SEARCH TEXTS  

Plays  +  Sonnets  +  Poems  +  Concordance  +  Advanced Search  +  About OSS

Speeches (Lines) for Holofernes
in "Love's Labour's Lost"

Total: 54

---
# Act, Scene, Line
(Click to see in context)
Speech text

1

IV,2,1144

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.

2

IV,2,1152

Sir Nathaniel, haud credo.

3

IV,2,1154

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.

4

IV,2,1163

Twice-sod simplicity, his coctus!
O thou monster Ignorance, how deformed dost thou look!

5

IV,2,1181

Dictynna, goodman Dull; Dictynna, goodman Dull.

6

IV,2,1184

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.

7

IV,2,1189

God comfort thy capacity! I say, the allusion holds
in the exchange.

8

IV,2,1194

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.

9

IV,2,1199

I will something affect the letter, for it argues facility.
The preyful princess pierced 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 an hundred make by adding but one more L.

10

IV,2,1213

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.

11

IV,2,1225

Mehercle, if their sons be ingenuous, 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.

12

IV,2,1231

Master Parson, quasi pers-on. An if one should be
pierced, which is the one?

13

IV,2,1234

Piercing a hogshead! a good lustre of conceit in a
tuft of earth; fire enough for a flint, pearl enough
for a swine: 'tis pretty; it is well.

14

IV,2,1240

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. Ut, re, sol, la, mi, fa.
Under pardon, sir, what are the contents? or rather,
as Horace says in his—What, my soul, verses?

15

IV,2,1250

Let me hear a staff, a stanze, a verse; lege, domine.

16

IV,2,1268

You find not the apostraphas, and so miss the
accent: let me supervise the canzonet. 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 odouriferous 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?

17

IV,2,1280

I will overglance the superscript: 'To the
snow-white hand of the most beauteous Lady
Rosaline.' I will look again on the intellect of
the letter, for the nomination of the party writing
to the person written unto: 'Your ladyship's in all
desired employment, BIRON.' Sir Nathaniel, this
Biron is one of the votaries with the king; and here
he hath framed a letter to a sequent of the stranger
queen's, which accidentally, or by the way of
progression, hath miscarried. Trip and go, my
sweet; deliver this paper into the royal hand of the
king: it may concern much. Stay not thy
compliment; I forgive thy duty; adieu.

18

IV,2,1298

Sir tell me not of the father; I do fear colourable
colours. But to return to the verses: did they
please you, Sir Nathaniel?

19

IV,2,1302

I do dine to-day at the father's of a certain pupil
of mine; where, if, before repast, it shall please
you to gratify the table with a grace, I will, on my
privilege I have with the parents of the foresaid
child or pupil, undertake your ben venuto; where I
will prove those verses to be very unlearned,
neither savouring of poetry, wit, nor invention: I
beseech your society.

20

IV,2,1312

And, certes, the text most infallibly concludes it.
[To DULL]
Sir, I do invite you too; you shall not
say me nay: pauca verba. Away! the gentles are at
their game, and we will to our recreation.

21

V,1,1734

Satis quod sufficit.

22

V,1,1742

Novi hominem tanquam te: his humour is lofty, his
discourse peremptory, his tongue filed, his eye
ambitious, his gait majestical, and his general
behavior vain, ridiculous, and thrasonical. He is
too picked, too spruce, too affected, too odd, as it
were, too peregrinate, as I may call it.

23

V,1,1750

He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer
than the staple of his argument. I abhor such
fanatical phantasimes, such insociable and
point-devise companions; such rackers of
orthography, as to speak dout, fine, when he should
say doubt; det, when he should pronounce debt,—d,
e, b, t, not d, e, t: he clepeth a calf, cauf;
half, hauf; neighbour vocatur nebor; neigh
abbreviated ne. This is abhominable,—which he
would call abbominable: it insinuateth me of
insanie: anne intelligis, domine? to make frantic, lunatic.

24

V,1,1762

Bon, bon, fort bon, Priscian! a little scratch'd,
'twill serve.

25

V,1,1765

Video, et gaudeo.

26

V,1,1769

Quare chirrah, not sirrah?

27

V,1,1771

Most military sir, salutation.

28

V,1,1783

Ba, pueritia, with a horn added.

29

V,1,1785

Quis, quis, thou consonant?

30

V,1,1788

I will repeat them,—a, e, i,—

31

V,1,1794

What is the figure? what is the figure?

32

V,1,1796

Thou disputest like an infant: go, whip thy gig.

33

V,1,1807

O, I smell false Latin; dunghill for unguem.

34

V,1,1811

Or mons, the hill.

35

V,1,1813

I do, sans question.

36

V,1,1818

The posterior of the day, most generous sir, is
liable, congruent and measurable for the afternoon:
the word is well culled, chose, sweet and apt, I do
assure you, sir, I do assure.

37

V,1,1845

Sir, you shall present before her the Nine Worthies.
Sir, as concerning some entertainment of time, some
show in the posterior of this day, to be rendered by
our assistants, at the king's command, and this most
gallant, illustrate, and learned gentleman, before
the princess; I say none so fit as to present the
Nine Worthies.

38

V,1,1853

Joshua, yourself; myself and this gallant gentleman,
Judas Maccabaeus; this swain, because of his great
limb or joint, shall pass Pompey the Great; the
page, Hercules,—

39

V,1,1859

Shall I have audience? he shall present Hercules in
minority: his enter and exit shall be strangling a
snake; and I will have an apology for that purpose.

40

V,1,1867

I will play three myself.

41

V,1,1870

We attend.

42

V,1,1873

Via, goodman Dull! thou hast spoken no word all this while.

43

V,1,1875

Allons! we will employ thee.

44

V,1,1878

Most dull, honest Dull! To our sport, away!

45

V,2,2529

Great Hercules is presented by this imp,
Whose club kill'd Cerberus, that three-headed canis;
And when he was a babe, a child, a shrimp,
Thus did he strangle serpents in his manus.
Quoniam he seemeth in minority,
Ergo I come with this apology.
Keep some state in thy exit, and vanish.
[MOTH retires]
Judas I am,—

46

V,2,2539

Not Iscariot, sir.
Judas I am, ycliped Maccabaeus.

47

V,2,2543

Judas I am,—

48

V,2,2545

What mean you, sir?

49

V,2,2547

Begin, sir; you are my elder.

50

V,2,2549

I will not be put out of countenance.

51

V,2,2551

What is this?

52

V,2,2562

You have put me out of countenance.

53

V,2,2564

But you have out-faced them all.

54

V,2,2570

This is not generous, not gentle, not humble.

Return to the "Love's Labour's Lost" menu