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.
Enter Jaquenetta and Costard
Jaquenetta
God give you good morrow, master Parson.
Holofernes
Master Parson, quasi pers-on. An 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 of conceit in a tuft 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 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?
Sir Nathaniel
Ay, sir, and very learned.
Holofernes
Let me hear a staff, a stanze, a verse; lege, domine.
Sir Nathaniel
[Reads] 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 bow’d.
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 apostraphas, 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 odouriferous 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 Biron, 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, Biron.’ Sir Nathaniel, this Biron 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
Sir Nathaniel
Sir, you have done this in the fear of God, very religiously; and, as a certain father saith,—
Holofernes
Sir tell me not of the father; I do fear colourable colours. But to return to the verses: did they please you, Sir Nathaniel?
Sir 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.
Sir 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
SCENE III. THE SAME.
Enter Biron, with a paper
Biron
The king he is hunting the deer; I am coursing myself: they have pitched a toil; I am toiling in a pitch,— pitch that defiles: defile! a foul word. Well, set thee down, sorrow! for so they say the fool said, and so say I, and I the fool: well proved, wit! By the Lord, this love is as mad as Ajax: it kills sheep; it kills me, I a sheep: well proved again o’ my side! I will not love: if I do, hang me; i’ faith, I will not. O, but her eye,— by this light, but for her eye, I would not love her; yes, for her two eyes. Well, I do nothing in the world but lie, and lie in my throat. By heaven, I do love: and it hath taught me to rhyme and to be melancholy; and here is part of my rhyme, and here my melancholy. Well, she hath one o’ my sonnets already: the clown bore it, the fool sent it, and the lady hath it: sweet clown, sweeter fool, sweetest lady! By the world, I would not care a pin, if the other three were in. Here comes one with a paper: God give him grace to groan!
Stands aside
Enter Ferdinand, with a paper
Ferdinand
Ay me!
Biron
[Aside] Shot, by heaven! Proceed, sweet Cupid: thou hast thumped him with thy bird-bolt under the left pap. In faith, secrets!
Ferdinand
[Reads] So sweet a kiss the golden sun gives not
To those fresh morning drops upon the rose,
As thy eye-beams, when their fresh rays have smote
The night of dew that on my cheeks down flows:
Nor shines the silver moon one half so bright
Through the transparent bosom of the deep,
As doth thy f
ace through tears of mine give light;
Thou shinest in every tear that I do weep:
No drop but as a coach doth carry thee;
So ridest thou triumphing in my woe.
Do but behold the tears that swell in me,
And they thy glory through my grief will show:
But do not love thyself; then thou wilt keep
My tears for glasses, and still make me weep.
O queen of queens! how far dost thou excel,
No thought can think, nor tongue of mortal tell.
How shall she know my griefs? I’ll drop the paper:
Sweet leaves, shade folly. Who is he comes here?
Steps aside
What, Longaville! and reading! listen, ear.
Biron
Now, in thy likeness, one more fool appear!
Enter Longaville, with a paper
Longaville
Ay me, I am forsworn!
Biron
Why, he comes in like a perjure, wearing papers.
Ferdinand
In love, I hope: sweet fellowship in shame!
Biron
One drunkard loves another of the name.
Longaville
Am I the first that have been perjured so?
Biron
I could put thee in comfort. Not by two that I know:
Thou makest the triumviry, the corner-cap of society,
The shape of Love’s Tyburn that hangs up simplicity.
Longaville
I fear these stubborn lines lack power to move:
O sweet Maria, empress of my love!
These numbers will I tear, and write in prose.
Biron
O, rhymes are guards on wanton Cupid’s hose:
Disfigure not his slop.
Longaville
This same shall go.
[Reads] Did not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye,
’Gainst whom the world cannot hold argument,
Persuade my heart to this false perjury?
Vows for thee broke deserve not punishment.
A woman I forswore; but I will prove,
Thou being a goddess, I forswore not thee:
My vow was earthly, thou a heavenly love;
Thy grace being gain’d cures all disgrace in me.
Vows are but breath, and breath a vapour is:
Then thou, fair sun, which on my earth dost shine,
Exhalest this vapour-vow; in thee it is:
If broken then, it is no fault of mine:
If by me broke, what fool is not so wise
To lose an oath to win a paradise?
Biron
This is the liver-vein, which makes flesh a deity,
A green goose a goddess: pure, pure idolatry.
God amend us, God amend! we are much out o’ the way.
Longaville
By whom shall I send this?— Company! stay.
Steps aside
Biron
All hid, all hid; an old infant play.
Like a demigod here sit I in the sky.
And wretched fools’ secrets heedfully o’ereye.
More sacks to the mill! O heavens, I have my wish!
Enter Dumain, with a paper
Dumain transform’d! four woodcocks in a dish!
Dumain
O most divine Kate!
Biron
O most profane coxcomb!
Dumain
By heaven, the wonder in a mortal eye!
Biron
By earth, she is not, corporal, there you lie.
Dumain
Her amber hair for foul hath amber quoted.
Biron
An amber-colour’d raven was well noted.
Dumain
As upright as the cedar.
Biron
Stoop, I say;
Her shoulder is with child.
Dumain
As fair as day.
Biron
Ay, as some days; but then no sun must shine.
Dumain
O that I had my wish!
Longaville
And I had mine!
Ferdinand
And I mine too, good Lord!
Biron
Amen, so I had mine: is not that a good word?
Dumain
I would forget her; but a fever she
Reigns in my blood and will remember’d be.
Biron
A fever in your blood! why, then incision
Would let her out in saucers: sweet misprision!
Dumain
Once more I’ll read the ode that I have writ.
Biron
Once more I’ll mark how love can vary wit.
Dumain
[Reads] On a day — alack the day!—
Love, whose month is ever May,
Spied a blossom passing fair
Playing in the wanton air:
Through the velvet leaves the wind,
All unseen, can passage find;
That the lover, sick to death,
Wish himself the heaven’s breath.
Air, quoth he, thy cheeks may blow;
Air, would I might triumph so!
But, alack, my hand is sworn
Ne’er to pluck thee from thy thorn;
Vow, alack, for youth unmeet,
Youth so apt to pluck a sweet!
Do not call it sin in me,
That I am forsworn for thee;
Thou for whom Jove would swear
Juno but an Ethiope were;
And deny himself for Jove,
Turning mortal for thy love.
This will I send, and something else more plain,
That shall express my true love’s fasting pain.
O, would the king, Biron, and Longaville,
Were lovers too! Ill, to example ill,
Would from my forehead wipe a perjured note;
For none offend where all alike do dote.
Longaville
[Advancing] Dumain, thy love is far from charity.
You may look pale, but I should blush, I know,
To be o’erheard and taken napping so.
Ferdinand
[Advancing] Come, sir, you blush; as his your case is such;
You chide at him, offending twice as much;
You do not love Maria; Longaville
Did never sonnet for her sake compile,
Nor never lay his wreathed arms athwart
His loving bosom to keep down his heart.
I have been closely shrouded in this bush
And mark’d you both and for you both did blush:
I heard your guilty rhymes, observed your fashion,
Saw sighs reek from you, noted well your passion:
Ay me! says one; O Jove! the other cries;
One, her hairs were gold, crystal the other’s eyes:
To Longaville
You would for paradise break faith, and troth;
To Dumain
And Jove, for your love, would infringe an oath.
What will Biron say when that he shall hear
Faith so infringed, which such zeal did swear?
How will he scorn! how will he spend his wit!
How will he triumph, leap and laugh at it!
For all the wealth that ever I did see,
I would not have him know so much by me.
Biron
Now step I forth to whip hypocrisy.
Advancing
Ah, good my liege, I pray thee, pardon me!
Good heart, what grace hast thou, thus to reprove
These worms for loving, that art most in love?
Your eyes do make no coaches; in your tears
There is no certain princess that appears;
You’ll not be perjured, ’tis a hateful thing;
Tush, none but minstrels like of sonneting!
But are you not ashamed? nay, are you not,
All three of you, to be thus much o’ershot?
You
found his mote; the king your mote did see;
But I a beam do find in each of three.
O, what a scene of foolery have I seen,
Of sighs, of groans, of sorrow and of teen!
O me, with what strict patience have I sat,
To see a king transformed to a gnat!
To see great Hercules whipping a gig,
And profound Solomon to tune a jig,
And Nestor play at push-pin with the boys,
And critic Timon laugh at idle toys!
Where lies thy grief, O, tell me, good Dumain?
And gentle Longaville, where lies thy pain?
And where my liege’s? all about the breast:
A caudle, ho!
Ferdinand
Too bitter is thy jest.
Are we betray’d thus to thy over-view?
Biron
Not you to me, but I betray’d by you:
I, that am honest; I, that hold it sin
To break the vow I am engaged in;
I am betray’d, by keeping company
With men like men of inconstancy.
When shall you see me write a thing in rhyme?
Or groan for love? or spend a minute’s time
In pruning me? When shall you hear that I
Will praise a hand, a foot, a face, an eye,
A gait, a state, a brow, a breast, a waist,
A leg, a limb?
Ferdinand
Soft! whither away so fast?
A true man or a thief that gallops so?
Biron
I post from love: good lover, let me go.
Enter Jaquenetta and Costard
Jaquenetta
God bless the king!
Ferdinand
What present hast thou there?
Costard
Some certain treason.
Ferdinand
What makes treason here?
Costard
Nay, it makes nothing, sir.
Ferdinand
If it mar nothing neither,
The treason and you go in peace away together.
Jaquenetta
I beseech your grace, let this letter be read:
Our parson misdoubts it; ’twas treason, he said.
Ferdinand
Biron, read it over.
Giving him the paper
Where hadst thou it?
Jaquenetta
Of Costard.
Ferdinand
Where hadst thou it?
Costard
Of Dun Adramadio, Dun Adramadio.
Biron tears the letter
Ferdinand
How now! what is in you? why dost thou tear it?
Biron
A toy, my liege, a toy: your grace needs not fear it.
Longaville
It did move him to passion, and therefore let’s hear it.
Dumain
It is Biron’s writing, and here is his name.
Complete Plays, The Page 277