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Are not you the chief woman? You are the thickest

here.

Prin. What's your will, Sir? What's your will? Cost. I have a letter from monsieur Biron, to one lady Rosaline.

Prin. O, thy letter, thy letter; he's a good friend of mine:

Stand aside, good bearer.-Boyet, you can carve; Break up this capon.

Boyet. I am bound to serve.

This letter is mistook, it importeth none here;
It is writ to Jaquenetta.

Prin. We will read it, I swear:

Break the neck of the wax, and every one give ear. Boyet. [Reads.] By heaven that thou art fair, is most infallible; true, that thou art beauteous; truth itself, that thou art lovely: more fairer than fair, beautiful than beauteous, truer than truth itself, have commiseration on thy heroical vassal! The magnanimous and most illustrate + king Cophetua set eye upon the pernicious and indubitate beggar Zenelophon; and he it was that might rightly say, veni, vidi, vici; which to anatomize in the vulgar, (0 base and obscure vulgar!) videlicet, he came, saw, and overcame: he came, one; saw two; overcame three. Who came? the king? Why did he, come? to see; Why did he see? to overcome: To whom came he? to the beggar: What saw he? the beggar; Who overcame he? the beggar: The conclu sion is victory; On whose side? the king's: the captive is enrich'd; On whose side? the beggar's: The catastrophe is a nuptial; On whose side? the king's? no; on both in one, or one in both. I am the king; for so stands the comparison: thou the beggar; for so witnesseth thy lowliness. Shall I command thy love? I may: Shall I enforce thy love? I could: Shall I entreat thy love? I will. What shalt thou exchange for rags? robes; For tittles? titles; For thyself? me. Thus, expecting thy reply, I profane my lips on thy foot, my eyes on thy picture, and my heart on thy every part.

Thine, in the dearest design of industry, Don Adriano De Armado. Thus dost thou hear the Nemean lion roar 'Gainst thee, thou lamb, that standest as his prey; Submissive fall his princely feet before,

And he from forage will incline to play :

Open this letter.

+ Illustrious.

But if thou strive, poor soul, what art thou then? Food for his rage, repasture for his den.

Prin. What plume of feathers is hè, that indited this letter?

What vane? What weather-cock? Did you ever hear better?

Boyet. I am much deceived, but I remember the style.

Prin. Else your memory is bad, going o'er it ere while.

Boyet. This Armado is a Spaniard, that keeps here in court;

A phantasm, a Monarcho; and one that makes sport To the prince, and his book-mates.

Prin. Thou, fellow, a word:

Who gave thee this letter?

Cost. I told you; my lord.

Prin. To whom shouldst thou give it?

Cost. From my lord to my lady.

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.

day.

Here, sweet, put up this; 'twill be thine another
[Exit Princess and Train.
Boyet. Who is the suitor? Who is the suitor?
Ros. Shall I teach you to know.
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?

• Just now.

Biron. So I may answer thee with one as old, that was a woman when queen Guinever 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,

An I cannot, another can.

[Exeunt Ros. and Kath.

Cost. By my troth, most pleasant! how both did fit it!

Mar. A mark marvellous well shot; for they both did hit it.

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.

[is out. Mar. Wide o' the bow hand! I' faith, your hand 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." Boyet. I fear too much rubbing; Good night, my good owl. [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 oft, so obscenely, as it were, so fit.

Arinatho o' the one side,-0, a most dainty man!
To see him walk before a lady, and to bear her fan!
To see him kiss his hand! and how most sweetly
a' will swear!-

And his page o' t'other side, that handful of wit!
Ah, heavens, it is a most pathetical nit!
Sola, sola!

[Shouting within. [Exit Costard, 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. The deer was, as you know, in sanguis, -blood; ripe as a pomewater, who now hangeth like a jewel in the ear of cælo,-the sky, the wel kin, 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 shew, as it were his inclination,-after his undress'd, unpolish'd, uneducated, unpruned, untrain'd, or rather unletter'd, or, ratherest, unconfirm'd fashion-to insert again my haud credo for a deer.

Dull. I said, the deer was not a haud credo; 'twas a pricket.

Hol. Twice sod simplicity, bis coctus!-0 thou monster ignorance, how how deform'd 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 replenish'd; 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 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 Phabe, to Luna, to the moon.

A species of apple.

+ A low feilow.

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.

Dull. 'Tis true, indeed, the collusion holds in the exchange.

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 pierced and prick'd 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 L to sore makes fifty sores; O

sore L!

Of one sore I an hundred make, by adding but one

more L.

Nath. A rare talent!

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

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, nourish'd 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.

Reached.

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