Speeches (Lines) for Sir Nathaniel in "Love's Labour's Lost"

Costard. 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!
When it comes so smoothly off, so obscenely, as it
were, so fit.
Armado o' th' one side,--O, a most dainty man!
To see him walk before a lady and to bear her fan!
To see him kiss his hand! and how most sweetly a'
will swear!
And his page o' t' other side, that handful of wit!
Ah, heavens, it is a most pathetical nit!
Sola, sola!

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.

Holofernes. Twice-sod simplicity, his 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,
Many can brook the weather that love not the wind.

Dull. What is Dictynna?

Sir Nathaniel. A title to Phoebe, to Luna, to the moon.

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.

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
one sorel.
Of one sore I an hundred make by adding but one more L.

Sir Nathaniel. A rare 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
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. 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.

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:
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.

Costard. Have with thee, my girl.

Sir Nathaniel. Sir, you have done this in the fear of God, very
religiously; and, as a certain father saith,--

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.

Sir Nathaniel. And thank you too; for society, saith the text, is
the happiness of life.

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 humour is lofty, his
discourse peremptory, his tongue filed, his eye
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.

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
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 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.

Sir Nathaniel. Videsne quis venit?

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?

Berowne. My hat to a halfpenny, Pompey proves the best Worthy.

Sir Nathaniel. When in the world I lived, I was the world's
commander;
By east, west, north, and south, I spread my
conquering might:
My scutcheon plain declares that I am Alisander,--

Princess of France. The conqueror is dismay'd. Proceed, good Alexander.

Sir Nathaniel. When in the world I lived, I was the world's
commander,--