Ros. Thou can'st not hit it, hit it, hit it, [singing. Thou can'st not hit it, my good man.

Boyet. An I cannot, cannot, cannot,

An I cannot, another can.

[Exeunt Ros. and Kat.

Cost. By my troth, most pleasant! how both did

fit it!

Mar. A mark marvellous well shot; for they both did hit it.

Boyet. A mark! O, mark but that mark; A mark, says my lady!

Let the mark have a prick in't, to mete at, if it may be.

Mar. Wide o' the bow hand! I'faith, your hand

is out.

Cost. Indeed, a' must shoot nearer, or he'll ne'er hit the clout.

Boyet. An if my hand be out, then, belike your hand is in.

Cost. Then will she get the upshot by cleaving the

pin.

Mar. Come, come, you talk greasily, your lips grow foul.

Cost. She's too hard for you at pricks, sir; challenge her to bowl.

Boyet. I fear too much rubbing; good night, my good owl.

[Exeunt Boyet and Maria. Cost. 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.

Armatho o' the 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!

[Shouting within. [Exit Costard, running.

SCENE II.

The same.

Enter HOLOFERNES 27, Sir NATHANIEL, and DULL.

Nath. Very reverent sport, truly; and done in the testimony of a good conscience.

Hol. The deer was, as you know, in sanguis,blood; ripe as a pomewater, who now hangeth like a jewel in the ear of coelo,-the sky, the welkin, the heaven; and anon falleth like a crab, on the face of terra,—the soil, the land, the earth.

Nath. 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.

Hol. Sir Nathaniel, haud credo.

Dull. 'Twas not a haud credo, 'twas a pricket 23.

Hol. 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. Dull. I said, the deer was not a haud credo; 'twas a pricket.

Hol. Twice sod simplicity, bis coctus! O thou monster ignorance, how deformed dost thou look!

Nath. 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. You two are book-men: Can you tell by

your wit,

What was a month old at Cain's birth, that's not five weeks old as yet?

Hol. Dictynna, good man Dull; Dictynna, good man Dull.

Dull. What is Dictynna?

Nath. A title to Phoebe, to Luna, to the moon.

Hol. 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.

Hol. 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 'twas a pricket that the princess kill'd.

Hol. Sir Nathaniel, will you hear an extemporal epitaph on the death of the deer? and, to humour the ignorant, I have call'd the deer the princess kill'd, a pricket.

Nath. Perge, good master Holofernes, perge; so it shall please you to abrogate scurrility.

Hol. I will something affect the letter; for it argues facility.

The praiseful princess pierc'd 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 i 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 29!

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

Nath. A rare talent!

Dull. If a talent be a claw, look how he claws him with a talent.

Hol. 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 deliver'd upon the mellowing of occasion: But the gift is good in those in whom it is acute, and I am thankful for it.

Nath. Sir, I praise the Lord for you; and so may my parishioners; for their sons are well tutor'd by you, and their daughters profit very greatly under you: you are a good member of the commonwealth.

Hol. Mehercle, if their sons be ingenious, they shall want no instruction: if their daughters be capable 30, I will put it to them: But, vir sapit, qui pauca loquitur: a soul feminine saluteth us.

Enter JAQUENETTA and COSTARD.

Jaq. God give you good morrow, master per

sol.