READ STUDY GUIDE: Act V, Scene i |
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Act V, Scene i:
The King of Navarre's park.
The King of Navarre's park.
| [Enter HOLOFERNES, SIR NATHANIEL, and DULL.] |
| HOLOFERNES: |
| Satis quod sufficit. |
| NATHANIEL: |
| I praise God for you, sir: your reasons at dinner have |
| been sharp and sententious; pleasant without scurrility, witty |
| without affection, audacious without impudency, learned without |
| opinion, and strange without heresy. I did converse this quondam |
| day with a companion of the king's who is intituled, nominated, |
| or called, Don Adriano de Armado. |
| HOLOFERNES: |
| Novi hominem tanquam te: his humour is lofty, his |
| discourse peremptory, his tongue filed, his eye ambitious, his |
| gait majestical and his general behaviour vain, ridiculous, and |
| thrasonical. He is too picked, too spruce, too affected, too odd, |
| as it were, too peregrinate, as I may call it. |
| NATHANIEL: |
| A most singular and choice epithet. |
| [Draws out his table-book.] |
| HOLOFERNES: |
| He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than |
| the staple of his argument. I abhor such fanatical phantasimes, |
| such insociable and point-devise companions; such rackers of |
| orthography, as to speak dout, fine, when he should say doubt; |
| det when he should pronounce debt,—d, e, b, t, not d, e, t: he |
| clepeth a calf, cauf; half, hauf; neighbour vocatur nebour, neigh |
| abbreviated ne. This is abhominable, which he |
| would call abominable,—it insinuateth me of insanie: anne |
| intelligis, domine? to make frantic, lunatic. |
| NATHANIEL: |
| Laus Deo, bone intelligo. |
| HOLOFERNES: |
| Bone? bone for bene: Priscian a little scratch'd; 'twill serve. |
| [Enter ARMADO, MOTH, and COSTARD.] |
| NATHANIEL: |
| Videsne quis venit? |
| HOLOFERNES: |
| Video, et gaudeo. |
| ARMADO: |
| [To MOTH] Chirrah! |
| HOLOFERNES: |
| Quare chirrah, not sirrah? |
| ARMADO: |
| Men of peace, well encountered. |
| HOLOFERNES: |
| Most military sir, salutation. |
| MOTH: |
| [Aside to COSTARD.] They have been at a great feast of |
| languages and stolen the scraps. |
| COSTARD: |
| O! they have lived long on the alms-basket of words. I |
| marvel thy master hath not eaten thee for a word, for thou are |
| not so long by the head as honorificabilitudinitatibus; thou art |
| easier swallowed than a flap-dragon. |
| MOTH: |
| Peace! the peal begins. |
| ARMADO: |
| [To HOLOFERNES.] Monsieur, are you not lettered? |
| MOTH: |
| Yes, yes; he teaches boys the hornbook. What is a, b, spelt |
| backward with the horn on his head? |
| HOLOFERNES: |
| Ba, pueritia, with a horn added. |
| MOTH: |
| Ba! most silly sheep with a horn. You hear his learning. |
| HOLOFERNES: |
| Quis, quis, thou consonant? |
| MOTH: |
| The third of the five vowels, if you repeat them; or the |
| fifth, if I. |
| HOLOFERNES: |
| I will repeat them,—a, e, i,— |
| MOTH: |
| The sheep; the other two concludes it,—o, u. |
| ARMADO: |
| Now, by the salt wave of the Mediterraneum, a sweet touch, |
| a quick venue of wit! snip, snap, quick and home! It rejoiceth my |
| intellect: true wit! |
| MOTH: |
| Offered by a child to an old man; which is wit-old. |
| HOLOFERNES: |
| What is the figure? What is the figure? |
| MOTH: |
| Horns. |
| HOLOFERNES: |
| Thou disputes like an infant; go, whip thy gig. |
| MOTH: |
| Lend me your horn to make one, and I will whip about your |
| infamy circum circa. A gig of a cuckold's horn. |
| COSTARD: |
| An I had but one penny in the world, thou shouldst have it |
| to buy gingerbread. Hold, there is the very remuneration I had |
| of thy master, thou half-penny purse of wit, thou pigeon-egg of |
| discretion. O! an the heavens were so pleased that thou wert but |
| my bastard, what a joyful father wouldst thou make me. Go to; |
| thou hast it ad dunghill, at the fingers' ends, as they say. |
