Enter JAQUENETTA and COSTARD JAQUENETTA God give you good morrow, master Parson. HOLOFERNES Master Parson, quasi pers-on. An if one should be pierced, which is the one? COSTARD Marry, master schoolmaster, he that is likest to a hogshead. HOLOFERNES Piercing a hogshead! a good lustre of conceit in a tuft of earth; fire enough for a flint, pearl enough for a swine: 'tis pretty; it is well. JAQUENETTA Good master Parson, be so good as read me this letter: it was given me by Costard, and sent me from Don Armado: I beseech you, read it. HOLOFERNES Fauste, precor gelida quando pecus omne sub umbra Ruminat,--and so forth. Ah, good old Mantuan!
I may speak of thee as the traveller doth of Venice;Venetia, Venetia, Chi non ti vede non ti pretia.
Old Mantuan, old Mantuan! who understandeth thee not, loves thee not. Ut, re, sol, la, mi, fa.
Under pardon, sir, what are the contents? or rather, as Horace says in his--What, my soul, verses? SIR NATHANIEL Ay, sir, and very learned. HOLOFERNES Let me hear a staff, a stanze, a verse; lege, domine. SIR NATHANIEL [Reads]
If love make me forsworn, how shall I swear to love?
Ah, never faith could hold, if not to beauty vow'd!
Though to myself forsworn, to thee I'll faithful prove:
Those thoughts to me were oaks, to thee like osiers bow'd.
Study his bias leaves and makes his book thine eyes, Where all those pleasures live that art would comprehend:
If knowledge be the mark, to know thee shall suffice;Well learned is that tongue that well can thee commend, All ignorant that soul that sees thee without wonder;Which is to me some praise that I thy parts admire:
Thy eye Jove's lightning bears, thy voice his dreadful thunder, Which not to anger bent, is music and sweet fire.
Celestial as thou art, O, pardon, love, this wrong, That sings heaven's praise with such an earthly tongue. HOLOFERNES You find not the apostraphas, and so miss the accent: let me supervise the canzonet. Here are only numbers ratified; but, for the elegancy, facility, and golden cadence of poesy, caret.
Ovidius Naso was the man: and why, indeed, Naso, but for smelling out the odouriferous flowers of fancy, the jerks of invention? Imitari is nothing: so doth the hound his master, the ape his keeper, the tired horse his rider. But, damosella virgin, was this directed to you? JAQUENETTA Ay, sir, from one Monsieur Biron, one of the strange queen's lords. HOLOFERNES I will overglance the superscript: 'To the snow-white hand of the most beauteous Lady Rosaline.' I will look again on the intellect of the letter, for the nomination of the party writing to the person written unto: 'Your ladyship's in all desired employment, BIRON.' Sir Nathaniel, this Biron is one of the votaries with the king; and here he hath framed a letter to a sequent of the stranger queen's, which accidentally, or by the way of progression, hath miscarried. Trip and go, my sweet; deliver this paper into the royal hand of the king: it may concern much. Stay not thy compliment; I forgive thy duty; adieu. JAQUENETTA Good Costard, go with me. Sir, God save your life! COSTARD Have with thee, my girl.
Exeunt COSTARD and JAQUENETTA SIR NATHANIEL Sir, you have done this in the fear of God, very religiously; and, as a certain father saith,-- HOLOFERNES Sir tell me not of the father; I do fear colourable colours. But to return to the verses: did they please you, Sir Nathaniel? SIR NATHANIEL Marvellous well for the pen. HOLOFERNES I do dine to-day at the father's of a certain pupil of mine; where, if, before repast, it shall please you to gratify the table with a grace, I will, on my privilege I have with the parents of the foresaid child or pupil, undertake your ben venuto; where I will prove those verses to be very unlearned, neither savouring of poetry, wit, nor invention:
I beseech your society. SIR NATHANIEL And thank you too; for society, saith the text, is the happiness of life. HOLOFERNES And, certes, the text most infallibly concludes it.
To DULL Sir, I do invite you too; you shall not say me nay: pauca verba. Away! the gentles are at their game, and we will to our recreation.
SCENE III
The same. Enter BIRON, with a paper BIRON The king he is hunting the deer; I am coursing myself: they have pitched a toil; I am toiling in a pitch,--pitch that defiles: defile! a foul word. Well, set thee down, sorrow! for so they say the fool said, and so say I, and I the fool: well proved, wit! By the Lord, this love is as mad as Ajax: it kills sheep; it kills me, I a sheep: well proved again o' my side! I will not love: if I do, hang me; i' faith, I will not. O, but her eye,--by this light, but for her eye, I would not love her; yes, for her two eyes. Well, I do nothing in the world but lie, and lie in my throat. By heaven, I do love: and it hath taught me to rhyme and to be melancholy; and here is part of my rhyme, and here my melancholy. Well, she hath one o' my sonnets already: the clown bore it, the fool sent it, and the lady hath it: sweet clown, sweeter fool, sweetest lady! By the world, I would not care a pin, if the other three were in. Here comes one with a paper: God give him grace to groan!
Stands aside Enter FERDINAND, with a paper FERDINAND Ay me! BIRON [Aside] Shot, by heaven! Proceed, sweet Cupid: thou hast thumped him with thy bird-bolt under the left pap. In faith, secrets! FERDINAND [Reads]
So sweet a kiss the golden sun gives not To those fresh morning drops upon the rose, As thy eye-beams, when their fresh rays have smote The night of dew that on my cheeks down flows:
Nor shines the silver moon one half so bright Through the transparent bosom of the deep, As doth thy face through tears of mine give light;Thou shinest in every tear that I do weep:
No drop but as a coach doth carry thee;So ridest thou triumphing in my woe.
Do but behold the tears that swell in me, And they thy glory through my grief will show:
But do not love thyself; then thou wilt keep My tears for glasses, and still make me weep.
O queen of queens! how far dost thou excel, No thought can think, nor tongue of mortal tell.
How shall she know my griefs? I'll drop the paper: