Love's Labour's Lost: Act 4

O heresy in fair, fit for these days!

More fairer than fair, beautiful than beauteous, truer than truth itself, have commiseration on thy heroical vassal.

The magnanimous and most illustrate King Cophetua set eye upon the pernicious and indubitate beggar Zenelophon; and he it was that might rightly say “Veni, vidi, vici,” which to annothanize in the vulgar (O base and obscure vulgar!) videlicet, “He came, see, and overcame”: He came, one; see, two; overcame, three.

The magnanimous and most illustrate King Cophetua set eye upon the pernicious and indubitate beggar Zenelophon; and he it was that might rightly say “Veni, vidi, vici,” which to annothanize in the vulgar (O base and obscure vulgar!) videlicet, “He came, see, and overcame”: He came, one; see, two; overcame, three.

The catastrophe is a nuptial.

Thus expecting thy reply, I profane my lips on thy foot, my eyes on thy picture, and my heart on thy every part.

What plume of feathers is he that indited this letter?

Then will she get the upshoot by cleaving the pin.

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.

Enter Dull the Constable, Holofernes the Pedant, and Nathaniel the Curate.

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.

Truly, Master Holofernes, the epithets are sweetly varied, like a scholar at the least.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Sir Nathaniel, will you hear an extemporal epitaph on the death of the deer?

Perge, good Master Holofernes, perge, so it shall please you to abrogate scurrility.

Good Master Parson, be so good as read me this letter.

Here are only numbers ratified, but, for the elegancy, facility, and golden cadence of poesy—caret.

And why indeed “Naso,” but for smelling out the odoriferous flowers of fancy, the jerks of invention?

I do dine today 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 savoring of poetry, wit, nor invention.

They have pitched a toil; I am toiling in a pitch—pitch that defiles. Defile! A foul word.

O, rhymes are guards on wanton Cupid’s hose.

A woman I forswore, but I will prove,
Thou being a goddess, I forswore not thee.

Ill to example ill
Would from my forehead wipe a perjured note,
For none offend where all alike do dote.

You chide at him, offending twice as much.

Longaville
Did never sonnet for her sake compile,
Nor never lay his wreathèd arms athwart
His loving bosom to keep down his heart?

Good heart, what grace hast thou thus to reprove
These worms for loving, that art most in love?

You found his mote, the King your mote did see,
But I a beam do find in each of three.

When shall you hear that I
Will praise a hand, a foot, a face, an eye,
A gait, a state, a brow, a breast, a waist,
A leg, a limb—

The sea will ebb and flow, heaven show his face;
Young blood doth not obey an old decree.

What peremptory eagle-sighted eye
Dares look upon the heaven of her brow
That is not blinded by her majesty?

Of all complexions the culled sovereignty
Do meet as at a fair in her fair cheek.

A wife of such wood were felicity.

For when would you, my liege, or you, or you,
In leaden contemplation have found out
Such fiery numbers as the prompting eyes
Of beauty’s tutors have enriched you with?

Pell-mell, down with them.