Thou canst not hit it, my good man.
Boyet [Sings.]
And I cannot, cannot, cannot,
And I cannot, another can.
Exeunt [Rosaline and Katherine].
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 mark, says my lady!
Let the mark have a prick in’t, to mete at, if it may be.
Mar.
Wide a’ the bow-hand! I’ faith, your hand is out.
Cost.
Indeed ’a must shoot nearer, or he’ll ne’er hit the clout.
Boyet.
And if my hand be out, then belike your hand is in.
Cost.
Then will she get the upshoot by cleaving the [pin].
Mar.
Come, come, you talk greasily, your lips grow foul.
Cost.
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.]
Cost.
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’ 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!
[Shout] within.
Sola, sola!
Exit.
¶
[Scene II]
Enter Dull, Holofernes the Pedant, and Nathaniel [from watching the hunt].
Nath. Very reverent sport truly, and done in the testimony of a good conscience.
Hol. 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.
Nath. Truly, Master Holofernes, the epithites 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, 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.
Hol.
Twice sod simplicity, bis coctus!
O thou monster Ignorance, how deformed dost thou look!
Nath.
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?
Hol.
[Dictynna], goodman Dull, [Dictynna], goodman Dull.
Dull.
What is [Dictynna]?
Nath.
A title to Phoebe, to Luna, to the moon.
Hol.
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.
Hol. God comfort thy capacity! I say, th’ 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 pricket that the Princess kill’d.
Hol. Sir Nathaniel, will you hear an extemporal epitaph on the death of the deer? And to humor the [ignorant, call I] the deer the Princess kill’d a pricket.
Nath. Perge, good Master Holofernes, perge, so it shall please you to abrogate squirility.
Hol.
I will something affect the letter, for it argues facility.
The preyful 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 l 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’ sorel:
Of one sore I an hundred make by adding but one more L.
Nath. A rare talent!
Dull