Love's Labour's Lost 4.2 - Comedy with Holofernes the schoolmaster.

Love's Labour's Lost

Please see the bottom of the page for explanatory notes.

ACT IV SCENE II	The same.
	Enter HOLOFERNES the Pedant, NATHANIEL, and DULL.
SIR 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.
SIR 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.	10
HOLOFERNES	Sir Nathaniel, haud credo.
DULL	'Twas not a haud credo; '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.	19
DULL	I said the deer was not a haud credo; 't was a pricket.
HOLOFERNES	Twice-sod simplicity, bis coctus! --
	O thou monster Ignorance, how deformed dost thou look!
SIR NATHANIEL	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
	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,	31
	Many can brook the weather that love not the wind.
DULL	You two are book-men: 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?
SIR 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.
	The allusion holds in the exchange.
DULL	'Tis true indeed; the collusion holds in the exchange.	40
HOLOFERNES	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.
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.
SIR NATHANIEL	Perge, good Master Holofernes, perge; so it shall
	please you to abrogate scurrility.	51
HOLOFERNES	I will something affect the letter, for it argues facility.
	The preyful princess pierced and prick'd 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 sore L.
	Of one sore I an hundred make by adding but one more L.
SIR NATHANIEL	A rare talent!	60
DULL	[ Aside. ] If a talent be a claw, look how he claws him with a talent.
	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.
SIR NATHANIEL	Sir, I praise the Lord for you; and so may my	70
	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 ingenuous, 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 Parson.
HOLOFERNES	Master Parson, quasi pers-on. An if one should be
	pierced, which is the one?	80
COSTARD	Marry, master schoolmaster, he that is likest to a hogshead.
HOLOFERNES	Piercing a hogshead! a good lustre of conceit in a
	tuft 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.
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. Ut, re, sol, la, mi, fa.
	Under pardon, sir, what are the contents? or rather,
	as Horace says in his--What, my soul, verses?
SIR NATHANIEL	Ay, sir, and very learned.
HOLOFERNES	Let me hear a staff, a stanze, a verse; lege, domine.	100
SIR NATHANIEL	[ Reads. ]
	If love make me forsworn, how shall I swear to love?
	Ah, never faith could hold, if not to beauty vow'd!
	Though to myself forsworn, to thee I'll faithful prove:
	Those thoughts to me were oaks, to thee like
	osiers bow'd.
	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:	110
	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 apostraphas, and so miss the
	accent: let me supervise the canzonet. 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 odouriferous 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 Biron, one of the strange	123
	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, Biron.' Sir Nathaniel, this
	Biron 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.
SIR NATHANIEL	Sir, you have done this in the fear of God, very
	religiously; and, as a certain father saith,--	140
HOLOFERNES	Sir tell me not of the father; I do fear colourable
	colours. But to return to the verses: did they
	please you, Sir Nathaniel?
SIR NATHANIEL	Marvellous well for the pen.
HOLOFERNES	I do dine to-day 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.	151
SIR 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

Love's Labour's Lost, Act 4, Scene 3

_______

Explanatory Notes for Act 4, Scene 2
From Love's Labour's Lost. Ed. William Rolfe. New York: Harper & Brothers.

Abbreviations Used in the Notes
______

Act IV.

Scene II.

3. Sanguis in blood. Changed by Capell to "in sanguis, blood." In blood was a term of the chase = in full vigour. Cf. 1 Hen. VI. iv. 2. 48: "If we be English deer, be then in blood," etc.

4. Pomewater. A kind of apple. Steevens quotes an old ballad: "Whose cheeks did resemble two rosting pomewaters." In The Puritan, "the pomewater of his eye" is = the apple of his eye.

10. A buck of the first head. According to The Return from Parnassus, 1606 (quoted by Steevens) "a buck is the first year, a fawn; the second year, a pricket; the third year, a sorrell; the fourth year, a soare; the fifth, a buck of the first head; the sixth year, a compleat buck."

