Love's Labour's Lost

BOYET. I fear too much rubbing; good-night, my good owl.
Exeunt BOYET and MARIA
COSTARD. 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.
Armado a th' t'one side- O, 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 a t' other side, that handful of wit!
Ah, heavens, it is a most pathetical nit!
Sola, sola! Exit COSTARD

SCENE II. The park

From the shooting within, enter HOLOFERNES, SIR NATHANIEL, and DULL

NATHANIEL. Very reverent sport, truly; and done in the
testimony of
a good conscience.
HOLOFERNES. The deer was, as you know, sanguis, in blood; ripe
as
the pomewater, who now hangeth like a jewel in the ear of
caelo,
the sky, the welkin, the heaven; and anon falleth like a crab
on
the face of terra, the soil, the land, 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. Twice-sod simplicity, bis coctus!
O thou monster Ignorance, how deformed dost thou look!
NATHANIEL. 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.
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 me by your wit
What was a month old at Cain's birth that's not five weeks
old as
yet?
HOLOFERNES. Dictynna, goodman Dull; Dictynna, goodman Dull.
DULL. What is Dictynna?
NATHANIEL. A title to Phoebe, to Luna, to the moon.
HOLOFERNES. The moon was a month old when Adam was no more,
And raught not to five weeks when he came to five-score.
Th' allusion holds in the exchange.
DULL. 'Tis true, indeed; the collusion holds in the exchange.
HOLOFERNES. God comfort thy capacity! I say th' allusion holds
in
the exchange.
DULL. And I say the polusion 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.
HOLOFERNES. Sir Nathaniel, will you hear an extemporal epitaph
on
the death of the deer? And, to humour the ignorant, call the
deer
the Princess kill'd a pricket.
NATHANIEL. Perge, good Master Holofernes, perge, so it shall
please
you to abrogate scurrility.
HOLOFERNES. I Will something affect the letter, for it argues
facility.

The preyful Princess pierc'd 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 el to sore, then sorel jumps from
thicket-