Prin. Thou hast mistaken his letter. Come, lords, away. Here, sweet, put up this; 'twill be thine another day. Ros. Finely put off! Hang me by the neck, if horns that year miscarry. Ros. Weil then, I am the shooter. And who is your deer? Armatho o' the one side,-O, a most dainty man! And his page o' t' other side, that handful of wit! the testimony of a good conscience. Hol. The deer was, as you know, in sanguis,blood; ripe as a pomewater, who now hangeth like a jewel in the ear of cœlo, the sky, the welkin, the Ros. If we choose by the horns, yourself: come heaven; and anon falleth like a crab, on the face of near. Finely put on, indeed! Mar. You still wrangle with her, Boyet, and she strikes at the brow. Boyet. But she herself is hit lower: Have I hit her now? Ros. Shall I come upon thee with an old saying, that was a man when king Pepin of France was a little boy, as touching the hit it? Boyet. So I may answer thee with one as old, that was a woman when queen Guinever of Britain was a little wench, as touching the hit it. Ros. Thou canst not hit it, hat it, hit it, [Singing [Exeunt Ros. and KATH. Cost. By my troth, most pleasant! how both did fit it! Mar. A mark marvellous well shot! for they both did hit it. Boyet. A mark! O, mark but that mark; A is out. Cost. Indeed, a' must shoot nearer, or he'll ne'er hit the clout. 1 An equivoque was here intended; it should appear that the words shooter and suitor were pronounced alike in Shakspeare's time. 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. 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, unfirmed fashion,-to insert again my haud credo for a trained, or rather unlettered, or, ratherest, uncon 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! are bred in a book; he hath not eat paper, as it Nath. Sir, he hath never fed of the dainties that 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 Many can brook the weather that love not the wind. Dull. You two are book-men: Can you tell by What was a month old at Cain's birth, that's not five weeks old as yet? Hol. Dictynna, good man Dull; Dictynna,11 good man Dull. Dull. What is Dictvnna? Nath. A title to Phoebe, to Luna, to the moon. was no more; And raught not to five weeks, when he came to fivescore. 2 This is a term in archery still in use, signifying aing account of the different appellations of deer at their good deal to the left of the mark.' Of the other expres. sions, the clout was the white mark at which archers took aim. The pin was the wooden nail in the centre of it. 3 i. e. grossly. This scene, as Dr. Johnson justly remarks, deserves no care.' 4 To rub is a term at bowls. 5 Pathetical sometimes meant passionate, and sometimes passion-moving, in our old writers; but is here used by Costard as an idle expletive, as Rosalind's 'pathetical break-promise,' in As You Like It. 6 Pomewater, a species of apple. 7 Warburton's conjecture that Florio, the author of the Italian Dictionary, was ridiculed under the name of Holofernes would derive some strength from the following definition: 'cielo, heaven, the skie, firmament or welkin. Terra, the element called earth, anie ground, earth, countrie, land, soile. But Florio's Dictionary was not published until 1598; and this play appears to have been written in 1594, though not printed until 1598. 8 In The Return from Parnassus, 1606, is the follow. different ages. Amoretto. I caused the keeper to sever the rascal deer from the bucks of the first head. Now, sir, a buck is the first year, a fawn; the second year, a pricket; the third year, a sorrel; the fourth year, a soare; the fifth, a buck of the first head; the sixth year, a complete buck. Likewise your hart, is the first year, a calfe; the second year, a brocket; the third year, a spade; the fourth year, a stag; the sixth year, a hart. A roe-buck is the first year, a kid; the second year, a gird: the third year, a hemuse; and these are your special beasts for chase.' 9 The length of these lines was no novelty on the English stage. The Moralities afford whole scenes of the like measure. 10 The meaning is, to be in a school would as ill become a patch, or low fellow, as folly would become me. 11 Shakspeare might have found this uncommon title for Diana in the second book of Golding's translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses. 12 Reached. The allusion holds in the exchange.1 Dull. 'Tis true indeed; the collusion holds in the exchange. Hol. God comfort thy capacity! I say, the allusion holds in the exchange. 