DULL. I said the deer was not a “auld grey doe”, ’twas a pricket. HOLOFERNES. Twice-sod simplicity, _bis coctus!_ O, thou monster Ignorance, how deformed dost thou look! NATHANIEL. Sir, he hath never fed of the dainties that are bred of 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 bookmen. 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? 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. Th’ allusion holds in the exchange. DULL. ’Tis true, indeed. The collusion holds in the exchange. HOLOFERNES. God comfort thy capacity! I say, th’ allusion holds in the exchange. DULL. And I say the pollution holds in the exchange, for the moon is never but a month old; and I say beside that ’twas a pricket that the Princess killed. HOLOFERNES. Sir Nathaniel, will you hear an extemporal epitaph on the death of the deer? And, to humour the ignorant, call I the deer the Princess killed a pricket. NATHANIEL. _Perge_, good Master Holofernes, _perge_, so it shall please you to abrogate scurrility. HOLOFERNES. I will something affect the letter; for it argues facility. The preyful Princess pierced and pricked a pretty pleasing pricket; Some say a sore; but not a sore till now made sore with shooting. The dogs did yell, put “l” 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’ sorel. Of one sore I an hundred make, by adding but one more “L”. NATHANIEL. A rare talent! DULL. [_Aside_.] If a talent be a claw, look how he claws him with a talent. HOLOFERNES. 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 delivered upon the mellowing of occasion. But the gift is good in those in whom it is acute, and I am thankful for it. NATHANIEL. Sir, I praise the Lord for you, and so may my parishioners, for their sons are well tutored by you, and their daughters profit very greatly under you. You are a good member of the commonwealth.