| ACT VSCENE I | 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 | 5 |
| | 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 | 10 |
| | 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. | 15 |
| 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 | 20 |
| | 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 | 25 |
| | 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. | 30 |
| SIR NATHANIEL | Videsne quis venit? | |
| HOLOFERNES | Video, et gaudeo. | |
| | Enter DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO, MOTH, and COSTARD | |
| DONADRIANO DE ARMADO | Chirrah! | |
| | To MOTH | |
| HOLOFERNES | Quare chirrah, not sirrah? | |
| DONADRIANO DE ARMADO | Men of peace, well encountered. | 35 |
| HOLOFERNES | Most military sir, salutation. | |
| MOTH | Aside to COSTARD | |
| | 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 | 40 |
| | honorificabilitudinitatibus: thou art easier | |
| | swallowed than a flap-dragon. | |
| MOTH | Peace! the peal begins. | |
| DONADRIANO DE ARMADO | To HOLOFERNES | |
| MOTH | Yes, yes; he teaches boys the hornbook. What is a, | |
| | b, spelt backward, with the horn on his head? | 45 |
| 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. | 50 |
| HOLOFERNES | I will repeat them,--a, e, i,-- | |
| MOTH | The sheep: the other two concludes it,--o, u. | |
| DONADRIANO 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! | 55 |
| 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 | 60 |
| | 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 | 65 |
| | 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. | 70 |
| DONADRIANO 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. | |
| DONADRIANO DE ARMADO | At your sweet pleasure, for the mountain. | 75 |
| HOLOFERNES | I do, sans question. | |
| DONADRIANO 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. | 80 |
| 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. | |
| DONADRIANO DE ARMADO | Sir, the king is a noble gentleman, and my familiar, | 85 |
| | 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 | 90 |
| | 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 | 95 |
| | 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 | 100 |
| | 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 | 105 |
| | 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 | 110 |
| | 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? | 115 |
| 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,-- | |
| DONADRIANO DE ARMADO | Pardon, sir; error: he is not quantity enough for | 120 |
| | 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 | 125 |
| | 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. | |
| DONADRIANO DE ARMADO | For the rest of the Worthies?-- | |
| HOLOFERNES | I will play three myself. | 130 |
| MOTH | Thrice-worthy gentleman! | |
| DONADRIANO DE ARMADO | Shall I tell you a thing? | |
| HOLOFERNES | We attend. | |
| DONADRIANO DE ARMADO | We will have, if this fadge not, an antique. I | |
| | beseech you, follow. | 135 |
| 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 | |
| | On the tabour to the Worthies, and let them dance the hay. | 140 |
| HOLOFERNES | Most dull, honest Dull! To our sport, away! | |
| | Exeunt | |
