HOLOFERNES. _Mehercle!_ If their sons be ingenious, they shall want no instruction; if their daughters be capable, I will put it to them. But, _vir sapit qui pauca loquitur_. A soul feminine saluteth us. Enter Jaquenetta and Costard. JAQUENETTA. God give you good morrow, Master Person. HOLOFERNES. Master Person, _quasi_ pierce one. And if one should be pierced, which is the one? COSTARD. Marry, Master schoolmaster, he that is likest to a hogshead. HOLOFERNES. Of piercing a hogshead! A good lustre or conceit in a turf 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. [_Giving a letter to Nathaniel._] 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. [_He sings_.] Ut, re, sol, la, mi, fa. Under pardon, sir, what are the contents? Or rather as Horace says in his—What, my soul, verses? NATHANIEL. Ay, sir, and very learned. HOLOFERNES. Let me hear a staff, a stanze, a verse, _Lege, domine_. NATHANIEL. [_Reads_.] _If love make me forsworn, how shall I swear to love? Ah, never faith could hold, if not to beauty vowed. Though to myself forsworn, to thee I’ll faithful prove. Those thoughts to me were oaks, to thee like osiers bowed. Study his bias leaves, and makes his book thine eyes, Where all those pleasures live that art would comprehend. If knowledge be the mark, to know thee shall suffice. Well learned is that tongue that well can thee commend, All ignorant that soul that sees thee without wonder; Which is to me some praise, that I thy parts admire. Thy eye Jove’s lightning bears, thy voice his dreadful thunder, Which, not to anger bent, is music and sweet fire. Celestial as thou art, O, pardon love this wrong, That sings heaven’s praise with such an earthly tongue._ HOLOFERNES. You find not the apostrophus, and so miss the accent. Let me supervise the canzonet. [_He takes the letter_.] Here are only numbers ratified, but, for the elegancy, facility, and golden cadence of poesy, _caret_. Ovidius Naso was the man. And why indeed “Naso,” but for smelling out the odoriferous flowers of fancy, the jerks of invention? _Imitari_ is nothing: so doth the hound his master, the ape his keeper, the tired horse his rider. But, damosella virgin, was this directed to you? JAQUENETTA. Ay, sir, from one Monsieur Berowne, one of the strange queen’s lords.