Finely put on, indeed! MARIA You still wrangle with her, Boyet, and she strikes at the brow. BOYET But she herself is hit lower: have I hit her now? ROSALINE Shall I come upon thee with an old saying, that was a man when King Pepin of France was a little boy, as touching the hit it? BOYET So I may answer thee with one as old, that was a woman when Queen Guinover of Britain was a little wench, as touching the hit it. ROSALINE Thou canst not hit it, hit it, hit it, Thou canst not hit it, my good man. BOYET An I cannot, cannot, cannot, An I cannot, another can.
Exeunt ROSALINE and KATHARINE COSTARD By my troth, most pleasant: how both did fit it! MARIA 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. MARIA Wide o' the bow hand! i' faith, your hand is out. COSTARD 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. COSTARD Then will she get the upshoot by cleaving the pin. MARIA Come, come, you talk greasily; your lips grow foul. COSTARD 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 COSTARD 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' th' 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 SIR NATHANIEL Very reverend sport, truly; and done in the testimony of a good conscience. HOLOFERNES The deer was, as you know, sanguis, in blood; ripe as the pomewater, who now hangeth like a jewel in the ear of caelo, the sky, the welkin, the heaven; and anon falleth like a crab on the face of terra, the soil, the land, the earth. SIR NATHANIEL 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. HOLOFERNES Sir Nathaniel, haud credo. DULL 'Twas not a haud credo; 'twas a pricket. HOLOFERNES 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; twas a pricket. HOLOFERNES Twice-sod simplicity, his coctus!
O thou monster Ignorance, how deformed dost thou look! SIR NATHANIEL 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, Many can brook the weather that love not the wind. DULL You two are book-men: can you tell me by your wit What was a month old at Cain's birth, that's not five weeks old as yet? HOLOFERNES Dictynna, goodman Dull; Dictynna, goodman Dull. DULL What is Dictynna? SIR NATHANIEL A title to Phoebe, to Luna, to the moon. HOLOFERNES 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. HOLOFERNES 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, 'twas a pricket that the princess killed. HOLOFERNES Sir Nathaniel, will you hear an extemporal epitaph on the death of the deer? And, to humour the ignorant, call I the deer the princess killed a pricket. SIR NATHANIEL Perge, good Master Holofernes, perge; so it shall please you to abrogate scurrility. HOLOFERNES I will something affect the letter, for it argues facility.
The preyful princess pierced 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 one sorel.
Of one sore I an hundred make by adding but one more L. SIR NATHANIEL A rare talent! DULL [Aside] If a talent be a claw, look how he claws him with a talent. HOLOFERNES 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. SIR NATHANIEL Sir, I praise the Lord for you; and so may my parishioners; for their sons are well tutored by you, and their daughters profit very greatly under you: you are a good member of the commonwealth. HOLOFERNES Mehercle, if their sons be ingenuous, 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.
