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- {Enter Holofernes the PEDANT, Nathaniel the CURATE, and DULL.}
- CURATE. Very reverent sport truly, and done in the testimony of a good conscience.
- PEDANT. The Deer was (as you know) sanguis in blood, ripe as the Pomwater, who now hangeth like a jewel in the ear of Cielo the sky, the welkin the heaven, and anon falleth like a Crab on the face of Terra, the soil, the land, the earth.
- CURATE. 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.
- PEDANT. Sir Nathaniel, haud credo.
- DULL. ‘Twas not a haud credo, ‘twas a Pricket.
- PEDANT. 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 an haud credo, ‘twas a Pricket.
- PEDANT. Twice sod simplicity, bis coctus, O thou monster ignorance, How deformed dost thou look.
- CURATE. Sir he hath never fed of the dainties that are bred in a book.
- He hath not eaten 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 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,
- Many can brook the weather, that love not the wind.
- 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?
- PEDANT. Dictisima good-man Dull, dictisima good-man Dull.
- DULL. What is dictima?
- CURATE. A title to Phoebe, to Luna, to the Moon.
- PEDANT. The Moon was a month old when Adam was no more
- And wrought not to five-weeks when he came to five-score.
- Th’ allusion holds in the Exchange.
- DULL. Tis true indeed, the Collusion holds in the Exchange.
- PEDANT. God comfort thy capacity, I say th’ allusion holds in the Exchange.
- DULL. And I say the pollution holds in the Exchange: for the Moon is never but a month old: and I say beside that, ‘twas a Pricket that the Princess kill’d.
- PEDANT. Sir Nathaniel, will you hear an extemporal Epitaph on the death of the
- Deer, and to humor the ignorant call’d the Deer: the Princess kill’d a Pricket.
- CURATE. Perge, good Master Holofernes perge, so it shall please you to abrogate scurrility.
- PEDANT. I will something affect the letter, for it argues facility.
- {Declaims} The prayerful 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.
- If Sore be sore, then L to Sore,
- makes fifty sores o’ sorel:
- Of one sore I a hundred make
- by adding but one more L.
- CURATE. A rare talent.
- DULL. If a talent be a claw, look how he claws him with a talent.
- CURATE. 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 primater, 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.
- PEDANT. 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.
- CURATE. Mehercule, if their sons be ingenious, they shall want no instruction: If their Daughters be capable, I will put it to them. But Vir sapis qui pauca loquitur, a soul Feminine saluteth us.
- {Enter JAQUENETTA and COSTARD.}
- JAQUENETTA. God give you good morrow, Master Person.
- CURATE. Master Person, quasi Person? And if one should be pierced, Which is the one?
- COSTARD. Marry Master Schoolmaster, he that is likes’t to a hogshead.
- CURATE. 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.
- JAQUENETTA. Good master parson, be so good as read me this letter; it was given me by Costard, and sent me from Don Armado: I beseech you, read it.
- CURATE. Facile precor gellida, quando pecas omnia sub umbra ruminat, and so forth. Ah good olde Mantuan, I may speak of thee as the traveller doth of Venice, vemchie, vencha, que non te unde, que non te perreche. 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.
- PEDANT. Aye, sir, and very learned.
- CURATE. Let me hear a staff, a stanza, a verse; Lege domine.
- {Reads} “If Love make me forsworn, how shall I swear to love?
- Ah never faith could hold, if not to beauty vowed.
- Though to myself forsworn, to thee I’ll faithful prove.
- Those thoughts to me were Oaks, to thee like Osiers bowed
- 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.”
- PEDANT. You find not the apostrophes, and so miss the accent. Let me supervise the canzonet.
- CURATE. 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 tired Horse his rider: But Damsella virgin, Was this directed to you?
- JAQUENETTA. Aye sir from one Monsieur Berowne, one of the strange Queen’s Lords.
- CURATE. I will overglance the superscript.
- {Reads} “To the snow-white hand of the most beauteous Lady Rosaline.”
- {Says} I will look again on the intellect of the letter, for the nomination of the party written to the person written unto.
- {Reads} “Your Ladyship’s in all desired employment, Berowne.”
- PEDANT. Sir Nathaniel, this Berowne 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.
- JAQUENETTA. Good Costard go with me: sir God save your life.
- COSTARD. Have with thee my girl.
- {Exit COSTARD and JAQUENETTA.}
- CURATE. Sir you have done this in the fear of God very religiously: and as a certain Father saith—
- PEDANT. Sir tell not me of the Father, I do fear colorable colors.
- But to return to the Verses, Did they please you Sir Nathaniel?
- CURATE. Marvelous well for the pen.
- PEDANT. 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 bienvenuto, where I will prove those Verses to be very unlearned, neither savoring of Poetry, wit, nor invention. I beseech your society.
- CURATE. And thank you too: for society (saith the text) is the happiness of life.
- PEDANT. And certes the text most infallibly concludes it.
- Sir 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 omnes.}
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