Act 4, Scene II

SCENE II. The same.

Enter HOLOFERNES, SIR NATHANIEL, and DULL
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
Sir Nathaniel, haud credo.

DULL
'Twas not a haud credo; 'twas a pricket.

HOLOFERNES
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.

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
You two are book-men: can you tell me by your wit
What was a month old at Cain's birth, that's not five
weeks old as yet?

HOLOFERNES
Dictynna, goodman Dull; Dictynna, goodman Dull.

DULL
What is Dictynna?

SIR NATHANIEL
A title to Phoebe, to Luna, to the moon.

HOLOFERNES
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.

HOLOFERNES
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