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 bricket that the princess kill'd. Hol. Sir Nathaniel, wil. you near an extemporal epitaph on the death of the deer? and, to humour the ignorant, I have called 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 I 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 a hundred make, by adding but one more L. Nath. A rare talent! Dull. If a talent be a claw, look how he claws aim with a talent.4 Hol. This is a gift that I have, simple, simple; foolish extravagant spirit, full of forms, figures, shapes, objects, ideas, apprehensions, motions, rerolutions: these are begot in the ventricle of memory, nourished in the womb of pia mater; and defiver'd upon the mellowing of occasion: But the gift is good in those in whom it is acute, and I am thankful for it. Nath. Sir, I praise the Lord 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. God give you 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, pearl enough for a swine: '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 gelida quando pecus omne sub umbra Ruminat, and so forth. Ah, good old Mantuan !s I may speak of thee as the traveller doth of Venice: -Vinegia, Vinegia, Chi non te vede, ei non te pregia. Old Mantuan! old Mantuan! Who understandeth 1 i. e. the riddle is as good when I use the name of Adam, as when I use the name of Cain. 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? Nath. Ay, sir, and very learned. Hol. Let me hear a staff, a stanza, a verse: Lege, domine. Nath. 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. 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. Ovi dius 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? 10 Jaq. Ay, sir, from one Monsieur Biron, 1° 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 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. Jaq. Good Costard, go with me.-Sir, God savo life! Cost. Have with thee, my girl. your [Exeunt CoST. and JAQ. Nath. Sir, you have done this in the fear of God, very religiously; and, as a certain father saith Hol. Sir, tell me not of the father, I do fear cothe opposite side of the page for the use of schools. In 1567 they were also versified by Tuberville. 6 This proverb occurs in Florio's Second Frutes, 1591, where it stands thus: 'Venetia, chi non ti vede non ti pretia 7 He hums the notes of the gamut, as Edmund does 2 i. e. I will use or practise alliteration. To affect is thus used by Ben Jonson in his Discoveries: Spen-in King Lear, Act i. Sc. 2. ser, in affecting the ancients, writ no language; yet I would have him read for his matter, but as Virgil read Ennius.' 3 For the explanation of the terms pricket, sore or soar, and sorel in this quibbling rhyme, the reader is prepared, by the extract from The Return from Parnassus, in a note at the beginning of the scene. 4 Talon was often written talent in Shakspeare's time. Honest Dull quibbles. One of the senses of to claw is to flatter. 8 These verses are printed, with some variations, in The Passionate Pilgrim, 1599. 9 i. e. The horse adorned with ribands; Bankes's horse is here probably alluded to. Lyly, in his Mother Bombie, brings in a hackneyman and Mr. Halfpenny at cross-purposes with this word: Why didst thou bore the horse through the ears?''It was for tiring.—' Ha would never tire,' replies the other. 10 Shakspeare forgot that Jaquenetta knew nothing of Biron, and had said just before that the letter had 5 The Eclogues of Mantuanus were translated be-been sent to her from Don Armatho, and given to her fore the time of Shakspeare, and the Latin printed on by Costard.' lourable colours. But to return to the verses; Nath. And thank you too: for society, (saith the text,) is the happiness of life. Hol. And, certes, 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 recreation. [Exeunt. SCENE III. Another part of the same. Enter BIRON, with a Paper. This same shall Did not the heavenly rhetorick of thine eye A Biron. The king he is hunting the deer: I am Vows for thee broke, deserve not punishment. Biron. [Aside.] This is the liver vein, whicn Enter DUMAIN, with a Paper. stay. King. Ah me! Biron. [Aside. Shot, by heaven!-Proceed, sweet Cupid; thou hast thump'd him with thy bird-And wretched fools' secrets heedfully o'er-eye. bolt under the left pap:-I'faith, secrets.― King. [Reads.] So sweet a kiss the golden sun To those fresh morning drops upon the rose, So ridest thou triumphing in my woe; More sacks to the mill! O heavens, I have my wish; Dumain transform'd: four woodcocks in a dish! O most profane coxcomb! Biron. An amber-colour'd raven was well noted. And they thy glory through thy grief will show: 1 That is, specious or fair seeming appearances. 2 Certainly, in truth. 3 Alluding to Rosaline's complexion, who is represented as a black beauty. Biron. Ay, as some days; but then no sun must shine. [Aside. Stoop, I say; [Aside, As fair as day. [Aside. Dum. O that I had my wish! [Aside. King. And I mine too, good Lord! Aside, Biron, Amen, so I had mine: Is not that a good word? [Aside. Dum. I would forget her; but a fever she Reigns in my blood, and will remember'd be. 7 Slops were wide kneed breeches, the garb in fashion in Shakspeare's time. 8 It has been already remarked that the liver was anciently supposed to be the seat of love. 9 A woodcock means a foolish fellow; that bird being 4 This is given as a proverb in Fuller's Gnomologia.supposed to have no brains. 5 The ancient punishment of a perjured person was to wear on the breast a paper expressing the crime. 