ACT V.

SCENE I. Another part of the same.

Enter Holofernes, Sir Nathaniel, and Dull.

Hol. Satis quod sufficit.

Nath. I praise God for you, sir: your reasons at dinner have been sharp and sententious; pleasant without scurrility, witty without affectiont, auda. cious 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.

Hol. 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 thrasonicalį. He is too picked ý, too spruce, too affected, too odd, as it were, too perigrinate, as I may call it.

Nath. A most singular and choice epithet.

[Takes out his table-book. Hol. He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument. I abhor such fanatical phantasms, 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

* Discourses. Over-dressed.

† Affectation.

Boastful.

Finical exactness.

insinuateth me of insanie; Ne intelligis domine?

to make frantick, lunatick.

Nath. Laus deo, bone intelligo.

Hol. Bone?-bone, for benè: Priscian a little scratch'd; 'twill serve.

Enter Armado, Moth, and Costard.

Nath. Videsne quis venit?

Hol. Video, et gaudeo.

Arm. Chirra!

Hol. Quare Chirra, not sirrah?

Arm. Men of peace, well encounter'd.

Hol. Most military sir, salutation.

[To Moth.

Moth. They have been at a great feast of languages, and stolen the scraps.

[To Costard aside.

Cost. O, they have lived long in the alms-basket of words! I marvel, thy master hath not eaten thee for a word; for thou art not so long by the head as honorificabilitudinitatibus: thou art easier swallowed than a flap-dragon*.

Moth. Peace; the peal begins.

Arm. Monsieur, [To Hol.] are you not letter'd? Moth. Yes, yes; he teaches boys the hornbook:What is a, b, spelt backward, with a horn on his head?

Hol. Ba, pueritia, with a horn added.

Moth. Ba, most silly sheep, with a horn:-You hear his learning.

Hol. Quis, quis, thou consonant?

Moth. The third of the five vowels, if you repeat them; or the fifth if I.

Hol. I will repeat them, a, e, i.

Moth. The sheep: the other two concludes it;

o, u.

Arm. Now, by the salt wave of the Mediterrane.

* A small inflammable substance, swallowed in a glass of wine.

um, a sweet touch*, a quick venew of wit: snip, snap, quick and home; it rejoiceth my intellect; true wit.

Moth, Offer'd by a child to an old man; which is wit old.

Hol. What is the figure? what is the figure?
Moth. Horns.

Hol. Thou disputest like an infant: go, whip thy gig.

Moth. Lend me your horn to make one, and I will whip about your infamy circùm circà; A gig of a cuckold's horn!

Cost. An I had but one penny in the world, thou should'st have it to buy gingerbread: hold, there is the very remuneration I had of thy master, thou half-penny purse of wit, thou pigeon egg of discre tion. O, an the heavens were so pleased, that thou wert but my bastard! what a joyful father would'st thou make me! Go to; thou hast it ad dunghill, at the fingers' ends, as they say.

Hol. O, I smell false Latin; dunghill for unguem. Arm. Arts-man, præambula; we will be singled from the barbarous. Do you not educate youth at the charge-houset on the top of the mountain? Hol. Or, mons, the hill.

Arm. At your sweet pleasure, for the mountain. Hol. I do, sans question.

Arm. 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.

Hol. The posterior of the day, most generous sir, is liable, congruent, and measurable for the aftermoon: the word is well cull'd, chose; sweet and apt, I do assure you, sir, 1 do assure.

Arm. Sir, the king is a noble gentleman; and my familiar, I do assure you, very good friend-For what is inward‡ between us, let it pass:-I do beConfidential.

A hit. † Free-school.

seech thee, remember thy courtesy;-I beseech thee, apparel thy head; and among other importunate and most serious designs,-and of great import, indeed, too; but let that pass :-for I must tell thee, 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 hath 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 chuckt, with some delightful ostentation, or show, or pageant, or antick, or fire-work. 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 withal, to the end to crave your assistance.

Hol. Sir, you shall present before her the nine worthies.-Sir Nathaniel, as concerning some enter. tainment 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.

Nath. Where will you find men worthy enough to present them?

Hol. Joshua, yourself; myself, or this gallant gentleman, Judas Maccabæus; this swain, because of his great limb or joint, shall pass Pompey the great; the page, Hercules.

Arm. Pardon, sir, error: he is not quantity enough for that worthy's thumb: he is not so big as the end of his club.

Hol. Shall I have audience? he shall present Her cules in minority: his enter and exit shall be stran

* Beard.

+ Chick.

VOL. II.

L

gling 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 thou crusheth the snake! that is the way to make an offence gracious; though few have the grace to do it.

Arm. For the rest of the worthies?

Hol. I will play three myself.
Moth. Thrice-worthy gentleman!
Arm. Shall I tell you a thing?
Hol. We attend.

Arm. We will have, if this fadge* not, an antick. I beseech you, follow.

Hol. Viat, goodman Dull! thou hast spoken no word all this while.

Dull. Nor understood none neither, sir.

Hol. Allons! we will employ thee.

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.

Hol. Most dull, honest Dull, to our sport, away. [Exeunt.

SCENE II.

Another part of the same. Before the Princess's Pavilion.

Enter the Princess, Katharine, Rosaline, and Maria.

Prin. Sweet hearts, we shall be rich ere we depart. If fairings come thus plentifully in:

A lady wall'd about with diamonds!

Look you, what I have from the loving king.