Part 3

PRINCESS. Whoe’er he was, he showed a mounting mind. Well, lords, today we shall have our dispatch; On Saturday we will return to France. Then, forester, my friend, where is the bush That we must stand and play the murderer in?

FORESTER. Hereby, upon the edge of yonder coppice, A stand where you may make “the fairest shoot”.

PRINCESS. I thank my beauty, I am fair that shoot, And thereupon thou speak’st the fairest shoot.

FORESTER. Pardon me, madam, for I meant not so.

PRINCESS. What, what? First praise me, and again say no? O short-lived pride! Not fair? Alack for woe!

FORESTER. Yes, madam, fair.

PRINCESS. Nay, never paint me now. Where fair is not, praise cannot mend the brow. Here, good my glass, take this for telling true:

[_She gives him money._]

Fair payment for foul words is more than due.

FORESTER. Nothing but fair is that which you inherit.

PRINCESS. See, see, my beauty will be saved by merit. O heresy in fair, fit for these days! A giving hand, though foul, shall have fair praise. But come, the bow. Now mercy goes to kill, And shooting well is then accounted ill. Thus will I save my credit in the shoot: Not wounding, pity would not let me do’t; If wounding, then it was to show my skill, That more for praise than purpose meant to kill. And out of question so it is sometimes, Glory grows guilty of detested crimes, When, for fame’s sake, for praise, an outward part, We bend to that the working of the heart; As I for praise alone now seek to spill The poor deer’s blood, that my heart means no ill.

BOYET. Do not curst wives hold that self-sovereignty Only for praise’ sake, when they strive to be Lords o’er their lords?

PRINCESS. Only for praise; and praise we may afford To any lady that subdues a lord.

Enter Costard.

BOYET. Here comes a member of the commonwealth.

COSTARD. God dig-you-den all! Pray you, which is the head lady?

PRINCESS. Thou shalt know her, fellow, by the rest that have no heads.

COSTARD. Which is the greatest lady, the highest?

PRINCESS. The thickest and the tallest.

COSTARD. The thickest and the tallest. It is so, truth is truth. An your waist, mistress, were as slender as my wit, One o’ these maids’ girdles for your waist should be fit. Are not you the chief woman? You are the thickest here.

PRINCESS. What’s your will, sir? What’s your will?

COSTARD. I have a letter from Monsieur Berowne to one Lady Rosaline.

PRINCESS. O, thy letter, thy letter! He’s a good friend of mine. Stand aside, good bearer. Boyet, you can carve. Break up this capon.

BOYET. I am bound to serve. This letter is mistook; it importeth none here. It is writ to Jaquenetta.

PRINCESS. We will read it, I swear. Break the neck of the wax, and everyone give ear.

BOYET. [_Reads_.] _By heaven, that thou art fair is most infallible; true that thou art beauteous; truth itself that thou art lovely. More fairer than fair, beautiful than beauteous, truer than truth itself, have commiseration on thy heroical vassal. The magnanimous and most illustrate King Cophetua set eye upon the pernicious and indubitate beggar Zenelophon, and he it was that might rightly say,_ “Veni, vidi, vici,” _which to annothanize in the vulgar—O base and obscure vulgar!_—videlicet, _He came, see, and overcame. He came, one; see, two; overcame, three. Who came? The King. Why did he come? To see. Why did he see? To overcome. To whom came he? To the beggar. What saw he? The beggar. Who overcame he? The beggar. The conclusion is victory. On whose side? The King’s. The captive is enriched. On whose side? The beggar’s. The catastrophe is a nuptial. On whose side? The King’s? No, on both in one, or one in both. I am the King, for so stands the comparison; thou the beggar, for so witnesseth thy lowliness. Shall I command thy love? I may. Shall I enforce thy love? I could. Shall I entreat thy love? I will. What shalt thou exchange for rags? Robes. For tittles? Titles. For thyself? Me. Thus expecting thy reply, I profane my lips on thy foot, my eyes on thy picture, and my heart on thy every part. Thine in the dearest design of industry, Don Adriano de Armado.

Thus dost thou hear the Nemean lion roar ’Gainst thee, thou lamb, that standest as his prey. Submissive fall his princely feet before, And he from forage will incline to play. But if thou strive, poor soul, what are thou then? Food for his rage, repasture for his den._

PRINCESS. What plume of feathers is he that indited this letter? What vane? What weathercock? Did you ever hear better?

