Love's Labour's Lost Part 10

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ACT V. SCENE I.

The park

Enter HOLOFERNES, SIR NATHANIEL, and DULL

HOLOFERNES. Satis quod sufficit.

NATHANIEL. I praise G.o.d for you, sir. Your reasons at dinner have been sharp and sententious; pleasant without scurrility, witty without affection, audacious without impudency, learned without opinion, and strange without heresy. I did converse this quondam day with a companion of the King's who is int.i.tuled, nominated, or called, Don Adriano de Armado.

HOLOFERNES. Novi hominem tanquam te. His humour is lofty, his discourse peremptory, his tongue filed, his eye ambitious, his gait majestical and his general behaviour vain, ridiculous, and thrasonical. He is too picked, too spruce, too affected, too odd, as it were, too peregrinate, as I may call it.

NATHANIEL. A most singular and choice epithet.

[Draws out his table-book]

HOLOFERNES. He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument. I abhor such fanatical phantasimes, such insociable and point-devise companions; such rackers of orthography, as to speak 'dout' fine, when he should say 'doubt'; 'det' when he should p.r.o.nounce 'debt'- d, e, b, t, not d, e, t.

He clepeth a calf 'cauf,' half 'hauf'; neighbour vocatur 'nebour'; 'neigh' abbreviated 'ne.' This is abhominable- which he would call 'abbominable.' It insinuateth me of insanie: ne intelligis, domine? to make frantic, lunatic.

NATHANIEL. Laus Deo, bone intelligo.

HOLOFERNES. 'Bone'?- 'bone' for 'bene.' Priscian a little scratch'd; 'twill serve.

Enter ARMADO, MOTH, and COSTARD

NATHANIEL. Videsne quis venit?

HOLOFERNES. Video, et gaudeo.

ARMADO. [To MOTH] Chirrah!

HOLOFERNES. Quare 'chirrah,' not 'sirrah'?

ARMADO. Men of peace, well encount'red.

HOLOFERNES. Most military sir, salutation.

MOTH. [Aside to COSTARD] They have been at a great feast of languages and stol'n the sc.r.a.ps.

COSTARD. O, they have liv'd long on the alms-basket of words. I marvel thy master hath not eaten thee for a word, for thou are not so long by the head as honorificabilitudinitatibus; thou art easier swallowed than a flap-dragon.

MOTH. Peace! the peal begins.

ARMADO. [To HOLOFERNES] Monsieur, are you not lett'red?

MOTH. Yes, yes; he teaches boys the hornbook. What is a, b, spelt backward with the horn on his head?

HOLOFERNES. Ba, pueritia, with a horn added.

MOTH. Ba, most silly sheep with a horn. You hear his learning.

HOLOFERNES. Quis, quis, thou consonant?

MOTH. The third of the five vowels, if You repeat them; or the fifth, if I.

HOLOFERNES. I will repeat them: a, e, i- MOTH. 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!

MOTH. Offer'd by a child to an old man; which is wit-old.

HOLOFERNES. What is the figure? What is the figure?

MOTH. Horns.

HOLOFERNES. Thou disputes like an infant; go whip thy gig.

MOTH. Lend me your horn to make one, and I will whip about your infamy circ.u.m circa- a gig of a cuckold's horn.

COSTARD. An I had but one penny in the world, thou shouldst have it to buy ginger-bread. 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 b.a.s.t.a.r.d, 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 singuled 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 mult.i.tude call the afternoon.

HOLOFERNES. The posterior of the day, most generous sir, is liable, congruent, and measurable, for the afternoon. The word is well cull'd, chose, sweet, and apt, I do a.s.sure you, sir, I do a.s.sure.

ARMADO. Sir, the King is a n.o.ble gentleman, and my familiar, I do a.s.sure ye, very good friend. For what is inward between us, let it pa.s.s. I do beseech thee, remember thy courtesy. I beseech thee, apparel thy head. And among other importunate and most serious designs, and of great import indeed, too- but let that pa.s.s; 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, sweet heart, let that pa.s.s. 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 pa.s.s. The very all of all is- but, sweet heart, 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 a.s.sistance.

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 rend'red by our a.s.sistance, the King's command, and this most gallant, ill.u.s.trate, 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, Alexander; this gallant gentleman, Judas Maccabaeus; this swain, because of his great limb or joint, shall pa.s.s Pompey the Great; the page, Hercules.

ARMADO. Pardon, sir; error: he is not quant.i.ty 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.

MOTH. 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.

MOTH. 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 has 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.

HOLOFERNES. Most dull, honest Dull! To our sport, away.

Exeunt

SCENE II.

The park

Enter the PRINCESS, MARIA, KATHARINE, and ROSALINE

PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Sweet hearts, we shall be rich ere we depart, If fairings come thus plentifully in.

A lady wall'd about with diamonds!

Look you what I have from the loving King.

ROSALINE. Madam, came nothing else along with that?

PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Nothing but this! Yes, as much love in rhyme As would be cramm'd up in a sheet of paper Writ o' both sides the leaf, margent and all, That he was fain to seal on Cupid's name.

ROSALINE. That was the way to make his G.o.dhead wax; For he hath been five thousand year a boy.

KATHARINE. Ay, and a shrewd unhappy gallows too.

ROSALINE. You'll ne'er be friends with him: 'a kill'd your sister.

KATHARINE. 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 'a 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?

KATHARINE. A light condition in a beauty dark.

ROSALINE. We need more light to find your meaning out.

KATHARINE. 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.

KATHARINE. So do not you; for you are a light wench.

ROSALINE. Indeed, I weigh not you; and therefore light.

KATHARINE. You weigh me not? O, that's you care not for me.

ROSALINE. Great reason; for 'past cure is still past care.'

PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Well bandied both; a set of wit well play'd.