6 By triumviry and the shape of love's Tyburn, Shakspeare alludes to the gallows of the time, which was occasionally triangular. 10 Coted signifies marked or noted. The word is from the coter to quote. The construction of this pas sage will therefore be, her amber hairs have marked or shown that real amber is fout in comparison with themselves.' 1 Biron. Once more I'll mark how love can vary Dum On a day, (alack the day !) Biron. A fever in your blood, why, then incision | But are you not asham'd? nay, are you not, Love, whose month is ever May, This will I send: and something else more plain, Long. Dumain, [advancing.] thy love is far from That in love's grief desir'st society: You may look pale, but I should blush, I know, King. Come, sir, [advancing.] you blush; as his You chide at him, offending twice as much: 1 Thee-for whom Jove would swear, The old copy reads Thou for whom Jove would swear.' Pope thought this line defective, and altered it to- 2 Fasting is longing, hungry, wanting. 3 Alluding to a passage in the King's Sonnet: 5 Gnat is the reading of the old copy, and there seems no necessity for changing it to knot or any other word, as some of the editors have been desirous of doing. King. Too bitter is thy jest. Soft Whither away so fast? Enter JAQUENETTA and CoSTARD. Jaq. God bless the king! King. What present hast thou there? Cost. Some certain treason. What makes treason here ? Cost. Nay, it makes nothing, sir, If it mar nothing neither, Jaq. Of Costard. King. Where hadst then it? Cost. Of Dun Adramadio, Dun Adramadio King. How now! what is in you? why dost thou tear it? Biron. A toy, my liege, a toy; your grace needs Long. It did move him to passion, and therefore Biron. That you three fools lack'd me fool to He, he, and you, my liege, and I, True, true; we are four :- King. Hence, sirs; away. Cost. Walk aside the true folk, and let the trai[Exeunt COST. and JAQ. tors stay. Biron. Sweet lords, sweet lovers, O let us em- As true we are as flesh and blood can be: Biron. Did they, quoth you? Who sees the hea- That like a rude and savage man of Inde, At the first opening of the gorgeous east,2 Bows not his vassal head; and, strucken blind, Kisses the base ground with obedient breast? What peremptory eagle-sighted eye Dares look upon the heaven of her brow, That is not blinded by her majesty? King. What zeal, what fury hath inspir'd thee now? My love, her mistress, is a gracious moon; She, an attending star, scarce seen a light. Biron. My eyes are then no eyes, nor I Biron :3 O, but for my love, day would turn to night! Of all complexions the cull'd sovereignty Do meet, as at a fair, in her fair cheek; Where several worthies make one dignity; Where nothing wants; that want itself doth seek. Lend me the flourish of all gentle tongues, Fye, painted rhetorick! O, she needs it not: To things of sale a seller's praise belongs; She passes praise; then praise too short doth blot. A wither'd hermit, five-score winters worn, Might shake off fifty, looking in her eye: And gives the crutch the cradle's infancy. No face is fair, that is not full so black. O, if in black my lady's brows be deckt, It mourns, that painting, and usurping hair, For native blood is counted painting now; Long. And since her time, are colliers counted King. And Ethiops of their sweet complexion crack. Dum. Dark needs no candles now, for dark is Biron. Your mistresses dare never come in rain, 1 i. e. at any rate, at all events. King. Then leave this chat; and, good Biron, now prove Our loving lawful, and our faith not torn. Long. O, some authority how to proceed; Biron. Do we not likewise see our learning there? . 5 This alludes to the fashion prevalent among la dies in Shakspeare's time, of wearing false hair, or 2 Milton has transplanted this into the third line of periigs as they were then called, before that covering the second book of Paradise Lost: 'Or where the gorgeous east.' 3 Here, and indeed throughout the play, the name of Biron is accented on the second syllable. In the first folio and quarto copies it is spelled Beroune. From the line before us it appears that it was pronounced Bi roon. for the head had been adopted by men. 6 A quillet is a sly trick or turn in argument, or excuse. N. Bailey derives it, with much probability, from quibblet, as a diminutive of quibble. 7 This hemistich is omitted in all the modern editions except that by Mr. Boswell. It is found in the first quarto and first folio. 8 i. e. our true books, from which we derive most in. formation; the eyes of woman. 9 So in Milton's II Penseroso: 4 Crest is here properly opposed to badge. Black, says the King, is the badge of hell, but that which graces heaven is the crest of beauty. Black darkens hell, and is therefore hateful: white adorns heaven, and is therefore lovely. Crest, is the very top, the height of | And in Gray's Hymn to Adversity: beauty or utmost degree of fairness. With a sad leaden, downward cast.' With leaden eye that loves the ground. |