Enter the PRINCESS, ROSALINE, MARIA, KATHARINE, BOYET, Lords, Attendants, and a Forester. Prin. Was that the king, that spurred his horse so hard

Against the steep uprising of the hill?

Boyet. I know not; but I think, it was not he. Prin. Whoe'er he was, he show'd a mounting mind.

Well, lords, to-day we shall have our despatch;
On Saturday we will return to France.

Then, forester, my friend, where is the bush,
That we must stand and play the murderer in?
For. Here by, upon the edge of yonder coppice;
A stand, where you may make the fairest shoot.

Prin. I thank my beauty, I am fair that shoot, And thereupon thou speak'st, the fairest shoot.

For. Pardon me, madam, for I meant not so. Prin. What, what? first praise me, and again say, no?

O short-liv'd pride! Not fair? alack for woe!
For. Yes, madam, fair.
Prin.
Nay, never paint me now;
Where fair is not, praise cannot mend the brow.
Here, good my glass, take this for telling true;
[Giving him money.
Fair payment for foul words is more than due.
For. Nothing but fair is that which you inherit.
Prin. See, see, my beauty will be sav'd by merit.
O heresy in fair, fit for these days!

A giving hand, though foul, shall have fair praise.-
But come, the bow: :- - Now mercy goes to kill,
And shooting well is then accounted ill.
Thus will I save my credit in the shoot:
Not wounding, pity would not let me do't;
If wounding, then it was to show my skill,
That more for praise, than purpose, meant to kill.
And, out of question, so it is sometimes;
Glory grows guilty of detested crimes;
When, for fame's sake, for praise, an outward part,
We bend to that the working of the heart:
As I, for praise alone, now seek to spill
The poor deer's blood, that my heart means no ill.
Boyet. Do not curst wives hold that self-sove.
reignty

Only for praise' sake, when they strive to be
Lords o'er their lords?

Prin. Only for praise: and praise we may afford To any lady that subdues a lord.

Enter COSTARD.

Prin. Here comes a member of the commonwealth.

Cost, Pray you, which is the head lady? Prin. Thou shalt know her, fellow, by the rest that have no heads.

Cost. Which is the greatest lady, the highest? Prin. The thickest, and the tallest.

Cost. The thickest, and the tallest! it is so; truth is truth.

Are not you the chief woman? you are the thickest bere.

Prin. What's your will, sir? what's your will? Cost. I have a letter from monsieur Birón, to one

lady Rosaline.

Prin. O, thy letter, thy letter; he's a good friend of mine:

Stand aside, good bearer.
Break up this capon.

Boyet.

Boyet, you can carve;

I am bound to serve. —

This letter is mistook, it importeth none here; It is writ to Jaquenetta.

Prin.

We will read it, I swear: Break the neck of the wax, and every one give ear.

Boyet. [Reads.] By heaven, that thou art fair, is most infallible; true, that thou art beauteous; truth itself, that thou art lovely: More fairer than fair, beautiful than beauteous: truer than truth itself, have commiseration on thy heroical vassal! The magnanimous and most illustrate king Cophetua set eye upon the pernicious and indubitate beggar Zenelophon; and he it was that might rightly say, veni, vidi, vici; which to anatomize in the vulgar, (O base and obscure vulgar!) videlicet, he came, saw, and overcame: he came, one; saw, two; overcame, three. Who came? the king: Why did he come? to see: Why did he see? to overcome : To whom came he? to the beggar: What saw he? the beggar: Who overcame he? the beggar: the conclusion is victory; On whose side? the king's: The captive is enriched; On whose side? the beggar's: The catastrophe is a nuptial; On whose side? the king's ?—no, on both in one, or one in both, I am the king; for so stands the comparison: thou the beggar; for so witnesseth thy lowliness. command thy love? I may: Shall I enforce thy love? I could: Shall I entreat thy love? I will. What shalt thou exchange for rags ? robes; For tittles, titles; For thyself, me. Thus, expecting thy reply, I profane my lips on thy foot, my eyes on thy picture, and my heart on thee.

Shall I

Thine, in the dearest design of industry, DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO. Thus dost thou hear the Nemean lion roar 'Gainst thee, thou lamb, that standest as his prey; Submissive fall his princely feet before,

And he from forage will incline to play : But if thou strive, poor soul, what art thou then? Food for his rage, repasture for his den.

Prin. What plume of feathers is he, that indited this letter?

