READ STUDY GUIDE: Act IV, Scenes i and ii |
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Act IV, Scene ii:
The same.
The same.
| Enter HOLOFERNES, SIR NATHANIEL, and DULL. |
| NATHANIEL: |
| Very reverent 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. |
| 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 sthe deer was not a haud credo; 'twas a pricket. |
| HOLOFERNES: |
| Twice sod simplicity, bis coctus! |
| O! thou monster Ignorance, how deformed dost thou look! |
| NATHANIEL: |
| Sir, he hath never fed of the dainties that are bred of 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? |
| 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, I have call'd the deer |
| the Princess killed, a pricket. |
| 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 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 one sorel! |
| Of one sore I an hundred make, by adding but one more L. |
| 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. |
| 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 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.] |
| JAQUENETTA: |
| God give you good morrow, Master parson. |
| HOLOFERNES: |
| Master parson, quasi pers-on. And if one should be |
| pierced, which is the one? |
| COSTARD: |
| Marry, Master schoolmaster, he that is likest to a hogshead. |
| HOLOFERNES: |
| Piercing a hogshead! A good lustre or 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[Giving a letter to NATHANIEL.], 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. |
| HOLOFERNES: |
| 'Fauste, precor gelida quando pecus omne sub umbra Ruminat,' |
| and so forth. Ah! good old Mantuan. I may speak of thee as |
| the traveller doth of Venice: |
| —Venetia, Venetia, |
| Chi non ti vede, non ti pretia. |
| 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? |
| NATHANIEL: |
| Ay, sir, and very learned. |
| HOLOFERNES: |
| Let me hear a staff, a stanze, a verse; lege, domine. |
| NATHANIEL: |
| 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 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, O! pardon love this wrong, |
| That sings heaven's praise with such an earthly tongue. |
| HOLOFERNES: |
| You find not the apostrophas, 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 'tired horse his rider. But, damosella |
| virgin, was this directed to you? |
| JAQUENETTA: |
| Ay, sir; from one Monsieur Berowne, one of the strange |
| queen's lords. |
| HOLOFERNES: |
| I will overglance the superscript: 'To the snow-white |
| 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, Berowne.'—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. |
| [Exeunt COSTARD and JAQUENETTA.] |
| NATHANIEL: |
| Sir, you have done this in the fear of God, very religiously; |
| and, as a certain Father saith— |
| HOLOFERNES: |
| Sir, tell not me of the Father; I do fear colourable colours. But |
| to return to the verses: did they please you, Sir Nathaniel? |
| NATHANIEL: |
| Marvellous well for the pen. |
| HOLOFERNES: |
| 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. |
| NATHANIEL: |
| And thank you too; for society,—saith the text,—is the |
| happiness of life. |
| HOLOFERNES: |
| And certes, the text most infallibly concludes it. |
| [To DULL] 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.] |
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