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 without 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 is lofty, his discourse peremptory, his tongue filed, his eye ambitious, his gait majestical and his general behaviour 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.
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 “dout” sine “b”, 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”; neighbour vocatur “nebour”, neigh abbreviated “ne”. This is abhominable, which he would call “abominable”. It insinuateth me of insanie. Ne intelligis, domine? To make frantic, lunatic.
NATHANIEL
Laus Deo, bone intelligo.
HOLOFERNES
Bone? Bone for bene? Priscian a little scratched; ’twill serve.
NATHANIEL
Videsne quis venit?
HOLOFERNES
Video, et gaudeo.
ARMADO
Chirrah!
HOLOFERNES
Quare “chirrah”, not “”?
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 almsbasket of words. I marvel master not eaten for a word, for art not so long by the head as honorificabilitudinitatibus. 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, consonant?
MOTH
The third 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
disputes like an infant. Go whip gig.
MOTH
Lend me your horn to make one, and I will whip about your infamy unum cita. A gig of a cuckold’s horn.
COSTARD
An I had but one penny in the world, have it to buy gingerbread. Hold, there is the very remuneration I had of master, halfpenny purse of wit, pigeon-egg of discretion. O, an the heavens were so pleased that wert but my bastard, what a joyful father make me! Go to, it ad dunghill, at the fingers’ ends, as they say.
HOLOFERNES
O, I smell false Latin! Dunghill for unguem.
ARMADO
Arts-man, preambulate. We will be singuled 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 , very good friend. For what is inward between us, let it pass. I do beseech , remember courtesy; I beseech , apparel head. And among other importunate and most serious designs, and of great import indeed, too—but let that pass. For I must tell 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 honours it pleaseth his greatness to impart to Armado, a soldier, a man of travel, that 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 antic, 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 , to the end to crave your assistance.
HOLOFERNES
Sir, you shall present before her the Nine Worthies. Sir Nathaniel, as concerning some entertainment of time, some show in the posterior of this day, to be rendered by our assistance, 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 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 antic. I beseech you, follow.
HOLOFERNES
Via, goodman Dull! has spoken no word all this while.
DULL
Nor understood none neither, sir.
HOLOFERNES
Allons! we will employ .
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.