yes, yes; he teaches boys the horn-book :What is a, b, spelt backward, with a horn on his head? Hol. Ba, pueritia, with a horn added. Moth. Ba, most silly sheep, with a horn You hear his learning. Hol. Quis, quis, thou consonant? liable, congruent, and measurable, for the afternoon: the word is well cull'd, chose; sweet and apt, I do assure you, sir, I do assure. Arm. Sir, the king is a noble gentleman; and my familiar, I do assure you, very good friend :-For what is inward between us, let it pass:-I do beseech thee, remember thy courtesy ;-I beseech thee, apparel thy head; and among other importunate and most serious designs, and of great import indeed, too; - but let that pass:-for I must tell thee, it will please his grace (by the world) sometime to lean upon my poor shoulder; and with his royal finger, thus, dally with my excrement, with my mustachio: but, sweet heart, let that pass. By the world, I recount no fable; some certain special honours it pleaseth his greatness to impart to Armado, a soldier, a man of travel, that hath seen the world: but let that pass.-The very all of all is, but, sweet heart, I do implore secrecy,-that the king would have me present the princess, sweet chuck, with some delightful ostentation, or show, or pageant, or antick, or fire-work. Now, understanding that the curate and your sweet self are good at such eruptions, and sudden breaking out of mirth, as it were, I have acquainted you withal, to the end to crave your assist ance. Hol. Sir, you shall present before her the nine worthies. Sir Nathaniel, as concerning some entertainment of time, some show in the posterior of this day, to be rendered by our assistance,-the king's command, and this most gallant, illustrate, and learned gentleman,-before the princess; I say, none so fit as to present the nine worthies. Nath. Where will you find men worthy enough to present them? Hol. Joshua, yourself; myself, or this gallant gentleman, Judas Maccabæus; this swain, because of his great limb or joint, shall pass Pompey the great; the page, Hercules. Arm. Pardon, sir, error: he is not quantity enough for that worthy's thumb: he is not so big as the end of his club. Hol. Shall I have audience? he shall present Hercules in minority: his enter and exit shall be strangling a snake; and I will have an apology for that purpose. Moth. An excellent device! so, if any of the audience hiss, you may cry: well done, Hercules! now thou crushest the snake! that is the way to make an offence gracious; though few have the grace to do it. Arm. For the rest of the worthies? Hol. I will play three myself. Arm. We will have, if this fadge not, an antick. I beseech you, follow. Hol. Via, Goodman Dull! thou hast spoken no word Moth. The third of the five vowels, if you repeat all this while. them; or the fifth, if I. Hol. I will repeat them, a, e, i,— Moth. The sheep: the other two concludes it; o, u. Arm. Now, by the salt wave of the Mediterraneum, a sweet touch, a quick venew of wit: snip, snap, quick and home; it rejoiceth my intellect; true wit. Moth. Offer'd by a child to an old man; which is wit-old. Hol. What is the figure? what is the figure? Hol. Thou disputest like an infant; go, whip thy gig. Moth. Lend me your horn to make one, and I will whip about your infamy circúm circá; a gig of a cuckold's horn! Cost. An I had but one penny in the world, thou shouldst have it to buy gingerbread: hold, there is the very remuneration I had of thy master, thou halfpenny purse of wit, thou pigeon-egg of discretion. Oh! an the heavens were so pleased, that thou wert but my bastard! what a joyful father wouldst thou make me! Go to; thou hast it ad dunghill, at the fingers' ends, as they say. Hol. Oh! I smell false Latin; dunghill for unguem. Arm. Arts-man, præambula; we will be singled from the barbarous. Do you not educate youth at the change-house on the top of the mountain ? Hol. Or, mons, the hill. Arm. At your sweet pleasure, for the mountain. Arm. Sir, it is the king's most sweet pleasure and affection, to congratulate the princess at her pavilion, in the posteriors of this day; which the rude multitude call the afternoon. Hol. The posterior of the day, most generous sir, is Dull. Nor understood none neither, Sir. Dull. I'll make one in a dance, or so; or I will play on the tabor to the worthies, and let them dance the hay. Hol. Most dull, honest Dull, to our sport, away. [Exeunt. SCENE II.—Another part of the same. Before the PRINCESS' Pavilion. Enter the PRINCESS, KATHARINE, ROSALINE, and MARIA. Prin. Sweet hearts, we shall be rich ere we depart, If fairings come thus plentifully in: A lady wall'd about with diamonds!- Ro8. Madam, came nothing else along with that? Ro8. That was the way to make his god-head wax; For he hath been five-thousand years a boy. Kath. Ay, and a shrewd unhappy gallows too. Ros. You'll ne'er be friends with him; he kill'd your sister. Kath. He made her melancholy, sad, and heavy; And so she died: had she been light, like you, Of such a merry, nimble, stirring spirit, She might have been a grandam ere she died: And so may you: for a light heart lives long. Ros. What's your dark meaning, mouse, of this light word? Kath. A light condition in a beauty dark. Ros. We need more light to find your meaning out. Ros. Look, what you do, you do it still i' the dark. Ros. Great reason; for Past cure is still past care. The numbers true; and, were the numb'ring too, I am compar'd to twenty thousand fairs. Ros. Much, in the letters; nothing in the praise. For, quoth the king, an angel shalt thou sce; I should have fear'd her, had she been a devil. To check their folly, passion's solemn tears. Unto his several mistress; which they'll know Prin. And will they so? the gallants shall be task'd:- Ros. 'Ware pencils! How! let me not die your For, ladies, we will every one be mask'd; debtor, My red dominical, my golden letter: Oh! that your face were not so full of O's! Kath. A pox of that jest! and beshrew all shrows. Prin. Did he not send you twain? A huge translation of hypocrisy, Vilely compil'd, profound simplicity. Mar. This, and these pearls, to me sent Longaville: The letter is too long by half a mile. Prin. I think no less: Dost thou not wish in heart, Mar. Ay, or I would these hands might never part. Prin. None are so surely caught, when they are As wit turn'd fool: folly, in wisdom hatch'd, Ros. The blood of youth burns not with such excess, Mar. Folly in fools bears not so strong a note, As foolery in the wise, when wit doth dote; Since all the power thereof it doth apply, To prove, by wit, worth in simplicity. Enter BOYET. Prin. Here comes Boyet, and mirth is in his face. Prepare, madam, prepare!— I thought to close mine eyes some half an hour: I stole into a neighbour thicket by, That well by heart hath conn'd his embassage; And not a man of them shall have the grace, And change you favours too; so shall your loves Ros. Come on then: wear the favours most in sight. And mock for mock is only my intent. Ros. But shall we dance, if they desire us to't? And quite divorce his memory from his part. Moth. All hail, the richest beauties on the earth. [The ladies turn their backs to him. Out |