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The same.
[Enter HOLOFERNES, SIR NATHANIEL, and DULL]
HOLOFERNES
Satis quod sufficit.
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, nominated, or called, Don Adriano de Armado.
HOLOFERNES
Novi hominem tanquam te, his humor 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.
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 doubt
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: neighbor 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?
NATHANIEL
Laus Deo, bene intelligo.
HOLOFERNES
Bon bon fort bon Priscian, a little scratched, 'twill serve.
NATHANIEL
Vides ne quis venit?
HOLOFERNES
Video, et gaudeo.
[Enter ARMADO, MOTH, and COSTARD]
ARMADO
Chirrah.
HOLOFERNES
Quare chirrah, not sirrah?
ARMADO
Men of peace well encountered.
HOLOFERNES
Most military sir salutation.
MOTH
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.
ARMADO
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 last 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.
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 disputes 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
And 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 and 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
Oh I smell false Latin, dunghill for unguem.
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.
ARMADO
At your sweet pleasure, for the mountain.
HOLOFERNES
I do sans question.
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.
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 honors 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 Holofernes, as
concerning some entertainment of time, some show in the posterior of this
day, to be rendered by our assistants 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.
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.
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.
ARMADO
For the rest of the Worthies?
HOLOFERNES
I will play three myself.
MOTH
Thrice-worthy gentleman.
ARMADO
Shall I tell you a thing?
HOLOFERNES
We attend.
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 tabor to the
Worthies, and let them dance the hay.
HOLOFERNES
Most dull, honest Dull, to our sport away.
[Exeunt]