17. Unconfirmed. Inexperienced, ignorant; as in Much Ado, iii. 3. 124: "That shows thou art unconfirmed."

21. Twice-sod. Sod, like sodden, is the participle of seethe. Cf. R. of L. 1592: "sod in tears," etc. Twice-sod simplicity = concentrated stupidity, as if boiled down.

28. Which we, etc. In the folio this reads: "which we taste and feeling, are for those parts," etc. Various emendations have been proposed, of which Tyrwhitt's in the text seems the best, and is adopted by the majority of recent editors.

30. Patch. A play on the word in its sense of fool, for which see M. of V. p. 142, or M. N. D. p. 160. Johnson says: "The meaning is, to be in a school would as ill become a patch as folly would become me." The Coll. M S. has "set" for see.

35. Dictynna. One of the names of Diana. The early eds. have "Dictisima" or "Dictissima" here, and "Dictima" or "Dictinna" in the next line. Steevens suggests that S. may have found the word in Golding's Ovid: "Dictynna garded with her traine, and proud of killing deere."

39. Raught. An old past, tense and participle of reach. For its use as the former, cf. Hen. V. iv. 6. 21; and as the latter, A. and C. iv. 9. 30. The folios have "wrought" here, the 1st quarto "rought."

40. The allusion holds in the exchange. "The riddle is as good when I use the name of Adam as when I use the name of Cain" (Warb.). Mr. Brae takes allusion to be used in the strict Latin sense of "play, joke, or jest," and makes exchange = "the changing of the moon."

52. Affect the letter. "Practise alliteration" (Mason). For another satire on this affectation of the time, cf. M. N. D. v. 1. 145 fol.; and see our ed. p. 184.

54. Preyful. The 2d folio has "praysfull."

55. Some say a sore. For sore, or soare, as applied to a deer "of the fourth year," see on 10 above; also for sorel in the next line.

58. O sore L. The 1st quarto has "o sorell," and the folios "O sorell." The reading in the text is Capell's, and is generally adopted. The Camb. ed. has "makes fifty sores one sorel," which is plausible and perhaps favoured by the next line.

61. If a talent be a claw. The play on talent and talon is obvious. The latter word was sometimes written talent. Malone cites, among other instances, Marlowe's Tamburlaine, 1590:

"and now doth ghastly death
With greedy tallents gripe my bleeding heart."

Claw was sometimes = humour, flatter. Cf. Much Ado, 1.3. 18: "claw no man in his humour;" and see our ed. p. 126.

67. Pia mater. The membrane covering the brain, used for the brain itself; as in T. N. i. 5. 123 and T. and C.. ii. 1. 77. Here the early eds. have "primater;" corrected by Rowe. Upon the mellowing of occasion. At "the very riping of the time" (M. of V. ii. 8. 40), or when the fit occasion comes.

78. Person. "Parson" (the reading of the 2d folio). Steevens quotes Holinshed: "Jerom was vicar of Stepnie, and Garrard was person of Honielane," etc. St. adds from Selden, Table Talk: "Though we write Parson differently, yet 't is but Person; that is, the individual Person set apart for the service of the Church, and 't is in Latin Persona, and Personatus is a Personage" For the play on pierce (which was perhaps pronounced perse), cf. I Hen. IV. p. 201, note on I'll pierce him.

90. Mantuan. Giovanni Battista Spagnuoli (or Spagnoli), named Mantuanus from uis birthplace, who died in 1516, was the author of certain Eclogues which the pedants of that day preferred to Virgil's, and which were read in schools. The 1st Eclogue begins with the passage quoted by Holofernes. Malone quotes references to Mantuanus from Nash and Drayton. A translation of his Latin poems by George Turbervile was printed in 1567.

92. Venelia, etc. In the folio this reads: "vemchie, vencha, que non te vnde, qne non te perreche," which exactly follows the 1st quarto. The text is taken by the Camb. editors from Florio's Second Frutes, 1591, whence the poet probably got it. There it has the second line, "Ma chi te vede, ben gli costa." In Howell's Letters, it appears with a translation, thus:

"Venetia, Venetia, chi non te vede, non te pregia,
Ma chi t' ha troppo veduto te dispregia.
Venice, Venice, none thee unseen can prize;
Who thee hath seen too much, will thee despise."

