Page:Love's Labour's Lost (1925) Yale.djvu/58

46

Nath. Perge, good Master Holofernes, perge;

so it shall please you to abrogate scurrility.

Hol. I will something affect the letter; for it

argues facility.

'The preyful princess pierc'd and prick'd 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 one sorel!

Of one sore I a hundred make, by adding but one more L.'

Nath. A rare talent!

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 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 parishioners; for their sons are well

tutored by you, and their daughters profit very

 54 Perge: proceed

56 affect the letter: make use of alliteration

59 sore: a deer of the fourth year

60 sorel: a deer of the third year

65 talent: talon

66 claws: scratches pleasantly, flatters

70 ventricle: a division of the brain here called pia mater

