Cost. I told you; my lord. Prin. To whom shouldst thou give it? Prin. From which lord, to which lady? Cost. From my lord Biron, a good master of mine, To a lady of France, that he call'd Rosaline. Prin. Thou hast mistaken his letter.-Come, lords, away.-9 Here, sweet, put up this; 'twill be thine another day. Boyet. Ay, my continent of beauty. Ros. Why, she that bears the bow. Finely put off! Boyet. My lady goes to kill horns; but, if thou marry, Hang me by the neck, if horns that year miscarry. Finely put on ! Ros. Well then, I am the shooter. Boyet. And who is your deer? Ros. If we choose by the horns, yourself: come near. Finely put on indeed! Mar. You still wrangle with her, Boyet, and she strikes at the brow. Boyet. But she herself is hit lower: Have I hit her now? Ros. Shall I come upon thee with an old saying, that was a man when king Pepin of France was a little boy, as touching the hit it? Boyet. So I may answer thee with one as old, that was a woman when queen Guinever2 of Britain was a little wench, as touching the hit it. Ros. Thou canst not hit it, hit it, hit it, [Singing. Thou canst not hit it, my good man. Boyet. An I cannot, cannot, cannot, [Exe. Ros. and KATH. Cost. But my troth, most pleasant! how both did fit it! Mar. A mark marvellous well shot; for they both did hit it. [9] Perhaps the Princess said rath r,-Come, ladies, away. The rest of the scene deserves no care. JOHNSON [1] It appears that suitor was anciently pronounced shooter. STEEV. In Ireland, where, I believ much, of the pronunciation of Queen Elizabeth's age is yet retained, the word suitor is at this day p. onounced by the vulgar as if it were written shooter. MALONE. [2] This was King Arthur's queen, not over famous for fidelity to her husband. Mordred the Pict is supposed to have been her paramour. STEEV. Boyet. A mark! O, mark but that mark; a mark, says my lady! Let the mark have a prick in't, to mete at, if it may be. Mar. Wide o' the bow hand !3 I'faith, your hand is out. Cost. Indeed, a' must shoot nearer, or he'll ne'er hit the clout. Boyet. An if my hand be out, then, belike your hand is in. Cost. Then will she get the upshot by cleaving the pin. Mar. Come, come, you talk greasily, your lips grow foul. Cost. She's too hard for you at pricks, sir; challenge her to bowl. owl. Boyet. I fear too much rubbing; Good night, my good [Exeunt BOYET and MARIA. Cost. By my soul, a swain! a most simple clown! Lord, lord how the ladies and I have put him down! O' my troth, most sweet jests! most incony vulgar wit! When it comes so smoothly off, so obscenely, as it were, so fit. Armatho o' the one side,-O, a most dainty man! swear! And his page o' t'other side, that handful of wit! Sola, sola! [Shouting within. Exit CoST. running. SCENE II. The same. Enter HOLOFERNES, Sir NATHANIEL, and DULL Nath. Very reverent sport, truly; and done in the testimony of a good conscience. Hol.4 The deer was, as you know, in sanguis,-blood; [3] i. e. a good deal to the left of the mark; a term still retained in modern archery. DOUCE. [4] There is very little personal reflection in Shakspeare. Either the virtue of those times, or the candour of our author, has so affected, that his satire is, for the most part, general, and, as himself says: his taxing like a wild-goose flies, Unclaim'd of any man. The place before us seems to be an exception. For by Holofernes is designed a particular character, a pedant and schoolmaster of our author's time, one John Florio, a teacher of the Italian tongue in London, who has given us a smail dictionary of that language under the title of A World of Words, which in his epistle dedicatory. he tells us, "is of little less value than Ste ripe as a pomewater 5-who now hangeth like a jewel in the ear of calo,-the sky, the weikin, the heaven; and anon falleth like a crab, on the face of terra,—the soil, the land, the earth. Nath. 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. Hol. Sir Nathaniel, haud credo. Dull. 'Twas not a haud credo, 'twas a pricket. Hol. 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, unletter phens's Treasure of the Greek tongue," the most complete work that was ever yet compiled of its kind. In his preface, he calls those who criticised his works, sea-dogs or land-critics; monsters of men if not beasts rather than men; whose teeth are canibals, their toongs adders forks, their lips aspes poison, their eyes basiliskes, their breath the breath of a grave, their words like swordes of Turks, that strive which shall dive deepest into a christian lying bound before them." Well therefore might the iniid Nathaniel desire Holofernes to abrogate scurrility. His profession too is the reason that Holofernes deals so much in Italian sentences. There is an edi. tion of Love's Labour's Lost, printed in 598, and said to be presented before her highness this last Christmas, 1597. The next year, 1598, comes out our John Fiorio, with his World of Words, recentibus odiis; and in the preface, falls upon the comic poet for bringing him on the stage, "There is another sort of leering curs, that rather snarle than bite, whereof I could instance in one who lighting on a good sonnet of a gentleman's, a friend of mine, that loved better to be a poet than to be counted so, called the author a Rymer. Let Aristophanes and his comedians make plaies, and scowre their mouths or Socrates: those very mouths they make to vilifie, shall be the means to