1 Finely put off! Rosaline. Why, she that bears the bow. My lady goes to kill horns; but if thou And who is your deer? Rosaline. If we choose by the horns, yourself: come not Finely put on, indeed! [near. Maria. You still wrangle with her, Boyet, and she strikes at the brow. Boyet. 1 To see him walk before a lady, and to bear her SCENE 11. The same. Enter Holofernes, Sir Nathaniel, and Dull. The deer was, as you know, sanguis, - in blood; ripe as the pomewater, who now hangeth like a jewel in the ear of cælo, -the sky, the welkin, the heaven; and anon falleth like a But she herself is hit lower. Have I hit her crab, on the face of terra, - the soil, the land, now? Boyet. the earth. Nathaniel Truly, master Holofernes, the epithets are sweetly varied, like a scholar at the least: but sir, I assure ye, it was a buck of the first head. Holofernes Sir Nathaniel, haud credo. Dull. 'Twas not a haud credo, 'twas a pricket. Holofernes Most barbarous intimation! yet a kind of insinuation, as it were, in via, in way of explication; facere, as it were, replication, or, rather, ostentare, to show, as it were, his inclination, after his undressed, unpolished, uneducated, unpruned, untrained, or rather unlettered, or, ratherest, unconfirmed fashion, -to insert again my haud credo for a deer. Dull. I said, the deer was not a haud credo: 'twas a pricket. Holofernes An if my hand be out, then belike your hand And such barren plants are set before us, that Costard. is in. (Which we of taste and feeling are) for those Then will she get the upshot by cleaving the parts that do fructify in us more than he; pin. For as it would ill become me to be vain, inMaria. discreet, or a fool, [him in a school: Come, come, you talk greasily; your lips So, were there a patch set on learning, to see grow foul. But, omne bene, say I; being of an old father's mind, [wind. She's too hard for you at pricks, sir: challenge Many can brook the weather, that love not the her to bowl. Boyet. I fear too much rubbing. Good night, my good owl. [Exeunt Boyet and Maria. I will something affect the letter, for it argues facility. The preyful princess pierc'd and prick'd a pretty pleasing pricket; [sore with shooting. Some say, a sore; but not a sore, till now made The dogs did yell; put I to sore, then sorel jumps from thicket; [hooting. Or pricket sore, or else sorel; the people fall a If sore be sore, then I to sore makes fifty sores; O sorel! [one more l. Of one sore I an hundred make, by adding but A rare talent! Nathaniel. Dull. r Fauste, precor gelida quando pecus omne sub umbrâ Ruminat, and so forth. Ah, good old Mantuan! I may speak of thee as the traveller doth of Venice: -Venegia, Venegia, Chi non te vede, ci non te pregia. 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 hisWhat, my soul, verses? Nathaniel Ay, sir, and very learned. Let me hear a staff, a stanza, a verse: lege, domine. Nathaniel. If love make me forsworn, how shall I swear to love? If knowledge be the mark, to know thee shall suffice. Well learned is that tongue, that well can thee [wonder; All ignorant that soul, that sees thee without Which is to me some praise, that I thy parts [dreadful thunder, Thy eye Jove's lightning bears, thy voice his Which, not to anger bent, is music, and sweet fire. admire. Celestial, as thou art, O! pardon, love, this wrong, That sings heaven's praise with such an earthly tongue! Holofernes. You find not the apostrophes, 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 is 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 se quent 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 concern much. Stay not thy compliment; I As thy eye-beams, when their fresh rays have forgive thy duty: adieu. 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. Biron. The king he is hunting the deer; I am coursing myself: they have pitch'd 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 1, and I the fool. Well proved, wit! By the lord, this love is as mad as Ajas: 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! [Gets up into a tree. Enter the King, with a paper. Ay me! Biron. [Aside Shot, by heaven! - Proceed, sweet Cupid: thou hast thump'd him with thy bird-bolt under the left pap. In faith, secrets! [Reads. To those fresh morning drops upon the rose. smote [flows: The night of dew that on my cheeks down 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: 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 griess? I'll drop the Biron. Aside. Why, he comes in like a perjurer, wearing papers. King. [Aside. In love, I hope. Sweet fellowship in shame. [Aside. Biron. One drunkard loves another of the name. Am I the first that have been perjur'd so? Biron. [Aside. I could put thee in comfort: not by two that 1 know. [society, Thou mak'st the triumviry, the corner-cap of 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! Biron. [Aside. O! rhymes are guards on wanton Cupid's Disfigure not his slop. [hose: Longaville. Did not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye, Thou being a goddess, I forswore not thee : |