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.

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

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 ‘Dictima’?

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.

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.

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.

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 ‘I’ to ‘sore‘, then ‘sorel’ jumps from thicket—

Or pricket sore, or else sorel. The people fall a- hooting.

If sore be sore, then ‘I’ to ‘sore’ makes fifty sores—O sore ‘I’!

Of one sore I an hundred make by adding but one more ‘I’.

NATHANIEL A rare talent!

DULL If a talent be a claw, look how he claws him with a talent.

HOLOFERNES This is a gift that I have, simple, simpte—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 the clown

JAQUENETTA God give you good-morrow, Master Parson.

HOLOFERNES Master Parson, quasi ‘pierce one’ ? And if one should be pierced, which is the one?

COSTARD Marry, Master Schoolmaster, he that is likeliest 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 me this letter. It was given me by Costard, and sent me from Don Armado. I beseech you read it.

She gives the letter to Nathaniel, who reads it

HOLOFERNES (to himself) ‘Facile precor gelida quando pecas omnia sub umbra ruminat’, and so forth. Ah, good old Mantuan! I may speak of thee as the traveller doth of Venice:

Venezia, Venezia, Chi non ti vede, chi non ti prezia.

Old Mantuan, old Mantuan—who understandeth thee not, loves thee not. (He sings) Ut, re, Sol, la, mi, fa. (To Nathaniel) 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 stanza, a verse. Lege, domine.

NATHANIEL (reads)

‘If love make me forsworn, how shall I swear to love?

Ah, never faith could hold, if not to beauty vowed.

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 singeth heaven’s praise with such an earthly tongue.’

HOLOFERNES You find not the apostrophus, 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 domicella— virgin—was this directed to you?

JAQUENETTA Ay, Sir.

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. (To Jaquenetta) 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.