amplifie his virtue," &c. Here Shakspeare is so plainly marked out as not to be mistaken. As to the sonnet of the gentleman his friend,' we may be assured it was no other than his own. And without doubt was parodied in the very sonnet beginning with-The praiseful princess, &c. in which our author makes Holofernes say, he will something affect the letter; for it argues facility From the ferocity of this man's temper it was, that Shakspeare chose for him the name which Rabelais gives to his pedant of Thubal Holoferne. WARB I am not of the learned commentator's opinion, that the satire of Shakspeare is so seldom personal. It is of the nature of personal invectives to be soon unintelligible; and the author that gratifies private malice, animam in vulnere ponit, destroys the future efficacy of his own writings, and sacrifices the esteem of succeeding times to the laughter of a day. It is no wonder, ther fore, that the sarcasms which perhaps in our author's time set the playhouse in a roar, are now lost among general reflections Yet whether the character of Holofernes was pointed at any particular man, I am, notwithstanding the plausibility of Dr. W's conjecture, inclined to doubt. JOHNS. Dr. Warburton is certainly right in his supposition that Florio is meant by the character of Holofernes Florio had given the first affront. "The plaies, says he, that they plaie in England, are neither right comedies, nor right tragedies; but representations of histories without any decorum."The scraps of Latin and Italian are transcribed from his works, particularly the proverb about Venice, which has been corrupted so much. FARMER, [5] A species of apple formerly much esteemed. Malus carbonaria. STE. ed, 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. 6 Hol. Twice sod simplicity, bis coctus!-O thou monster ignorance, how deformed dost thou look! Nath. 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.7 For as it would ill become me to be vain, indiscreet, or a fool, 8 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 book-men: Can you tell by your wit, What was a month old at Cain's birth, that's not five weeks old as yet? Hol. Dictynna, good man Dull; Dictynna, good man Dull. Dull. What is Dictynna? Nath. A title to Phoebe, to Luna, to the moon. Hol. The moon was a month old, when Adam was no more; And raught not to five weeks, when he came to five score. The allusion holds in the exchange.9 Dull. 'Tis true indeed; the collusion holds in the exchange. [6] In a play called The Return from Parnassus, 1666, I find the following account of the different appellations of deer at their different ages: Amoretto. I caused the keeper to sever the rascal deer from the bucks of the first head. Now, sir, a buck is, the first year, a fawn; the second year, a pricket; the third year, a sorrel; the fourth year, a soare; the fifth, a buck of the first head; the sixth year, a compleat buck. Likewise your hart is the first year a calfe; the second year, a brocket; the third year, a spade; the fourth year, a stag; the sixth year, a hart. A roe-buck is the first year, a kid; the second year, a gird; the third year, a hemuse; and these are your special beasts for chase. STEEV. [7] The length of these lines was no novelty on the English stage. The Moralities afford scenes of the like measure. JOHNSON. [8] The meaning is, to be in a school would ill become a patch, or low fellow, as folly would become me. JOHNSON. [9] i.e. the riddle is as good when I use the name of Adam, as when you use the name of Cain. WARBURTON. Hol. God comfort thy capacity! I say, the allusion holds in the exchange. Dull. And I say the pollusion holds in the exchange; for the moon is never but a month old: and I say beside, that 'twas a pricket that the princess kill'd. Hol. Sir Nathaniel, will you hear an extemporal epitaph on the death of the deer? and, to humour the ignorant, I have call'd the deer the princess kill'd, a pricket. Nath. Perge, good master Holofernes, perge; so it shall please you to abrogate scurrility. Hol. I will something affect the letter; for it argues facility. The praiseful princess pierc'd and prick'd a pretty pleasing pricket; Or pricket, sore, or else sorel; the people fall a hooting. Nath. A rare talent! Dull. If a talent be a claw, look how he claws him. with a talent.7 Hol. 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 deliver'd upon the mellowing of occasion: But the gift is good in those in whom it is acute, and I am thankful for it. Nath. Sir, I praise the Lord for you; and so may my parishioners; for their sons are well tutor'd by you, and their daughters profit very greatly under you: you are a good member of the commonwealth. Hol. Mehercle, if their sons be ingenious, they shall want no instruction: if their daughters be capable, I 8 [5] We should read,-of sore L ;-alluding to L being the numeral for fifty. WARB. [6] In our author's time the talon of a bird was frequently written talent. Hence the quibble here, and in Twelfth Night, "let them use their talents." MALONE. [7] Honest Dull quibbles. One of the senses of to claw, is to flatter. STEE. [8] Of this double entendre, despicable as it is, Mr. Pope and his coadjutors availed themselves in their unsuccessful comedy called Three Hours After Marriage. STEEV.Capable is used equivocally. One of its senses was reasonable; endowed with a ready capacity to learn. The other wants no explanation. MAL. |