1    Satis quod sufficit.

2    I praise God for you, sir: your reasons at dinner
3    have been sharp and sententious; pleasant without
4    scurrility, witty without affection, audacious without
5    impudency, learned without opinion, and strange with-
6    out heresy. I did converse this quondam day with
7    a companion of the king's, who is intituled, nomi-
8    nated, or called, Don Adriano de Armado.

9    Novi hominem tanquam te: his humour is lofty, his
10   discourse peremptory, his tongue filed, his eye
11   ambitious, his gait majestical, and his general
12   behavior vain, ridiculous, and thrasonical. He is
13   too picked, too spruce, too affected, too odd, as it
14   were, too peregrinate, as I may call it.

15   A most singular and choice epithet.

16   He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer
17   than the staple of his argument. I abhor such
18   fanatical phantasimes, such insociable and
19   point-devise companions; such rackers of
20   orthography, as to speak dout, fine, when he should
21   say doubt; det, when he should pronounce debt,--d,
22   e, b, t, not d, e, t: he clepeth a calf, cauf;
23   half, hauf; neighbour vocatur nebor; neigh
24   abbreviated ne. This is abhominable,--which he
25   would call abbominable: it insinuateth me of
26   insanie: anne intelligis, domine? to make frantic, lunatic.

27   Laus Deo, bene intelligo.

28   Bon, bon, fort bon, Priscian! a little scratch'd,
29   'twill serve.

30   Videsne quis venit?

31   Video, et gaudeo.

32   Chirrah!

33   Quare chirrah, not sirrah?

34   Men of peace, well encountered.

35   Most military sir, salutation.

Aside to COSTARD
36    They have been at a great feast
37   of languages, and stolen the scraps.

38   O, they have lived long on the alms-basket of words.
39   I marvel thy master hath not eaten thee for a word;
40   for thou art not so long by the head as
41   honorificabilitudinitatibus: thou art easier
42   swallowed than a flap-dragon.

43   Peace! the peal begins.

To HOLOFERNES
44    Monsieur, are you not lettered?

45   Yes, yes; he teaches boys the hornbook. What is a,
46   b, spelt backward, with the horn on his head?

47   Ba, pueritia, with a horn added.

48   Ba, most silly sheep with a horn. You hear his learning.

49   Quis, quis, thou consonant?

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

52   I will repeat them,--a, e, i,--

53   The sheep: the other two concludes it,--o, u.

54   Now, by the salt wave of the Mediterraneum, a sweet
55   touch, a quick venue of wit! snip, snap, quick and
56   home! it rejoiceth my intellect: true wit!

57   Offered by a child to an old man; which is wit-old.

58   What is the figure? what is the figure?

59   Horns.

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

61   Lend me your horn to make one, and I will whip about
62   your infamy circum circa,--a gig of a cuckold's horn.

63   An I had but one penny in the world, thou shouldst
64   have it to buy gingerbread: hold, there is the very
65   remuneration I had of thy master, thou halfpenny
66   purse of wit, thou pigeon-egg of discretion. O, an
67   the heavens were so pleased that thou wert but my
68   bastard, what a joyful father wouldst thou make me!
69   Go to; thou hast it ad dunghill, at the fingers'
70   ends, as they say.

71   O, I smell false Latin; dunghill for unguem.

72   Arts-man, preambulate, we will be singled from the
73   barbarous. Do you not educate youth at the
74   charge-house on the top of the mountain?

75   Or mons, the hill.

76   At your sweet pleasure, for the mountain.

77   I do, sans question.

78   Sir, it is the king's most sweet pleasure and
79   affection to congratulate the princess at her
80   pavilion in the posteriors of this day, which the
81   rude multitude call the afternoon.

82   The posterior of the day, most generous sir, is
83   liable, congruent and measurable for the afternoon:
84   the word is well culled, chose, sweet and apt, I do
85   assure you, sir, I do assure.

86   Sir, the king is a noble gentleman, and my familiar,
87   I do assure ye, very good friend: for what is
88   inward between us, let it pass. I do beseech thee,
89   remember thy courtesy; I beseech thee, apparel thy
90   head: and among other important and most serious
91   designs, and of great import indeed, too, but let
92   that pass: for I must tell thee, it will please his
93   grace, by the world, sometime to lean upon my poor
94   shoulder, and with his royal finger, thus, dally
95   with my excrement, with my mustachio; but, sweet
96   heart, let that pass. By the world, I recount no
97   fable: some certain special honours it pleaseth his
98   greatness to impart to Armado, a soldier, a man of
99   travel, that hath seen the world; but let that pass.
100  The very all of all is,--but, sweet heart, I do
101  implore secrecy,--that the king would have me
102  present the princess, sweet chuck, with some
103  delightful ostentation, or show, or pageant, or
104  antique, or firework. Now, understanding that the
105  curate and your sweet self are good at such
106  eruptions and sudden breaking out of mirth, as it
107  were, I have acquainted you withal, to the end to
108  crave your assistance.

109  Sir, you shall present before her the Nine Worthies.
110  Sir, as concerning some entertainment of time, some
111  show in the posterior of this day, to be rendered by
112  our assistants, at the king's command, and this most
113  gallant, illustrate, and learned gentleman, before
114  the princess; I say none so fit as to present the
115  Nine Worthies.

116  Where will you find men worthy enough to present them?

117  Joshua, yourself; myself and this gallant gentleman,
118  Judas Maccabaeus; this swain, because of his great
119  limb or joint, shall pass Pompey the Great; the
120  page, Hercules,--

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

123  Shall I have audience? he shall present Hercules in
124  minority: his enter and exit shall be strangling a
125  snake; and I will have an apology for that purpose.

126  An excellent device! so, if any of the audience
127  hiss, you may cry 'Well done, Hercules! now thou
128  crushest the snake!' that is the way to make an
129  offence gracious, though few have the grace to do it.

130  For the rest of the Worthies?--

131  I will play three myself.

132  Thrice-worthy gentleman!

133  Shall I tell you a thing?

134  We attend.

135  We will have, if this fadge not, an antique. I
136  beseech you, follow.

137  Via, goodman Dull! thou hast spoken no word all this while.

138  Nor understood none neither, sir.

139  Allons! we will employ thee.

140  I'll make one in a dance, or so; or I will play
141  On the tabour to the Worthies, and let them dance the hay.

142  Most dull, honest Dull! To our sport, away!