BOYET. I am much deceived but I remember the style.

PRINCESS. Else your memory is bad, going o’er it erewhile.

BOYET. This Armado is a Spaniard that keeps here in court, A phantasime, a Monarcho, and one that makes sport To the Prince and his book-mates.

PRINCESS. Thou, fellow, a word. Who gave thee this letter?

COSTARD. I told you: my lord.

PRINCESS. To whom shouldst thou give it?

COSTARD. From my lord to my lady.

PRINCESS. From which lord to which lady?

COSTARD. From my Lord Berowne, a good master of mine, To a lady of France that he called Rosaline.

PRINCESS. Thou hast mistaken his letter. Come, lords, away. Here, sweet, put up this: ’twill be thine another day.

[_Exeunt all but Boyet, Rosaline, Maria and Costard._]

BOYET. Who is the shooter? Who is the shooter?

ROSALINE. Shall I teach you to know?

BOYET. Ay, my continent of beauty.

ROSALINE. Why, she that bears the bow. Finely put off!

BOYET. My lady goes to kill horns, but if thou marry, Hang me by the neck if horns that year miscarry. Finely put on!

ROSALINE. Well, then, I am the shooter.

BOYET. And who is your deer?

ROSALINE. If we choose by the horns, yourself come not near. Finely put on indeed!

MARIA. You still wrangle with her, Boyet, and she strikes at the brow.

BOYET. But she herself is hit lower. Have I hit her now?

ROSALINE. 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 Guinevere of Britain was a little wench, as touching the hit it.

ROSALINE. Thou canst not hit it, hit it, hit it, Thou canst not hit it, my good man.

BOYET. An I cannot, cannot, cannot, An I cannot, another can.

[_Exeunt Rosaline._]

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, o’ the 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 he will swear! And his page o’ t’other side, that handful of wit! Ah, heavens, it is a most pathetical nit.

[_Shout within._]

Sola, sola!

[_Exit._]

SCENE II. The same

Enter Dull, Holofernes, the Pedant and Nathaniel.

NATHANIEL. Very reverend 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 “auld grey doe”, ’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 “auld grey doe”, ’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 of 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 bookmen. 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 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 killed.

HOLOFERNES. Sir Nathaniel, will you hear an extemporal epitaph on the death of the deer? And, to humour the ignorant, call I the deer the Princess killed a pricket.

NATHANIEL. _Perge_, good Master Holofernes, _perge_, so it shall please you to abrogate scurrility.

HOLOFERNES. I will something affect the letter; for it argues facility. The preyful Princess pierced and pricked 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”.

NATHANIEL. A rare talent!

DULL. [_Aside_.] If a talent be a claw, look how he claws him with a talent.

HOLOFERNES. This is a gift that I have, simple, simple; a foolish extravagant spirit, full of forms, figures, shapes, objects, ideas, apprehensions, motions, revolutions. These are begot in the ventricle of memory, nourished in the womb of _pia mater_, and delivered upon the mellowing of occasion. But the gift is good in those in whom it is acute, and I am thankful for it.

NATHANIEL. Sir, I praise the Lord for you, and so may my parishioners, for their sons are well tutored by you, and their daughters profit very greatly under you. You are a good member of the commonwealth.

HOLOFERNES. _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.

JAQUENETTA. God give you good morrow, Master Person.

HOLOFERNES. Master Person, _quasi_ pierce one. And if one should be pierced, which is the one?

COSTARD. Marry, Master schoolmaster, he that is likest to a hogshead.

HOLOFERNES. Of piercing a hogshead! A good lustre or conceit in a turf of earth; fire enough for a flint, pearl enough for a swine. ’Tis pretty; it is well.

JAQUENETTA. Good Master Parson, be so good as read me this letter. It was given me by Costard, and sent me from Don Armado. I beseech you read it.