| HOLOFERNES: |
| O, I smell false Latin! 'dunghill' for unguem. |
| ARMADO: |
| Arts-man, praeambula; we will be singled from the barbarous. Do |
| you not educate youth at the charge-house on the top of the |
| mountain? |
| HOLOFERNES: |
| Or mons, the hill. |
| ARMADO: |
| At your sweet pleasure, for the mountain. |
| HOLOFERNES: |
| I do, sans question. |
| ARMADO: |
| Sir, it is the King's most sweet pleasure and affection to |
| congratulate the princess at her pavilion, in the posteriors of |
| this day, which the rude multitude call the afternoon. |
| HOLOFERNES: |
| The posterior of the day, most generous sir, is liable, |
| congruent, and measurable, for the afternoon. The word is well |
| culled, chose, sweet, and apt, I do assure you, sir; I do assure. |
| ARMADO: |
| Sir, the King is a noble gentleman, and my familiar, I do |
| assure ye, very good friend. For what is inward between us, let |
| it pass: I do beseech thee, remember thy courtsy; I beseech |
| thee, apparel thy head: and among other importunate and most |
| serious designs, and of great import indeed, too, but let that |
| pass: for I must tell thee it will please his Grace, by the |
| world, sometime to lean upon my poor shoulder, and with his royal |
| finger thus dally with my excrement, with my mustachio: but, |
| sweet heart, let that pass. By the world, I recount no fable: |
| some certain special honours it pleaseth his greatness to impart |
| to Armado, a soldier, a man of travel, that hath seen the world: |
| but let that pass. The very all of all is, but, sweet heart, I do |
| implore secrecy, that the King would have me present the |
| princess, sweet chuck, with some delightful ostentation, or show, |
| or pageant, or antic, or firework. Now, understanding that the |
| curate and your sweet self are good at such eruptions and sudden |
| breaking-out of mirth, as it were, I have acquainted you withal, |
| to the end to crave your assistance. |
| HOLOFERNES: |
| Sir, you shall present before her the Nine Worthies. Sir |
| Nathaniel, as concerning some entertainment of time, some |
| show in the posterior of this day, to be rendered by our |
| assistance, the King's command, and this most gallant, |
| illustrate, and learned gentleman, before the princess, I say |
| none so fit as to present the Nine Worthies. |
| NATHANIEL: |
| Where will you find men worthy enough to present them? |
| HOLOFERNES: |
| Joshua, yourself; myself, Alexander; this gallant |
| gentleman, Judas Maccabaeus; this swain, because of his great |
| limb or joint, shall pass Pompey the Great; the page, Hercules,— |
| ARMADO: |
| Pardon, sir; error: he is not quantity enough for that |
| Worthy's thumb; he is not so big as the end of his club. |
| HOLOFERNES: |
| Shall I have audience? He shall present Hercules in minority: his |
| enter and exit shall be strangling a snake; and I will have an |
| apology for that purpose. |
| MOTH: |
| An excellent device! So, if any of the audience hiss, you may |
| cry 'Well done, Hercules; now thou crushest the snake!' That is |
| the way to make an offence gracious, though few have the grace to |
| do it. |
| ARMADO: |
| For the rest of the Worthies?— |
| HOLOFERNES: |
| I will play three myself. |
| MOTH: |
| Thrice-worthy gentleman! |
| ARMADO: |
| Shall I tell you a thing? |
| HOLOFERNES: |
| We attend. |
| ARMADO: |
| We will have, if this fadge not, an antic. I beseech you, |
| follow. |
| HOLOFERNES: |
| Via, goodman Dull! Thou has spoken no word all this while. |
| DULL: |
| Nor understood none neither, sir. |
| HOLOFERNES: |
| Allons! we will employ thee. |
| DULL: |
| I'll make one in a dance, or so, or I will play on the tabor to |
| the Worthies, and let them dance the hay. |
| HOLOFERNES: |
| Most dull, honest Dull! To our sport, away. |
| [Exeunt.] |
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