SCENE II. The same. Loves Labours Lost  Shakespeare homepage  |  Love's Labour's Lost  | Act 4, Scene 2 

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 Enter HOLOFERNES, SIR NATHANIEL, and DULL  SIR NATHANIEL  Very reverend 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. 

 SIR 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, his coctus! 

 O thou monster Ignorance, how deformed dost thou look! 

 SIR 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? 

 SIR 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. 

 The allusion holds in the exchange. 

 DULL  'Tis true indeed; the collusion holds in the exchange. 

 HOLOFERNES  God comfort thy capacity! I say, the allusion holds 

 in the exchange. 

 DULL  And I say, the pollusion holds in the exchange; for 

 the moon is never but a month old: and I say beside 

 that, 'twas a pricket that the princess killed. 

 HOLOFERNES  Sir Nathaniel, will you hear an extemporal epitaph 

 on the death of the deer? And, to humour the 

 ignorant, call I the deer the princess killed a pricket. 

 SIR 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 pierced 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 L to sore, then sorel jumps 

 from thicket; 

 Or pricket sore, or else sorel; the people fall a-hooting. 

 If sore be sore, then L to sore makes fifty sores 

 one sorel. 

 Of one sore I an hundred make by adding but one more L. 

 SIR NATHANIEL  A rare talent! 

 DULL  [Aside]  If a talent be a claw, look how he claws 

 him with a talent. 

 HOLOFERNES  This is a gift that I have, simple, simple; a 

 foolish extravagant spirit, full of forms, figures, 

 shapes, objects, ideas, apprehensions, motions, 

 revolutions: these are begot in the ventricle of 

 memory, nourished in the womb of pia mater, and 

 delivered upon the mellowing of occasion. But the 

 gift is good in those in whom it is acute, and I am 

 thankful for it. 

 SIR NATHANIEL  Sir, I praise the Lord for you; and so may my 

 parishioners; for their sons are well tutored by 

 you, and their daughters profit very greatly under 

 you: you are a good member of the commonwealth. 

 HOLOFERNES  Mehercle, if their sons be ingenuous, they shall 

 want no instruction; if their daughters be capable, 

 I will put it to them: but vir sapit qui pauca 

 loquitur; a soul feminine saluteth us. 



 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. 



 Exeunt  LOVE'S LABOURS LOST 

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