[_Giving a letter to Nathaniel._]

HOLOFERNES. _Fauste precor, gelida quando pecus omne sub umbra Ruminat_— and so forth. Ah, good old Mantuan, I may speak of thee as the traveller doth of Venice: _Venetia, Venetia, Chi non ti vede, non ti pretia._ Old Mantuan, old Mantuan! Who understandeth thee not, loves thee not. [_He sings_.] Ut, re, sol, la, mi, fa. Under pardon, sir, what are the contents? Or rather as Horace says in his—What, my soul, verses?

NATHANIEL. Ay, sir, and very learned.

HOLOFERNES. Let me hear a staff, a stanze, a verse, _Lege, domine_.

NATHANIEL. [_Reads_.] _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. Study his bias leaves, and makes his book thine eyes, Where all those pleasures live that art would comprehend. If knowledge be the mark, to know thee shall suffice. Well learned is that tongue that well can thee commend, 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 music and sweet fire. Celestial as thou art, O, pardon love this wrong, That sings heaven’s praise with such an earthly tongue._

HOLOFERNES. You find not the apostrophus, and so miss the accent. Let me supervise the canzonet. [_He takes the letter_.] Here are only numbers ratified, but, for the elegancy, facility, and golden cadence of poesy, _caret_. Ovidius 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?

JAQUENETTA. Ay, sir, from one Monsieur Berowne, one of the strange queen’s lords.

HOLOFERNES. 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, Berowne._ Sir Nathaniel, this Berowne 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.

JAQUENETTA. Good Costard, go with me. Sir, God save your life.

COSTARD. Have with thee, my girl.

[_Exeunt Costard and Jaquenetta._]

NATHANIEL. Sir, you have done this in the fear of God, very religiously; and, as a certain Father saith—

HOLOFERNES. Sir, tell not me of the Father, I do fear colourable colours. But to return to the verses: did they please you, Sir Nathaniel?

NATHANIEL. Marvellous well for the pen.

HOLOFERNES. I do dine today at the father’s of a certain pupil of mine, where if, before repast, it shall please you to gratify the table with a grace, I will, on my privilege I have with the parents of the foresaid child or pupil, undertake your _ben venuto;_ where I will prove those verses to be very unlearned, neither savouring of poetry, wit, nor invention. I beseech your society.

NATHANIEL. And thank you too; for society, saith the text, is the happiness of life.

HOLOFERNES. And certes, the text most infallibly concludes it. [_To Dull_.] Sir, 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. The same

Enter Berowne with a paper in his hand, alone.

BEROWNE. The King, he is hunting the deer; I am coursing myself. They have pitched a toil; I am toiling in a pitch, pitch that defiles. Defile! A foul word! Well, set thee down, sorrow, for so they say the fool said, and so say I, and I the fool. Well proved, wit! By the Lord, this love is as mad as Ajax. It kills sheep, it kills me, I a sheep. Well proved again, o’ my side! I will not love; if I do, hang me! I’ faith, I will not. O, but her eye! By this light, but for her eye, I would not love her; yes, for her two eyes. Well, I do nothing in the world but lie, and lie in my throat. By heaven, I do love, and it hath taught me to rhyme, and to be melancholy. And here is part of my rhyme, and here my melancholy. Well, she hath one o’ my sonnets already. The clown bore it, the fool sent it, and the lady hath it. Sweet clown, sweeter fool, sweetest lady! By the world, I would not care a pin if the other three were in. Here comes one with a paper. God give him grace to groan!

[_He stands aside._]

Enter the King with a paper.

KING. Ay me!

BEROWNE. [_Aside_.] Shot, by heaven! Proceed, sweet Cupid, thou hast thumped him with thy birdbolt under the left pap. In faith, secrets!

KING. [_Reads_.] [_So sweet a kiss the golden sun gives not To those fresh morning drops upon the rose, As thy eye-beams, when their fresh rays have smote The night of dew that on my cheeks down flows. Nor shines the silver moon one half so bright Through the transparent bosom of the deep As doth thy face, through tears of mine give light. Thou shin’st in every tear that I do weep. No drop but as a coach doth carry thee; So ridest thou triumphing in my woe. Do but behold the tears that swell in me, And they thy glory through my grief will show. But do not love thyself; then thou wilt keep My tears for glasses, and still make me weep. O queen of queens, how far dost thou excel No thought can think, nor tongue of mortal tell._ How shall she know my griefs? I’ll drop the paper. Sweet leaves, shade folly. Who is he comes here?