What vane? what weathercock? did you ever hear

Hol. The deer was, as you know, in sanguis, blood; ripe as a pomewater 6, who now hangeth like a jewel in the ear of cœlo, the sky, the welkin, the heaven; and anon falleth like a crab, on the face of terra, the soil, the land, the earth.

Nath. 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.7

Hol. Sir Nathaniel, haud credo.

Dull. 'Twas not a haud credo, 'twas a pricket. Hol. 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.

Hol. Twice sod simplicity, bis coctus!· O thou monster ignorance, how deformed dost thou look! Nath. 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 bookmen: Can you tell by your wit,

What was a month old at Cain's birth, that's not five weeks old as yet?

Hol. Dictynna, good man Dull; Dictynna, good man Dull.

Dull. What is Dictynna?

Nath. A title to Phoebe, to Luna, to the moon. Hol. The moon was a month old, when Adam

was no more;

Dull. And I say the pollution 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.

Hol. Sir Nathaniel, will you hear an extemporal epitaph on the death of the deer? and, to humour the ignorant, I have call'd the deer the princess kill'd a pricket.

Nath. Perge, good master Holofernes, perge; so it shall please you to abrogate scurrility.

Hol. I will something affect the letter; for it argues facility.

The praiseful 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 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; O sore L!

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

A rare talent!

Nath. Dull. If a talent be a claw, look how he claws him with a talent.

Hol. This is a gift that I have, simple, simple; a foolish extravagant spirit, full of forms, figures, shapes, objects, ideas, apprehensions, motions, revolutions: But the gift is good in those in whom it is acute, and I am thankful for it.

Nath. Sir, I praise heaven for you; and so may my parishioners; for their sons are well tutor'd by you, and their daughters profit very greatly under you: you are a good member of the commonwealth.

Hol. Mehercle, if their sons be ingenious, 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. Jaq. Good morrow, master person. Hol. Master person, quasi pers-on. And if one should be pierced, which is the one? Cost. Marry, master schoolmaster, he that is likest to a hogshead.

Hol. Of piercing a hogshead! a good lustre of conceit in a turf of earth; fire enough for a flint : 'tis pretty; it is well.

Jaq. Good master parson, be so good as read me this letter; it was given me by Costard, and sent me from Don Armatho I beseech you, read it. Hol. Fauste, precor gelidâ quando pecus omne sub umbrá

Ruminat,

The allusion holds in the exchange.

Dull. 'Tis true indeed; the collusion holds in

the exchange.

Vinegia, Vinegia,

Chi non te vede, ei non te pregia.

Old Mantuan! old Mantuan! Who understandeth

A species of apple.

7 To render some of the allusions in this scene intelligible to persons who are not acquainted with the language of parkkeepers and foresters, it may be necessary to mention, that a fawn, when it is a year old, is called by them a pricket; when it is two years old, it is a sorel; when it is three years old, it is a sore; when it is four years, it is a buck of the first head; at five years, it is an old buck. 9 Reached.

A low fellow.

Under pardon, sir, what are the contents? or, rather, as Horace says in his What, my soul, verses? Nath. Ay, sir, and very learned.

-

Hol. Let me hear a staff, a stanza, a verse; Lege, domine.

Nath. [Reads ] If love make me forsworn, how

shall I swear to love?

Ah, never faith could hold, if not to beauty vowed!

Though to myself forsworn, to thee I'll faithful prove; Those thoughts to me were oaks, to thee like osiers

bowed.

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 musick, and sweet fire. Celestial, as thou art, oh pardon, love, this wrong, That sings heaven's praise with such an earthly tongue!

Hol. You find not the apostrophes, 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 odoriferous 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?

Jaq. Ay, sir, from one Monsieur Biron, one of the strange queen's lords.

Hol. 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 Birón 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. Jaq. Good Costard, go with me. Cost. Have with thee, my girl.

[Exeunt CoST. and JAQ. Nath. Sir, you have done this very religiously; and, as a certain father saith

Hol. Sir, tell not me of the father, I do fear colourable colours. But, to return to the verses; Did they please you, Sir Nathaniel?

Nath. Marvellous well for the pen.

Hol. 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.

Nath. And thank you too: for society, (saith the text,) is the happiness of life.

Hol. And, certes 2, the text most infallibly concludes it. Sir, [To DULL.] 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 ecreation.

Attired, caparisoned.

[Exeunt.

In truth.

|

SCENE III..

King. Ah me! Biron. [Aside.] Shot, by heaven! Proceed, sweet Cupid; thou hast thump'd him with thy birdbolt under the left pap:

King. [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 shin'st 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; Sweet leaves shade folly. Who is he comes here? [Steps aside.