HOLOFERNES Ba, pueritia, with a horn added.
MOTE Ba, most silly sheep, with a horn! You hear his learning.
HOLOFERNES Quis, quis, thou consonant?
MOTE The last of the five vowels if you repeat them, or the fifth if I.
HOLOFERNES I will repeat them: a, e, i—
MOTE 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.
MOTE Offered by a child to an old man, which is ‘wit-old’.
HOLOFERNES What is the figure? What is the figure?
MOTE Horns.
HOLOFERNES Thou disputes like an infant. Go whip thy gig.
MOTE Lend me your horn to make one, and I will whip about your infamy circum circa—a gig of a cuckold’s horn.
CUSTARD An I had but one penny in the world, thou shouldst have it to buy gingerbread. (Giving money) 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 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 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, 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, remember thy courtesy. I beseech thee, apparel thy head. And, among other important 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, sweetheart, 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, sweetheart, 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, Judas Maccabeus; and this gallant gentleman, Hector. 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.
MOTE 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.
MOTE 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 hast 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.
HOLOPERNES Most dull, honest Dull! To our sport, away.
Exeunt
5.2 Enter the Princess and her ladies: Rosaline, Maria, and Catherine
PRINCESS
Sweethearts, 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?
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,
For he hath been five thousand year a boy.
CATHERINE
Ay, and a shrewd unhappy gallows, too.
ROSALINE
You’ll ne’er be friends with him, a killed your sister.
CATHERINE
He made her melancholy, sad, and heavy,
And so she died. Had she been light like you,
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?
CATHERINE
A light condition in a beauty dark.
ROSALINE
We need more light to find your meaning out.
CATHERINE
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.
CATHERINE
So do not you, for you are a light wench.
ROSALINE
Indeed I weigh not you, and therefore light.
CATHERINE
You weigh me not? O, that’s you care not for me.
ROSALINE
Great reason, for past care is still past cure.
PRINCESS
Well bandied, both; a set of wit well played.
But Rosaline, you have a favour, too.
Who sent it? And what is it?
ROSALINE I would you knew.
An if my face were but as fair as yours
My favour were as great, be witness this.
Nay, I have verses, too, I thank Biron,
The numbers true, and were the numb’ring, too,
I were the fairest goddess on the ground.
I am compared to twenty thousand fairs.
O, he hath drawn my picture in his letter.
PRINCESS Anything like?
ROSALINE
Much in the letters, nothing in the praise.
PRINCESS
Beauteous as ink—a good conclusion.
CATHERINE