The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. William Shakespeare
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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.
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.]
JAQUENETTA.
God give you good morrow, Master parson.
HOLOFERNES. Master parson, quasi pers-on. And 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 or 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 [Giving a letter to NATHANIEL.], 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?
NATHANIEL.
Ay, sir, and very learned.
HOLOFERNES.
Let me hear a staff, a stanze, a verse; lege, domine.
NATHANIEL.
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 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 sings heaven’s praise with such an earthly tongue.
HOLOFERNES. You find not the apostrophas, 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, damosella virgin, was this directed to you?
JAQUENETTA. Ay, sir; from one Monsieur Berowne, 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, Berowne.’—Sir Nathaniel, this Berowne 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.]
NATHANIEL. Sir, you have done this in the fear of God, very religiously; and, as a certain Father saith—
HOLOFERNES. Sir, tell not me of the Father; I do fear colourable colours. But to return to the verses: did they please you, Sir Nathaniel?
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.
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 BEROWNE, with a paper.]
BEROWNE. The king he is hunting the deer: I am coursing myself: they have pitched a toil: I am tolling in a pitch,—pitch that defiles: defile! a foul word! Well, sit thee down, sorrow! for so they say the fool said, and so say I, and I am 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 rime, 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!
[Gets up into a tree.]
[Enter the KING, with a paper.]
KING.
Ay me!
BEROWNE. [Aside.] Shot, by heaven! Proceed, sweet Cupid; thou hast thumped him with thy birdbolt under the left pap. In faith, secrets!
KING.
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 face through tears of mine give light.
Thou shin’st 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: