From women’s eyes this doctrine I derive:
They sparkle still the right Promethean fire;
They are the books, the arts, the academes,
That show, contain, and nourish, all the world;
Else none at all in aught proves excellent.
Then fools you were these women to forswear,
Or, keeping what is sworn, you will prove fools.
For wisdom’s sake, a word that all men love,
Or for love’s sake, a word that loves all men,
Or for men’s sake, the authors of these women;
Or women’s sake, by whom we men are men,
Let us once lose our oaths to find ourselves,
Or else we lose ourselves to keep our oaths.
It is religion to be thus forsworn;
For charity itself fulfils the law;
And who can sever love from charity?
KING.
Saint Cupid, then! and, soldiers, to the field!
BEROWNE.
Advance your standards, and upon them, lords;
Pellmell, down with them! be first advis’d,
In conflict that you get the sun of them.
LONGAVILLE.
Now to plain-dealing; lay these glozes by:
Shall we resolve to woo these girls of France?
KING.
And win them too; therefore let us devise
Some entertainment for them in their tents.
BEROWNE.
First, from the park let us conduct them thither;
Then homeward every man attach the hand
Of his fair mistress: in the afternoon
We will with some strange pastime solace them,
Such as the shortness of the time can shape;
For revels, dances, masks, and merry hours,
Forerun fair Love, strewing her way with flowers.
KING.
Away, away! No time shall be omitted,
That will betime, and may by us be fitted.
BEROWNE.
Allons! allons! Sow’d cockle reap’d no corn;
And justice always whirls in equal measure:
Light wenches may prove plagues to men forsworn;
If so, our copper buys no better treasure.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE II
The King of Navarre’s park.
[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 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 humour 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.
[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 dout, 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; neighbour vocatur nebour, neigh abbreviated ne. This is abhominable, which he would call abominable,—it insinuateth me of insanie: anne intelligis, domine? to make frantic, lunatic.
NATHANIEL.
Laus Deo, bone intelligo.
HOLOFERNES.
Bone? bone for bene: Priscian a little scratch’d; ‘twill serve.
[Enter ARMADO, MOTH, and COSTARD.]
NATHANIEL.
Videsne quis venit?
HOLOFERNES.
Video, et gaudeo.
ARMADO.
[To MOTH] Chirrah!
HOLOFERNES.
Quare chirrah, not sirrah?
ARMADO.
Men of peace, well encountered.
HOLOFERNES.
Most military sir, salutation.
MOTH.
[Aside to COSTARD.] 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 are not so long by the head as honorificabilitudinitatibus; thou art easier swallowed than a flap-dragon.
MOTH.
Peace! the peal begins.
ARMADO.
[To HOLOFERNES.] 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 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.