_Hol._ 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. _Nath._ Perge, good Master Holofernes, perge; so it 50 shall please you to abrogate scurrility. _Hol._ I will something affect the letter, for it argues facility. The preyful princess pierced and prickd a pretty pleasing pricket; 54 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 one sorel. Of one sore I an hundred make by adding but one more L. _Nath._ A rare talent! 60 _Dull._ [_Aside_] If a talent be a claw, look how he claws him with a talent. _Hol._ 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 65 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. _Nath._ Sir, I praise the Lord for you: and so may my 70 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. _Hol._ Mehercle, if their sons be ingenuous, they shall want no instruction; if their daughters be capable, I will 75 put it to them: but vir sapit qui pauca loquitur; a soul feminine saluteth us. _Enter_ JAQUENETTA _and_ COSTARD. _Jaq._ God give you good morrow, master Parson. _Hol._ Master Parson, quasi pers-on. An if one should be pierced, which is the one? 80 _Cost._ Marry, master schoolmaster, he that is likest to a hogshead. _Hol._ Piercing a hogshead! a good lustre of conceit in a turf of earth; fire enough for a flint, pearl enough for a swine: ’tis pretty; it is well. 85 _Jaq._ 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. _Hol._ Fauste, precor gelida quando pecus omne sub umbra Ruminat,—and so forth. Ah, good old Mantuan! 90 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, 95 what are the contents? or rather, as Horace says in his— What, my soul, verses? _Nath._ Ay, sir, and very learned. _Hol._ Let me hear a staff, a stanze, a verse; lege, domine. _Nath._ [_reads_]