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- $Unique_ID{SSP00108}
- $Title{Love's Labours Lost: Act V, Scene I}
- $Author{Shakespeare, William}
- $Subject{}
- $Log{Dramatis Personae*00100.txt}
-
- Portions copyright (c) CMC ReSearch, Inc., 1989
-
- The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
-
- LOVE'S LABOURS LOST
-
-
- ACT V
- ................................................................................
-
-
- SCENE I: The same.
- . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
-
- {Enter HOLOFERNES, SIR NATHANIEL, and DULL.}
-
- HOLOFERNES: Satis quod sufficit.
-
- SIR 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 with-
- out heresy. I did converse this quondam day with
- a companion of the king's, who is intituled, nomi-
- nated, or called, Don Adriano de Armado.
-
- HOLOFERNES: Novi hominem tanquam te: his humor is lofty, his
- discourse peremptory, his tongue filed, his eye 10
- ambitious, his gait majestical, and his general
- behavior vain, ridiculous, and thrasonical. He is
- too picked, too spruce, too affected, too odd, as it
- were, too peregrinate, as I may call it.
-
- SIR 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 20
- say doubt; det, when he should pronounce debt,--d,
- e, b, t, not d, e, t: he clepeth a calf, cauf;
- half, hauf; neighbor vocatur nebor; neigh
- abbreviated ne. This is abhominable,--which he
- would call abbominable: it insinuateth me of
- insanie: anne intelligis, domine? to make frantic,
- lunatic.
-
- SIR NATHANIEL: Laus Deo, bene intelligo.
-
- HOLOFERNES: Bon, bon, fort bon, Priscian! a little scratch'd,
- 'twill serve. 30
-
- SIR NATHANIEL: Videsne quis venit?
-
- HOLOFERNES: Video, et gaudeo.
-
- {Enter DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO, MOTH, and COSTARD.}
-
- DON
- ADRIANO DE ARMADO: Chirrah!
-
- [To MOTH.]
-
- HOLOFERNES: Quare chirrah, not sirrah?
-
- DON
- ADRIANO DE 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; 40
- for thou art not so long by the head as
- honorificabilitudinitatibus: thou art easier
- swallowed than a flap-dragon.
-
- MOTH: Peace! the peal begins.
-
- DON
- ADRIANO DE 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. 50
-
- 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.
-
- DON
- ADRIANO DE 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? 60
-
- MOTH: Horns.
-
- HOLOFERNES: Thou disputest like an infant: go, whip thy gig.
-
- MOTH: Lend me your horn to make one, and I will whip about
- your infamy circum circa,--a gig of a cuckold's horn.
-
- COSTARD: An I had but one penny in the world, thou shouldst
- have it to buy gingerbread: hold, there is the very
- remuneration I had of thy master, thou halfpenny
- purse of wit, thou pigeon-egg of discretion. O, an
- the heavens were so pleased that thou wert but my
- bastard, what a joyful father wouldst thou make me! 70
- Go to; thou hast it ad dunghill, at the fingers'
- ends, as they say.
-
- HOLOFERNES: O, I smell false Latin; dunghill for unguem.
-
- DON
- ADRIANO DE ARMADO: Arts-man, preambulate, we will be singled from the
- barbarous. Do you not educate youth at the
- charge-house on the top of the mountain?
-
- HOLOFERNES: Or mons, the hill.
-
- DON
- ADRIANO DE ARMADO: At your sweet pleasure, for the mountain.
-
- HOLOFERNES: I do, sans question.
-
- DON
- ADRIANO DE ARMADO: Sir, it is the king's most sweet pleasure and 80
- affection to congratulate the princess at her
- pavilion in the posteriors of this day, which the
- rude multitude call the afternoon.
-
- HOLOFERNES: The posterior of the day, most generous sir, is
- liable, congruent and measurable for the afternoon:
- the word is well culled, chose, sweet and apt, I do
- assure you, sir, I do assure.
-
- DON
- ADRIANO DE ARMADO: Sir, the king is a noble gentleman, and my familiar,
- I do assure ye, very good friend: for what is
- inward between us, let it pass. I do beseech thee, 90
- remember thy courtesy; I beseech thee, apparel thy
- head: and among other important 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 honors it pleaseth his
- greatness to impart to Armado, a soldier, a man of 100
- 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 chuck, with some
- delightful ostentation, or show, or pageant, or
- antique, or firework. 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. 110
-
- HOLOFERNES: Sir, you shall present before her the Nine Worthies.
- Sir, as concerning some entertainment of time, some
- show in the posterior of this day, to be rendered by
- our assistants, at 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.
-
- SIR NATHANIEL: Where will you find men worthy enough to present them?
-
- HOLOFERNES: Joshua, yourself; myself and this gallant gentleman,
- Judas Maccabaeus; this swain, because of his great 120
- limb or joint, shall pass Pompey the Great; the
- page, Hercules,--
-
- DON
- ADRIANO DE ARMADO: Pardon, sir; error: he is not quantity enough for
- that Worthy's thumb: he is not so big as the end of
- his club.
-
- HOLOFERNES: Shall I have audience? he shall present Hercules in
- minority: his enter and exit shall be strangling 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 130
- crushest the snake!' that is the way to make an
- offence gracious, though few have the grace to do it.
-
- DON
- ADRIANO DE ARMADO: For the rest of the Worthies?--
-
- HOLOFERNES: I will play three myself.
-
- MOTH: Thrice-worthy gentleman!
-
- DON
- ADRIANO DE ARMADO: Shall I tell you a thing?
-
- HOLOFERNES: We attend.
-
- DON
- ADRIANO DE ARMADO: We will have, if this fadge not, an antique. I
- beseech you, follow.
-
- HOLOFERNES: Via, goodman Dull! thou hast spoken no word all this 140
- while.
-
- DULL: Nor understood none neither, sir.
-
- HOLOFERNES: 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.
-
- HOLOFERNES: Most dull, honest Dull! To our sport, away!
-
- [Exeunt.]
-