[_Steps aside._]

What, Longaville, and reading! Listen, ear.

Enter Longaville with a paper.

BEROWNE. [_Aside_.] Now, in thy likeness, one more fool appear!

LONGAVILLE. Ay me! I am forsworn.

BEROWNE. Why, he comes in like a perjure, wearing papers.

KING. In love, I hope. Sweet fellowship in shame.

BEROWNE. One drunkard loves another of the name.

LONGAVILLE. Am I the first that have been perjured so?

BEROWNE. I could put thee in comfort: not by two that I know. Thou makest the triumviry, the corner-cap of society, The shape of love’s Tyburn, that hangs up simplicity.

LONGAVILLE. I fear these stubborn lines lack power to move. O sweet Maria, empress of my love, These numbers will I tear, and write in prose.

BEROWNE. O, rhymes are guards on wanton Cupid’s hose. Disfigure not his shop.

LONGAVILLE. This same shall go.

[_He reads the sonnet._]

_Did not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye, ’Gainst whom the world cannot hold argument, Persuade my heart to this false perjury? Vows for thee broke deserve not punishment. A woman I forswore, but I will prove, Thou being a goddess, I forswore not thee. My vow was earthly, thou a heavenly love; Thy grace being gained, cures all disgrace in me. Vows are but breath, and breath a vapour is. Then thou, fair sun, which on my earth dost shine, Exhal’st this vapour-vow; in thee it is. If broken then, it is no fault of mine; If by me broke, what fool is not so wise To lose an oath to win a paradise?_

BEROWNE. This is the liver vein, which makes flesh a deity, A green goose a goddess. Pure, pure idolatry. God amend us, God amend! We are much out o’ th’ way.

LONGAVILLE. By whom shall I send this?—Company! Stay.

[_He steps aside._]

Enter Dumaine with a paper.

BEROWNE. All hid, all hid, an old infant play. Like a demigod here sit I in the sky, And wretched fools’ secrets heedfully o’er-eye. More sacks to the mill. O heavens, I have my wish. Dumaine transformed! Four woodcocks in a dish!

DUMAINE. O most divine Kate!

BEROWNE. O most profane coxcomb!

DUMAINE. By heaven, the wonder in a mortal eye!

BEROWNE. By earth, she is but corporal. There you lie.

DUMAINE. Her amber hairs for foul hath amber quoted.

BEROWNE. An amber-coloured raven was well noted.

DUMAINE. As upright as the cedar.

BEROWNE. Stoop, I say. Her shoulder is with child.

DUMAINE. As fair as day.

BEROWNE. Ay, as some days, but then no sun must shine.

DUMAINE. O, that I had my wish!

LONGAVILLE. And I had mine!

KING. And I mine too, good Lord!

BEROWNE. Amen, so I had mine. Is not that a good word?

DUMAINE. I would forget her; but a fever she Reigns in my blood, and will remembered be.

BEROWNE. A fever in your blood? Why, then incision Would let her out in saucers. Sweet misprision!

DUMAINE. Once more I’ll read the ode that I have writ.

BEROWNE. Once more I’ll mark how love can vary wit.

DUMAINE. [_Dumaine reads his sonnet_.] _On a day—alack the day!— Love, whose month is ever May, Spied a blossom passing fair Playing in the wanton air. Through the velvet leaves the wind, All unseen, can passage find; That the lover, sick to death, Wished himself the heaven’s breath. “Air,” quoth he, “thy cheeks may blow; Air, would I might triumph so!” But, alack, my hand is sworn Ne’er to pluck thee from thy thorn. Vow, alack, for youth unmeet, Youth so apt to pluck a sweet. Do not call it sin in me, That I am forsworn for thee; Thou for whom Jove would swear Juno but an Ethiope were, And deny himself for Jove, Turning mortal for thy love._ This will I send, and something else more plain, That shall express my true love’s fasting pain. O, would the King, Berowne and Longaville Were lovers too! Ill, to example ill, Would from my forehead wipe a perjured note, For none offend where all alike do dote.

LONGAVILLE. [_Comes forward_.] Dumaine, thy love is far from charity, That in love’s grief desir’st society. You may look pale, but I should blush, I know, To be o’erheard and taken napping so.