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

without heresy. I did converse this _quondam_ day with a companion of

the King’s, who is intituled, nominated, or called, Don Adriano de

Armado.

_Novi hominem tanquam te._ His humour is lofty, his discourse

peremptory, his tongue filed, his eye ambitious, his gait majestical

and his general behaviour vain, ridiculous, and thrasonical. He is too

picked, too spruce, too affected, too odd, as it were, too peregrinate,

as I may call it.

A most singular and choice epithet.

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” _sine_ “b”, 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_ “nebour”, neigh abbreviated “ne”. This

is abhominable, which he would call “abominable”. It insinuateth me of

insanie. _Ne intelligis, domine?_ To make frantic, lunatic.

_Bone? Bone_ for _bene?_ Priscian a little scratched; ’twill serve.

_Quare_ “chirrah”, not “sirrah”?

Men of peace, well encountered.

Most military sir, salutation.

[_Aside to Costard_.] They have been at a great feast of languages and

stolen the scraps.

O, they have lived long on the almsbasket of words. I marvel thy master

hath not eaten thee for a word, for thou art not so long by the head as

_honorificabilitudinitatibus_. Thou art easier swallowed than a

flap-dragon.

Peace! The peal begins.

[_To Holofernes_.] Monsieur, are you not lettered?

Yes, yes, he teaches boys the hornbook. What is _a, b_, spelt backward

with the horn on his head?

_Ba, pueritia_, with a horn added.

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

_Quis, quis_, thou consonant?

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

I will repeat them: _a, e, i_—

The sheep. The other two concludes it: _o, u_.

Now, by the salt wave of the Mediterraneum, a sweet touch, a quick

venue of wit! Snip, snap, quick and home! It rejoiceth my intellect.

True wit!

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

What is the figure? What is the figure?

Horns.

Thou disputes like an infant. Go whip thy gig.

Lend me your horn to make one, and I will whip about your infamy _unum

cita_. A gig of a cuckold’s horn.

An I had but one penny in the world, thou shouldst have it to buy

gingerbread. Hold, there is the very remuneration I had of thy master,

thou halfpenny purse of wit, thou pigeon-egg of discretion. O, an the

heavens were so pleased that thou wert but my bastard, what a joyful

father wouldst thou make me! Go to, thou hast it _ad dunghill_, at the

fingers’ ends, as they say.

O, I smell false Latin! _Dunghill_ for _unguem_.

Arts-man, preambulate. We will be singuled from the barbarous. Do you

not educate youth at the charge-house on the top of the mountain?

Or _mons_, the hill.

At your sweet pleasure, for the mountain.

I do, _sans question_.

Sir, it is the King’s most sweet pleasure and affection to congratulate

the Princess at her pavilion in the posteriors of this day, which the

rude multitude call the afternoon.

The posterior of the day, most generous sir, is liable, congruent, and

measurable for the afternoon. The word is well culled, chose, sweet,

and apt, I do assure you, sir, I do assure.

Sir, the King is a noble gentleman, and my familiar, I do assure ye,

very good friend. For what is inward between us, let it pass. I do

beseech thee, remember thy courtesy; I beseech thee, apparel thy head.

And among other importunate and most serious designs, and of great

import indeed, too—but let that pass. For I must tell thee it will

please his Grace, by the world, sometime to lean upon my poor shoulder

and with his royal finger thus dally with my excrement, with my

mustachio. But, sweet heart, let that pass. By the world, I recount no

fable! Some certain special honours it pleaseth his greatness to impart

to Armado, a soldier, a man of travel, that hath seen the world. But

let that pass. The very all of all is—but, sweet heart, I do implore

secrecy—that the King would have me present the Princess, sweet chuck,

with some delightful ostentation, or show, or pageant, or antic, or

firework. Now, understanding that the curate and your sweet self are

good at such eruptions and sudden breaking-out of mirth, as it were, I

have acquainted you withal, to the end to crave your assistance.

Sir, you shall present before her the Nine Worthies. Sir Nathaniel, as

concerning some entertainment of time, some show in the posterior of

this day, to be rendered by our assistance, 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.

Where will you find men worthy enough to present them?

Joshua, yourself; myself; and this gallant gentleman, Judas Maccabaeus.

This swain, because of his great limb or joint, shall pass Pompey the

Great; the page, Hercules.

Pardon, sir; error. He is not quantity enough for that Worthy’s thumb;

he is not so big as the end of his club.

Shall I have audience? He shall present Hercules in minority. His enter

and exit shall be strangling a snake; and I will have an apology for

that purpose.

An excellent device! So, if any of the audience hiss, you may cry “Well

done, Hercules, now thou crushest the snake!” That is the way to make

an offence gracious, though few have the grace to do it.

For the rest of the Worthies?

I will play three myself.

Thrice-worthy gentleman!

Shall I tell you a thing?

We attend.

We will have, if this fadge not, an antic. I beseech you, follow.

_Via_, goodman Dull! Thou has spoken no word all this while.

Nor understood none neither, sir.

_Allons!_ we will employ thee.

I’ll make one in a dance, or so; or I will play on the tabor to the

Worthies, and let them dance the hay.

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