It is usually printed in the form in which Theo. gives it:

"Vinegia, Vinegia,
Chi non te vede, ei non te pregia."

105. Bias. Originally a term in bowling, See Ham. p. 200 (on Assays the bias), or T. of S. p. 167 (on Against the bias).

111. Thy voice, etc. Malone compares A. and C. v. 2. 83:

"his voice was propertied
As all the tuned spheres, and that to friends;
But when he meant to quail and shake the orb,
He was as rattling thunder."

115. You find not the apostrophas. K. understands this to refer to the apostrophes in vow'd and bow'd (102 and 104 above), and therefore prints these "vowed" and "bowed."

116-122. Here are only, etc. The early eds. give this to Nathaniel; corrected by Theo.

120. Imitari. To imitate. The early eds. have "imitarie," with no point before it, and the Coll. MS. reads "imitating."

121. The tired horse. The early eds. have "tyred" for tired. Theo. reads "try'd," and Capell "tired." Heath conjectures "trained." It is probably another allusion to Bankes's horse (see on i. 2. 52 above), as Farmer explains it; tired being = "adorned with ribbons."

123. Ay, sir, from one Monsieur Biron. " S. forgot himself in this passage. Jaquenetta knew nothing of Biron, and had said just before that the letter had been sent to her from Don Armado and given to her by Costard" (Mason).

133. Royal. The word is only in the 1st quarto.

134. Stay not thy compliment; I forgive thy duty. That is, do not tarry to make any formal obeisance; I excuse you from that. Cf. M. N. D. iv. I. 21: "Pray you, leave your courtesy, good mounsieur." Cf. p. 155, note on 87.

141. Colourable colours. "That is, specious or fair-seeming appearances" (Johnson); or "false pretexts" (Schmidt).

146. Before repast. As in 1st quarto; "beins; repast" in folios, has "bien vonuto," and the Camb. editors conjecture "bien venu too."

154. Certes. Certainly. Cf. Temp. iii. 3. 30, C. of E. iv. 4. 78, etc. Schmidt considers it monosyllabic in Hen. VIII, i. i. 48 and Oth. i. 1. 16.

156. Pauca verba. Few words (Latin).

How to cite the explanatory notes:
Shakespeare, William. Love's Labour's Lost. Ed. William Rolfe. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1899. Shakespeare Online. 10 Aug. 2013. < http://www.shakespeare-online.com/plays/LLL_4_2.html >.

How to cite the sidebars:
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. Essays and Lectures on Shakespeare. London: J. M. Dent, 1907. Shakespeare Online. 10 Aug. 2013. < http://www.shakespeare-online.com/plays/LLL_4_2.html >.

_____

Coleridge on Love's Labour's Lost

"This sort of story, too, was admirably suited to Shakspeare's times, when the Enghsh court was still the foster-mother of the state, and the muses; and when, in consequence, the courtiers, and men of rank and fashion, affected a display of wit, point, and sententious observation, that would be deemed intolerable at present, -- but in which a hundred years of controversy, involving every great political, and every dear domestic, interest, had trained all but the lowest classes to participate. Add to this the very style of the sermons of the time, and the eagerness of the Protestants to distinguish themselves by long and frequent preaching, and it will be found that, from the reign of Henry VIII. to the abdication of James II. no country ever received such a national education as England." (Coleridge, Essays and Lectures on Shakespeare, p. 72)

More to Explore

Love's Labour's Lost: The Play with Commentary

Quotations from Love's Labour's Lost

Love's Labour's Lost: Plot Summary

Shakespeare Quotations (by Theme)

Introduction to Shakespeare's Sonnets

Shakespearean Sonnet Style

How to Analyze a Shakespearean Sonnet

The Rules of Shakespearean Sonnets

The Contents of the Sonnets in Brief

Shakespeare's Treatment of Love in the Plays

Shakespeare's Dramatic Use of Songs

Shakespeare Quotations on Love

Shakespeare Wedding Readings

Shakespeare on Sleep