PRIN. O, thy letter, thy letter; he's a good friend of mine: This letter is mistook, it importeth none here; It is writ to Jaquenetta. PRIN. We will read it, I swear: Break the neck of the wax, and every one give ear. BOYET. [Reads.] "By heaven, that thou art fair is most infallible; true, that thou art beauteous; truth itself, that thou art lovely: More fairer than fair, beautiful than beauteous, truer than truth itself, have commiseration on thy heroical vassal! The magnanimous and most illustrate king Cophetua set eye upon the pernicious and indubitate beggar Zenelophon; and he it was that might rightly say veni, vidi, vici; which to annotanize*, in the vulgar, (O base and obscure vulgar!) videlicet, he came, saw, and overcame he came, one; saw, two; overcame, three. Who came? the king; Why did he come? to see; Why did he see? to overcome: To whom came he? to the beggar; What saw he? the beggar; Who overcame he? the beggar: The conclusion is victory; On whose side? the king's: the captive is enrich'd; On whose side? the beggar's: The catastrophe is a nuptial; On whose side? The king's ?-no, on both in one, or one in both. I am the king; for so stands the comparison: thou the beggar; for so witnesseth thy lowliness. Shall I command thy love? I may: Shall I enforce thy love? I could: Shall I entreat thy love? I will: What shalt thou exchange for rags? robes: For tittles, titles: For thyself, me. Thus, expecting thy reply, I profane my lips on thy foot, my eyes on thy picture, and my heart on thy every part. Thine, in the dearest design of industry, DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO." "Thus dost thou hear the Nemean lion roar Submissive fall his princely feet before, And he from forage will incline to play: But if thou strive, poor soul, what art thou then? PRIN. What plume of feathers is he that indited this letter? PRIN. Who gave • Annotanize. thee this letter? So the quarto and folio. Thou, fellow, a word: The modern reading is anatomize. The original, annothanize, is evidently a pedantic form of annotate; and we willingly restore the coined word. Mr. Collier holds that these lines are not the comment of Boyet upon Armado's letter, but a conclusion of that letter. We adopt the suggestion. COST. I told you; my lord. PRIN. To whom shouldst thou give it? PRIN. From which lord, to which lady? From my lord to my lady. COST. From my lord Biron, a good master of mine, To a lady of France, that he call'd Rosaline. PRIN. Thou hast mistaken his letter. Come, lords, away, BOYET. Who is the suitor? who is the suitor a? Ros. Finely put off! [Exeunt PRINCESS and train. Why, she that bears the bow. BOYET. My lady goes to kill horns; but, if thou marry, Ros. Well, then, I am the shooter. BOYET. And who is your deer? Ros. If we choose by the horns, yourself: come not near. Finely put on, indeed!— MAR. You still wrangle with her, Boyet, and she strikes at the brow. BOYET. But she herself is hit lower: Have I hit her now? Ros. Shall I come upon thee with an old saying, that was a man when king BOYET. So I may answer thee with one as old, that was a woman when queen ΒΟΥΕΤ. Thou canst not hit it, hit it, hit it, An I cannot, cannot, cannot, An I cannot, another can. [Exeunt Ros. and KATH. COST. By my troth, most pleasant! how both did fit it! BOYET. A mark! O, mark but that mark! A mark, says my lady! MAR. Wide o' the bow hand! I' faith your hand is out. COST. Then will she get the upshot by cleaving the pin". Suitor. The old copies read "who is the shooter." But the commentators say that Boyet asks, "who is the suitor," and Rosaline gives him a quibbling answer-" she that bears the bow." Suitor and shooter were pronounced alike in Shakspere's day; and thus the Scotch and Irish pronunciation of this word, which we laugh at now, is nearer the old English than our own pronunciation. The pin. So the second folio. The quarto and the first folio, by mistake, repeat the is in of the preceding line. MAR. Come, come, you talk greasily, your lips grow foul. COST. By my soul, a swain! a most simple clown! [Exeunt BOYET and MARIA. Lord, lord! how the ladies and I have put him down! O' my troth, most sweet jests! most incony vulgar wit! To see him walk before a lady, and to bear her fan! To see him kiss his hand! and how most sweetly a' will swear!— Ah, heavens, it is a most pathetical nit! [Shouting within. Exit COSTARD, running. SCENE II.-The same. Enter HOLOFERNES, Sir NATHANIEL, and DULL. NATH. Very reverend sport, truly; and done in the testimony of a good conscience. HOL. The deer was, as you know, sanguis,—in blood; ripe as a pomewater, who now hangeth like a jewel in the ear of cœlo,-the sky, the welkin, the heaven; and anon falleth like a crab, on the face of terra,—the soil, the land, the earth. NATH. Truly, master Holofernes, the epithets are sweetly varied, like a scholar at the least; But, sir, I assure ye, it was a buck of the first head. HOL. Sir Nathaniel, haud credo. DULL. 'T was not a haud credo; 't was a pricket 17. HOL. Most barbarous intimation! yet a kind of insinuation, as it were in via, in way, of explication; facere, as it were, replication, or, rather, ostentare, to show, as it were, his inclination,-after his undressed, unpolished, uneducated, unpruned, untrained, or rather unlettered, or, ratherest, unconfirmed fashion, to insert again my haud credo for a deer. DULL. I said the deer was not a haud credo; 't was a pricket. HOL. Twice sod simplicity, bis coctus! O thou monster Ignorance, how deformed dost thou look! NATH. Sir, he hath never fed of the dainties that are bred in a book; he hath not eat paper, as it were; he hath not drunk ink: his intellect is not replenished; he is only an animal, only sensible in the duller parts; In the old editions Holofernes is distinguished as "The Pedant." All the old copies have this reading. Steevens would read "in sanguis-blood." And such barren plants are set before us, that we thankful should be (Which we of taste and feeling are) for those parts that do fructify in us more than he. For as it would ill become me to be vain, indiscreet, or a fool, So, were there a patch set on learning, to see him in a school: What was a month old at Cain's birth, that's not five weeks old as yet? DULL. What is Dictynna? NATH. A title to Phoebe, to Luna, to the moon. HOL. The moon was a month old, when Adam was no more; DULL. T is true indeed; the collusion holds in the exchange. HOL. God comfort thy capacity! I say, the allusion holds in the exchange. DULL. And I say the pollusion holds in the exchange; for the moon is never but a month old and I say, beside, that 't was a pricket that the princess killed. HOL. Sir Nathaniel, will you hear an extemporal epitaph on the death of the deer? and, to humour the ignorant, I have called the deer the princess killed, a pricket. NATH. Perge, good master Holofernes, perge; so it shall please you to abrogate scurrility. HOL. I will something affect the letter"; for it argues facility. The preyful princess pierc'd and prick'd a pretty pleasing pricket; The dogs did yell; put 1 to sore, then sorel jumps from thicket; If sore be sore, then L to sore makes fifty sores; O sore L! NATH. A rare talent! DULL. If a talent be a claws, look how he claws him with a talent. HOL. This is a gift that I have, simple, simple; a foolish extravagant spirit, full of forms, figures, shapes, objects, ideas, apprehensions, motions, revolutions: these are begot in the ventricle of memory, nourished in the womb of pia mater, and delivered upon the mellowing of occasion: But the gift is good in those in whom it is acute, and I am thankful for it. Of is wanting in the originals. b Raught-reached. * I have is wanting in the early copies. The correction was made by Rowe. 4 Affect the letter-affect alliteration. • Preful is the reading of the early copies; praiseful that of the second folio. The pedant brings in the Roman numeral, L, as the sign of fifty. Talon was formerly written talent. Pia mater. The quarto and folio have prima mater. The words are correctly given in the NATH. Sir, I praise the Lord for you; and so may my parishioners; for their sons are well tutor'd by you, and their daughters profit very greatly under you you are a good member of the commonwealth. HOL. Mehercle, if their sons be ingenious, they shall want no instruction: if their daughters be capable, I 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' 18 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. Ho. Of piercing a hogshead! a good lustre of conceit in a turf of earth; fire enough for a flint, pearl enough for a swine: 't is 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 gelidá quando pecus omne sub umbrá Ruminat,—and so forth. Ah, good old Mantuan 1! I may speak of thee as the traveller doth of Venice: Vinegia, Vinegia, Chi non te vede, ei non te pregia 20. Old Mantuan! old Mantuan! Who understandeth thee not, loves thee nota.-Ut, re, sol, la, mi, fa1.—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? (Which is to me some praise, that I thy parts admire ;) That sings heaven's praise with such an earthly tongue! original folio edition of 'Twelfth Night,' Act I., Scene 5:-" One of thy kin has a most weak piamater." "Loves thee not is wanting in the folio. The pedant is in his altitudes. He has quoted Latin and Italian; and in his self-satisfaction he sol-fas, to recreate himself, and to show his musical skill. e This sonnet was printed, with some variations, in 'The Passionate Pilgrim,' 1599. See 'Poems' |