BOYET.

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!

MAR. A mark marvellous well shot for they
both did hit it.

BOYET. A mark! O, mark but that mark!
A mark, says my lady!

Let the mark have a prick in 't to mete at, if it
may be.

MAR. Wide o' the bow hand! I' faith your hand is out.

COST. Indeed, a' must shoot nearer, or he'll ne'er hit the clout.

BOYET. An if my hand be out, then, belike your hand is in.

COST. Then will she get the upshot by cleaving the pin."

MAR. Come, come, you talk greasily, your lips grow foul.

COST. She's too hard for you at pricks, sir; challenge her to bowl.

BOYET. I fear too much rubbing. Good night, my good owl.

[Exeunt BOYET and MARIA. COST. By my soul, a swain! a most simple clown!

Lord, lord! how the ladies and I have put him down!

O' my troth, most sweet jests! most incony vulgar wit!

When it comes so smoothly off, so obscenely, as it were, so fit.

Armado o' the one side,-O, a most dainty man!

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

And his page o' t'other side, that handful of
wit!

Ah, heavens, it is a most pathetical nit!
Sola, sola!

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. 'Twas not a haud credo; 't was a pricket. (2)

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; 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:

But, omne bene, say I; being of an old father's mind,

Shouting within.* Exit COSTARD, running. Many can brook the weather, that love not the wind.

(*) Old copies, shoote within.

a By cleaving the pin.] The quarto, 1598, and the folio, 1623, read, by mistake, is in. To creave the pin is explained in Act V. Sc. 4, of" The Two Gentlemen of Verona," p. 39.

Armado o' the one side,-] O' the one side, is a modern correction: the quarto, 1598, reads, ath toothen side; and the folio, 1623, ath to the side. Nor are these, I believe, the only misdeeds in connexion with this particular passage for which the old copies are amenable. The reference to Armado and the Page is so utterly irrelevant to anything in the scene, that every one must be struck with its incongruity, I have more than a suspicion that the whole passage, from

"O' my troth, most sweet jests! most incony vulgar wit!" or, at least, from

down to,

"Armado o' the one side," &c.

"Ah, heavens, it is a most pathetical nit!"

belongs to the previous Act, and in the original MS. followed Costard's panegyric on the Page,

"My sweet ounce of man's flesh! my incony Jew!"

It is evidently out of place in the present scene, and quite appropriate in the one indicated.

In blood;] To be in blood, a phrase of the chase, has been explained, to be fit for killing; but it appears also to have meant an animal with its blood up-ready to turn and attack its pursuers; like a stag at bay. See the passage in " Henry VI. Part I." Act IV. Sc. 2, beginning

"If we be English deer, be then in blood;`
Not rascal like," &c.

d Which we of taste-] The preposition of is not found in the old copies. It was inserted by Tyrwhitt.

DULL. You two are book-men: can you tell by your wit,

What was a month old at Cain's birth, that's not five weeks old as yet?

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 HOL. Dictynna, goodman Dull; Dictynna, humour the ignorant, I have called the deer the

a

goodman Dull.

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;

And raught not to five weeks, when he came to five-score.

The allusion holds in the exchange.

DULL. 'Tis 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

a Dictynna, goodman Dull; Dictynna,-] The old copies have Dictissima and Dictima. Rowe made the corrections.

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;

Some say a sore; but not a sore, till now made

sore with shooting.

The dogs did yell; put l to sore, then sorel jumps from thicket;

Or pricket, sore, or else sorel; the people fall a hooting.

b I have called the deer-] I have, not in the ancient copies, was inserted by Rowe.

If sore be sore, then L to sore makes fifty sores;
O sore L!

Of one sore l an hundred make, by adding but
one more L.

NATH. A rare talent!

DULL. If a talent be a claw, 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,

love?

shapes, objects, ideas, apprehensions, motions, If love make me forsworn, how shall I swear to 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.

(*) Old copies, primater.

If a talent be a claw, &c.-] Goodman Dull's small pun is founded on talon of a bird or beast being often of old spelt talent, and on claw, in one sense, meaning to flatter, to fawn upon.

b Master person.] Parson was formerly very often pronounced and spelt person; which, indeed, is more correct than parson, as the word comes from persona ecclesiæ. “Though we write Parson differently, yet 'tis but Person; that is, the individual Person set apart for the service of the Church, and 'tis in Latin Persona, and Personatus is a Personage."-SELDEN'S Table Talk, Art. "Parson."

e Fauste, precor gelidá-] In the old copies this passage is assigned to Nathaniel. There can be no doubt of its belonging to Holofernes, who probably reads it, or recites it from memory, while the curate is intent upon the letter. Like all quotations

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 his 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!

Here

HOL. You find not the apostrophes, and so miss the accent: let me supervise the canzonet. are only numbers ratified; but, for the elegancy, facility, and golden cadence of poesy, caret. Ovidius smelling out the odoriferous flowers of fancy, the Naso was the man: and why, indeed, Naso; but for jerks of invention? Imitari is nothing: so doth the hound his master, the ape his keeper, the tired horse his rider. But, damosella virgin, was this directed to you?

(*) First folio omits loves thee not. from a foreign language, the Latin here, and the Italian proverb which follows, are printed most vilely in both quarto and folio. The "good old Mantuan" was Baptista Spagnolus, a writer of poems, who flourished late in the fifteenth century, and was called Mantuanus, from the place of his birth.

d Here are only numbers ratified;] In the old copies Sir Nathaniel is now made to proceed with this speech; so to other passages in the present scene, which clearly belong to Holofernes, Nath. has been mistakenly prefixed.

e Imitari is nothing:] The quarto and folio, 1623, read invention imitarie. Theobald made the obvious correction.

f The tired horse-] Banks' horse is thought to be here again alluded to; but perhaps by tired horse (in the original tyred) any horse adorned with ribbons or trappings may be meant.