Until his ink were temper’d with Love’s sighs;
O, then his lines would ravish savage ears
And plant in tyrants mild humility.
From women’s eyes this doctrine I derive:
They sparkle still the right Promethean fire;
They are the books, the arts, the academes,
That show, contain and nourish all the world:
Else none at all in ought proves excellent.
Then fools you were these women to forswear,
Or keeping what is sworn, you will prove fools.
For wisdom’s sake, a word that all men love,
Or for love’s sake, a word that loves all men,
Or for men’s sake, the authors of these women,
Or women’s sake, by whom we men are men,
Let us once lose our oaths to find ourselves,
Or else we lose ourselves to keep our oaths.
It is religion to be thus forsworn,
For charity itself fulfills the law,
And who can sever love from charity?
FERDINAND Saint Cupid, then! and, soldiers, to the field!
BIRON Advance your standards, and upon them, lords;
Pell-mell, down with them! but be first advised,
In conflict that you get the sun of them.
LONGAVILLE Now to plain-dealing; lay these glozes by:
Shall we resolve to woo these girls of France?
FERDINAND And win them too: therefore let us devise
Some entertainment for them in their tents.
BIRON First, from the park let us conduct them thither;
Then homeward every man attach the hand
Of his fair mistress: in the afternoon
We will with some strange pastime solace them,
Such as the shortness of the time can shape;
For revels, dances, masks and merry hours
Forerun fair Love, strewing her way with flowers.
FERDINAND Away, away! no time shall be omitted
That will betime, and may by us be fitted.
BIRON Allons! allons! Sow’d cockle reap’d no corn;
And justice always whirls in equal measure:
Light wenches may prove plagues to men forsworn;
If so, our copper buys no better treasure.
Exeunt
Act 5
Scene 1
The same.
Enter HOLOFERNES, SIR NATHANIEL, and DULL
HOLOFERNES Satis quod sufficit.
SIR NATHANIEL I praise God 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 with-
out heresy. I did converse this quondam day with
a companion of the king’s, who is intituled, nomi-
nated, 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
behavior vain, ridiculous, and thrasonical. He is
too picked, too spruce, too affected, too odd, as it
were, too peregrinate, as I may call it.
SIR 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 pronounce debt,–d,
e, b, t, not d, e, t: he clepeth a calf, cauf;
half, hauf; neighbour vocatur nebor; neigh
abbreviated ne. This is abhominable,–which he
would call abbominable: it insinuateth me of
insanie: anne intelligis, domine? to make frantic, lunatic.
SIR NATHANIEL Laus Deo, bene intelligo.
HOLOFERNES Bon, bon, fort bon, Priscian! a little scratch’d,
’twill serve.
SIR NATHANIEL Videsne quis venit?
HOLOFERNES Video, et gaudeo.
Enter DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO, MOTH, and COSTARD
ADRIANO DE ARMADO Chirrah!
To MOTH
HOLOFERNES Quare chirrah, not sirrah?
ADRIANO DE ARMADO Men of peace, well encountered.
HOLOFERNES Most military sir, salutation.
MOTH [Aside to COSTARD]
They have been at a great feast
of languages, and stolen the scraps.
COSTARD O, they have lived long on the alms-basket of words.
I marvel thy master hath not eaten thee for a word;
for thou art not so long by the head as
honorificabilitudinitatibus: thou art easier
swallowed than a flap-dragon.
MOTH Peace! the peal begins.
ADRIANO DE ARMADO [To HOLOFERNES]
Monsieur, are you not lettered?
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.
ADRIANO DE 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 Offered by a child to an old man; which is wit-old.
HOLOFERNES What is the figure? what is the figure?
MOTH Horns.
HOLOFERNES Thou disputest like an infant: go, whip thy gig.
MOTH Lend me your horn to make one, and I will whip about
your infamy circum circa,–a gig of a cuckold’s horn.
COSTARD An I had but one penny in the world, thou shouldst
have it to buy gingerbread: 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
bastard, 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.
ADRIANO DE ARMADO Arts-man, preambulate, we will be singled from the
barbarous. Do you not educate youth at the
charge-house on the top of the mountain?
HOLOFERNES Or mons, the hill.
ADRIANO DE ARMADO At your sweet pleasure, for the mountain.
HOLOFERNES I do, sans question.
ADRIANO DE 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 multitude call the afternoon.
HOLOFERNES The posterior of the day, most generous sir, is
liable, congruent and measurable for the afternoon:
the word is well culled, chose, sweet and apt, I do
assure you, sir, I do assure.
ADRIANO DE ARMADO Sir, the king is a noble gentleman, and my familiar,
I do assure ye, very good friend: for what is
inward between us, let it pass. I do beseech thee,
remember thy courtesy; I beseech thee, apparel thy
head: and among other important and most serious
designs, and of great import indeed, too, but let
that pass: 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 pass. 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 pass.
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
antique, 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 assistance.
HOLOFERNES Sir, you shall present before her the Nine Worthies.
Sir, as concerning some entertainment of time, some
show in the posterior of this day, to be rendered by
our assistants, at the king’s command, and this most
gallant, illustrate, and learned gentleman, before
the princess; I say none so fit as to present the
Nine Worthies.
SIR NATHANIEL Where will you find men worthy enough to present them?
HOLOFERNES Joshua, yourself; myself and this gallant gentleman,
Judas Maccabaeus; this swain, because of his great
limb or joint, shall pass Pompey the Great; the
page, Hercules,–
ADRIANO DE ARMADO Pardon, sir; error: he is not quantity 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.
ADRIANO DE ARMADO For the rest of the Worthies?–
HOLOFERNES I will play three myself.
MOTH Thrice-worthy gentleman!
ADRIANO DE ARMADO Shall I tell you a thing?
HOLOFERNES We attend.
ADRIANO DE ARMADO We will have, if this fadge not, an antique. I
beseech you, follow.
HOLOFERNES Via, goodman Dull! thou hast 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