SCENE I. The same. Loves Labours Lost  Shakespeare homepage  |  Love's Labour's Lost  | Act 5, Scene 1 

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 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  DON 

 ADRIANO DE ARMADO  Chirrah! 



 To MOTH  HOLOFERNES  Quare chirrah, not sirrah? 

 DON 

 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. 

 DON 

 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. 

 DON 

 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. 

 DON 

 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. 

 DON 

 ADRIANO DE ARMADO  At your sweet pleasure, for the mountain. 

 HOLOFERNES  I do, sans question. 

 DON 

 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. 

 DON 

 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,-- 

 DON 

 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. 

 DON 

 ADRIANO DE ARMADO  For the rest of the Worthies?-- 

 HOLOFERNES  I will play three myself. 

 MOTH  Thrice-worthy gentleman! 

 DON 

 ADRIANO DE ARMADO  Shall I tell you a thing? 

 HOLOFERNES  We attend. 

 DON 

 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 

 On the tabour to the Worthies, and let them dance the hay. 

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



 Exeunt  LOVE'S LABOURS LOST 

 Shakespeare homepage  |  Love's Labour's Lost  | Act 5, Scene 1 

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