The Complete Works of William Shakespeare - Israel Gollancz William Shakespeare [276]
An I cannot, another can.
Exeunt ROSALINE and KATHARINE
COSTARD.
By my troth, most pleasant! How both did fit it!
MARIA.
A mark marvellous well shot; for they both did hit it.
BOYET.
A mark! O, mark but that mark! A mark, says my lady!
Let the mark have a prick in't, to mete at, if it may be.
MARIA.
Wide o' the bow-hand! I' faith, your hand is out.
COSTARD.
Indeed, 'a must shoot nearer, or he'll ne'er hit the clout.
BOYET.
An if my hand be out, then belike your hand is in.
COSTARD.
Then will she get the upshoot by cleaving the pin.
MARIA.
Come, come, you talk greasily; your lips grow foul.
COSTARD.
She's too hard for you at pricks, sir; challenge her to bowl.
BOYET.
I fear too much rubbing; good-night, my good owl.
Exeunt BOYET and MARIA
COSTARD.
By my soul, a swain, a most simple clown!
Lord, Lord! how the ladies and I have put him down!
O' my troth, most sweet jests, most incony vulgar wit!
When it comes so smoothly off, so obscenely, as it were, so fit.
Armado a th' t'one side- O, a most dainty man!
To see him walk before a lady and to bear her fan!
To see him kiss his hand, and how most sweetly 'a will swear!
And his page a t' other side, that handful of wit!
Ah, heavens, it is a most pathetical nit!
Sola, sola! Exit COSTARD
SCENE II. The park
From the shooting within, enter HOLOFERNES, SIR NATHANIEL, and
DULL
NATHANIEL.
Very reverent 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.
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, bis coctus!
O thou monster Ignorance, how deformed dost thou look!
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?
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.
Th' allusion holds in the exchange.
DULL.
'Tis true, indeed; the collusion holds in the exchange.
HOLOFERNES.
God comfort thy capacity! I say th' allusion holds in the exchange.
DULL.
And I say the polusion 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.
HOLOFERNES.
Sir Nathaniel, will you hear an extemporal epitaph on
the death of the deer? And, to humour the ignorant, call the deer
the Princess kill'd