The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works
Page 329
This letter is mistook; it importeth none here.
It is writ to Jaquenetta.
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PRINCESS We will read it, I swear.
Break the neck of the wax, and everyone give ear.
BOYET [Reads.] By heaven, that thou art fair is most
infallible; true that thou art beauteous; truth itself that
thou art lovely. More fairer than fair, beautiful than
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beauteous, truer than truth itself, have commiseration on
thy heroical vassal. The magnanimous and most illustrate
King Cophetua set eye upon the pernicious and indubitate beggar Zenelophon, and he it was that might rightly say,
Veni, vidi, vici, which to annothanize in the vulgar – O
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base and obscure vulgar! – videlicet, he came, see and
overcame. He came, one; see, two; overcame, three. Who
came? The King. Why did he come? To see. Why did he
see? To overcome. To whom came he? To the beggar. What
saw he? The beggar. Who overcame he? The beggar. The
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conclusion is victory. On whose side? The King’s. The
captive is enriched. On whose side? The beggar’s. The
catastrophe is a nuptial. On whose side? The King’s? No,
on both in one, or one in both. I am the King, for so stands
the comparison, thou the beggar, for so witnesseth thy
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lowliness. Shall I command thy love? I may. Shall I
enforce thy love? I could. Shall I entreat thy love? I will.
What shalt thou exchange for rags? Robes. For tittles?
Titles. For thyself? Me. Thus expecting thy reply, I
profane my lips on thy foot, my eyes on thy picture and
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my heart on thy every part.
Thine in the dearest design of industry,
Don Adriano de Armado.
Thus dost thou hear the Nemean lion roar
’Gainst thee, thou lamb, that standest as his prey.
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Submissive fall his princely feet before,
And he from forage will incline to play.
But if thou strive, poor soul, what art thou then?
Food for his rage, repasture for his den.
PRINCESS
What plume of feathers is he that indited this letter?
What vane? What weathercock? Did you ever hear better?
BOYET I am much deceived but I remember the style.
PRINCESS
Else your memory is bad, going o’er it erewhile.
BOYET
This Armado is a Spaniard that keeps here in court,
A phantasime, a Monarcho, and one that makes sport
To the Prince and his book-mates.
PRINCESS Thou, fellow, a word.
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Who gave thee this letter?
COSTARD I told you: my lord.
PRINCESS
To whom shouldst thou give it?
COSTARD From my lord to my lady.
PRINCESS From which lord to which lady?
COSTARD
From my lord Berowne, a good master of mine,
To a lady of France that he called Rosaline.
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PRINCESS
Thou hast mistaken his letter. Come, lords, away.
[to Rosaline] Here, sweet, put up this; ’twill be thine another day.
Exeunt all but Boyet, Rosaline, Maria and Costard.
BOYET Who is the shooter? Who is the shooter?
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ROSALINE Shall I teach you to know?
BOYET Ay, my continent of beauty.
ROSALINE Why, she that bears the bow.
Finely put off!
BOYET My lady goes to kill horns, but if thou marry,
Hang me by the neck if horns that year miscarry.
Finely put on!
ROSALINE Well, then, I am the shooter.
BOYET And who is your deer?
ROSALINE
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If we choose by the horns, yourself come not near.
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
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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 Guinevere of Britain was a little
wench, as touching the hit-it.
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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. Exit Rosaline.
COSTARD
By my troth, most pleasant! How both did fit it!
MARIA
A mark marvellous well shot, for they both did hit it.
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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.
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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.
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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’ t’other side – O, a most dainty man!
To see him walk before a lady and to bear her fan!
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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! Shout within.
Sola, sola! Exit.
4.2 Enter DULL, HOLOFERNES, the Pedant, and NATHANIEL.
NATHANIEL Very reverend sport, truly, and done in the
testimony of a good conscience.
HOLOFERNES The deer was, as you know, sanguis, in
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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
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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 ‘auld grey doe’, ’twas a pricket.
HOLOFERNES Most barbarous intimation! Yet a kind of
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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,
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to insert again my haud credo for a deer.
DULL I said the deer was not a ‘auld grey doe
’, ’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 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.
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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 bookmen: can you tell me by your wit
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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.
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HOLOFERNES
The moon was a month old, when Adam was no more,
And raught 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.
HOLOFERNES 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 killed.
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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.
NATHANIEL Perge, good Master Holofernes, perge, so it
shall please you to abrogate scurrility.
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HOLOFERNES I will something affect the letter, for it
argues facility.
The preyful Princess pierced and pricked 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 sorrel jumps from thicket;
Or pricket, sore, or else sorrel, the people fall a-hooting.
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If sore be sore, then ‘l’ to sore makes fifty sores o’sorrel:
Of one sore I an hundred make by adding but one more ‘l’.
NATHANIEL A rare talent!
DULL If a talent be a claw, look how he claws him with
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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,
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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,
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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, with a letter, and COSTARD, the Clown.
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JAQUENETTA God give you good morrow, Master Person.
HOLOFERNES Master Person, quasi pierce-one? And if
one should be pierced, which is the one?
COSTARD Marry, Master Schoolmaster, he that is likest
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to a hogshead.
HOLOFERNES ‘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
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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
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thee as the traveller doth of Venice:
Venetia, Venetia,
Chi non ti vede, non ti pretia.