[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?
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.
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.
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