Else none at all in aught proves excellent.
Then fools you were these women to forswear,
Or, keeping what is sworn, you will prove fools.
330
For wisdom’s sake, a word that all men love,
Or, for love’s sake, a word that loves all men,
Or, for men’s sake, the authors of these women,
Or women’s sake, by whom we men are men,
Let us once lose our oaths to find ourselves,
335
Or else we lose ourselves to keep our oaths.
It is religion to be thus forsworn,
For charity itself fulfils the law,
And who can sever love from charity?
KING Saint Cupid, then! And, soldiers, to the field!
340
BEROWNE
Advance your standards and upon them, lords!
Pell-mell, down with them! But be first advised
In conflict that you get the sun of them.
LONGAVILLE
Now to plain dealing. Lay these glozes by.
Shall we resolve to woo these girls of France?
345
KING And win them too! Therefore let us devise
Some entertainment for them in their tents.
BEROWNE
First, from the park let us conduct them thither.
Then homeward every man attach the hand
Of his fair mistress. In the afternoon
350
We will with some strange pastime solace them,
Such as the shortness of the time can shape;
For revels, dances, masques and merry hours
Forerun fair Love, strewing her way with flowers.
KING Away, away! No time shall be omitted
355
That will betime and may by us be fitted.
BEROWNE
Allons, allons!
Exeunt the King, Longaville and Dumaine.
Sowed cockle reaped no corn:
And justice always whirls in equal measure.
Light wenches may prove plagues to men forsworn;
If so, our copper buys no better treasure. Exit.
360
5.1 Enter HOLOFERNES, the Pedant, NATHANIEL, the Curate, and DULL, the Constable.
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
5
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
10
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.
15
[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-device
companions, such rackers of orthography, as to speak
‘dout’ sine ‘b’, when he should say ‘doubt’, ‘det’ when
20
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. Ne intelligis, domine? To make frantic, lunatic.
25
NATHANIEL Laus Deo, bone intelligo.
HOLOFERNES Bone? ‘Bone’ for ‘bene’! Priscian a little
scratched; ’twill serve.
Enter ARMADO, the Braggart, MOTH, his boy, and COSTARD.
NATHANIEL Videsne quis venit?
HOLOFERNES Video et gaudeo.
30
ARMADO Chirrah!
HOLOFERNES Quare ‘chirrah’, not ‘sirrah’?
ARMADO Men of peace, well encountered.
HOLOFERNES Most military sir, salutation.
MOTH [to Costard] They have been at a great feast of
35
languages and stolen the scraps.
COSTARD [to Moth] O, they have lived long on the
alms-basket of words! I marvel thy master hath not
eaten thee for a word, for thou art not so long by the
head as honorificabilitudinitatibus. Thou art easier
40
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?
45
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 last of the five vowels, if you repeat them; or
50
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
55
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.
60
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 manu cita. A gig of a cuckold’s horn!
COSTARD An I had but one penny in the world, thou
65
shouldst have it to buy gingerbread. Hold, there is the
very remuneration I had of thy master, thou halfpenny
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
70
hast it ad dunghill, at the fingers’ ends, as they say.
HOLOFERNES O, I smell false Latin: ‘dunghill’ for unguem.
ARMADO Arts-man, preambulate. We will be singuled
from the barbarous. Do you not educate youth at the
75
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
80
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
85
afternoon. The word is well culled, choice, 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,
90
remember thy courtesy: I beseech thee, apparel thy
head. And among other importunate and mos
t 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
95
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
100
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
105
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
110
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.
115
NATHANIEL Where will you find men worthy enough to
present them?
HOLOFERNES Joshua, yourself; this gallant gentleman,
Judas Maccabaeus; this swain, because of his great
limb or joint, shall pass Pompey the Great; the page,
120
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
125
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
130
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.
135
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 hast spoken no
140
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.
145
HOLOFERNES Most Dull, honest Dull! To our sport,
away! Exeunt.
5.2 Enter the ladies, the PRINCESS, ROSALINE, MARIA and KATHERINE.
PRINCESS Sweet hearts, we shall be rich ere we depart
If fairings come thus plentifully in.
A lady walled about with diamonds!
Look you what I have from the loving King.
ROSALINE Madam, came nothing else along with that?
5
PRINCESS
Nothing but this? Yes, as much love in rhyme
As would be crammed up in a sheet of paper
Writ o’both sides the leaf, margin and all,
That he was fain to seal on Cupid’s name.
ROSALINE That was the way to make his godhead wax,
10
For he hath been five thousand year a boy.
KATHERINE Ay, and a shrewd unhappy gallows too.
ROSALINE
You’ll ne’er be friends with him: ‘a killed your sister.
KATHERINE He made her melancholy, sad and heavy;
And so she died. Had she been light, like you,
15
Of such a merry, nimble, stirring spirit,
She might ha’ been a grandam ere she died.
And so may you, for a light heart lives long.
ROSALINE
What’s your dark meaning, mouse, of this light word?
KATHERINE A light condition in a beauty dark.
20
ROSALINE
We need more light to find your meaning out.
KATHERINE You’ll mar the light by taking it in snuff;
Therefore I’ll darkly end the argument.
ROSALINE Look what you do, you do it still i’th’ dark.
KATHERINE So do not you, for you are a light wench.
25
ROSALINE Indeed I weigh not you, and therefore light.
KATHERINE
You weigh me not? O, that’s you care not for me!
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 332