Prin. I thank my beauty, I am fair that shoot; One of these maids' girdles for your waist should And thereupon thou speak'st, the fairest shoot.

Cost. Which is the greatest lady, the highest? Thus dost thou hear the Nemean lion roar

But if thou strive, poor soul, what art thou then? that was a man when King Pepin of France was Food for his rage, repasture for his den. a little boy, as touching the hit it?

Prin. What plume of feathers is he that indited this letter?

Boyet. So I may answer thee with one as old, that was a woman when Queen Guinever of Brit

What vane? what weathercock? did you ever hearain was a little wench, as touching the hit it.

Prin. To whom shouldst thou give it?
Cost. From my lord to my lady.

Prin. From which lord, to which lady?

Cost. From my lord Biron, a good master of mine,

To a lady of France, that he called Rosaline.

Prin. Thou hast mistaken his letter. Come,
lords, away.

Here, sweet, put up this; 't will be thine another
day. [Exeunt PRINCESS and Train.
Boyet. Who is the suitor?-who is the suitor?
Ros. Shall I teach you to know?
Boyet. Ay, my continent of beauty.
Ros.

Finely put off!

Why, she that bears the bow.

ROSALINE sings.

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

BOYET sings.

An I cannot, cannot, cannot,
An I cannot, another can,

[Exeunt ROSALINE and KATHARINE. Cost. By my troth, most pleasant! how both did fit it!

Mar. A mark marvelous 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 o' the bow hand! I' faith your hand

is out.

Cost. 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.

Cost. Then will she get the upshot by cleaving the pin.

Mar. Come, come, you talk greasily, your lips grow foul.

Cost. She's too hard for you at pricks, sir;

Boyet. My lady goes to kill horns; but, if thou challenge her to bowl.

marry,

Hang me by the neck if horns that year mis

carry.

Finely put on!

Ros. Well then, I am the shooter.

Boyet.

And who is your deer?

Ros. If we choose by the horns, yourself: come

not near.

Finely put on, indeed!

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!

Mar. You still wrangle with her, Boyet, and When it comes so smoothly off, so obscenely, as it

Boyet. But she herself is hit lower: have I hit Armatho o' the one side,

her now?

Ros. Shall I come upon thee with an old saying,

To see him walk before a
fan!

O, a most dainty man! lady, and to bear her

To see him kiss his hand! and how most sweetly So were there a patch set on learning, to see him a' will swear! in a school: And his page o' t' other side, that handful of wit! But omne bene, say I; being of an old father's Ah, heavens, it is a most pathetical nit! Sola, sola!

[Shouting within. [Exit COSTARD, running.

mind,

"Many can brook the weather, that love not the wind."

Dull. You two are bookmen can you tell 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;

a jewel in the ear of cœlo,—the sky, the welkin, And raught not to five weeks when he came to fivethe heaven; and anon falleth like a crab on the face of terra,- the soil, the land, the earth.

Nath. 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. Hol. Sir Nathaniel, haud credo.

Dull. 'T was not a haud credo; 't was 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 shew, 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;

't was a pricket.

Hol. Twice-sod simplicity, bis coctus ! - O thou monster ignorance, how deformed dost thou look!

score.

The allusion holds in the exchange.

Dull. 'Tis true indeed; the collusion holds in the exchange.

Hol. God comfort thy capacity!—I say, the allusion holds in the exchange.

Dull. And I say, the pollusion holds in the exchange; for the moon is never but a month old: and I say beside, that 't was a pricket that the princess killed.

Hol. Sir Nathaniel, will you hear an extemporal epitaph on the death of the deer? and, to humor the ignorant, I have called the deer the princess killed, a pricket.

Nath. Perge, good Master Holofernes, perge; so it shall please you to abrogate scurrility.

Hol. I will something affect the letter; for it argues facility.

The praiseful princess pierced and pricked a pretty pleasing pricket;

Some say, a sore; but not a sore, till now made sore with shooting.

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 The dogs did yell: put I to sore, then sorel jumps from

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

thicket;

Or, pricket, sore, or else sorel; the people fall a-hooting.

If sore be sore, then L to sore makes fifty sores; 0 sore L!

(Which we of taste and feeling are) for those parts of one sore I a hundred make, by adding but one

that do fructify in us more than he.

For as it would ill become me to be vain, indiscreet,

or a fool;

more L.

Noth. A rare talent!

Dull. If a talent be a claw, look how he claws him with a talent.

Hol. 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.

Nath. 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.

Hol. 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.

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 com-

prehend:

If knowledge be the mark, to know thee shall suffice;
Well learned is that tongue that well can thee com-

mend:

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, oh pardon, love, this wrong, That sings heaven's praise with such an earthly tongue!

Hol. You find not the apostrophes, and so miss the accent let me supervise the canzonet. Here are only numbers ratified; but for the elegancy, Jaq. God give you good morrow, master person. facility, and golden cadence of poesy, caret. OvidHol. Master person,- quasi pers-on. And if ius Naso was the man: and why, indeed, Naso; one should be pierced, which is the one? but for smelling out the odoriferous flowers of fancy, Cost. Marry, master schoolmaster, he that is the jerks of invention? Imitari, is nothing: so likest to a hogshead.

Hol. Of piercing a hogshead! A good luster of conceit in a turf of earth; fire enough for a flint, pearl enough for a swine: 't is pretty, it is well.

Jaq. Good master parson, be so good as read me this letter; it was given me by Costard, and sent me from Don Armatho: I beseech you, read it.

Hol. Fauste, precor gelidâ quando pecus omne
sub umbrá

Ruminat, and so forth. Ah, good old Mantuan!
I may speak of thee as the traveler doth of Venice.
Vinegia, Vinegia,

Chi non te vede, ei non te pregia.
Old Mantuan! old Mantuan! Who understandeth
thee not, loves thee not.-Ut, re, sol, la, mi, fa.-
Under pardon, sir, what are the contents; or
rather, as Horace says in his What, my soul,
verses?

Nath. Ay, sir, and very learned.

doth the hound his master, the ape his keeper, the tired horse his rider. But, damosella virgin, was this directed to you?

Jaq. Ay, sir, from one Monsieur Biron, one of the strange queen's lords.

Hol. I will overglance the superscript.

Reads.

"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:

Reads..

"Your Ladyship's in all desired employment,

"BIRON."

Sir Nathaniel, this Birón is one of the votaries with the king; and here he hath framed a letter to a sequent of the stranger queen's, which ac

• Hol. Let me hear a staff, a stanza, a verse. cidentally, or by the way of progression, hath Lege, domine. miscarried. Trip and go, my sweet; deliver

Jaq. Good Costard, go with me. - Sir, God sweetest lady! By the world, I would not care a save your life! pin if the other three were in. Here comes one with a paper; God give him grace to groan. [Gets up into a tree.