Internet Shakespeare Editions

Author: William Shakespeare
Editor: Timothy Billings
Not Peer Reviewed

Love's Labor's Lost (Quarto 1, 1598)

called Loues Labor's lost.

Holo. Sir Nathaniel, haud credo.
Dul. Twas not a haud credo, twas a Pricket.
Holo. Most barbarous intimation: yet a kind of insinua-
tion, as it were in via, in way of explication facere: as it were
1165replication, or rather ostentare, to show as it were his inclina-
tion after his vndressed, vnpolished, vneducated, vnpruned,
vntrained, or rather vnlettered, or ratherest vnconfirmed fa-
shion, to insert again my haud credo for a Deare.
1170Dul. I said the Deare was not a haud credo, twas a Pricket.
Holo. Twice sodd simplicitie, bis coctus, O thou monster
ignorance, How deformed doost thou looke.
Nath. Sir he hath neuer fed of the dainties that are bred
1175in a booke.
He hath not eate paper as it were: he hath not drunke inck.
His intellect is not replenished, he is only an annimall, only
sensible in the duller partes: and such barren plantes are
1180 set before vs, that we thankful should be: which we taste,
and feeling, are for those partes that doe fructifie in vs
more then he.
For as it would ill become me to be vaine, indistreell, or a(foole,
1185So were there a patch set on Learning, to see him in a schole.
But omne bene say I, being of an olde Fathers minde,
Many can brooke the weather, that loue not the winde.
Dul. You two are book-men, Can you tel me by your wit,
1190What was a month old at Cains birth, that's not fiue weeks
old as yet?
Holo. Dictisima goodman Dull, dictisima goodman Dull.
Dul. What is dictima?
1195Nath. A title to Phebe, to Luna, to the Moone.
Holo. The Moone was a month old when Adam was no (more
And rought not to fiue-weeks when he came to fiuescore.
Th'allusion holdes in the Exchange.
1200Dul. Tis true in deede, the Collusion holdes in the Ex-(change.
Holo. God comfort thy capacitie, I say th'allusion holdes
in the Exchange.
Dul. And I say the polusion holdes in the Exchange: for
1205the Moone is neuer but a month olde: and I say beside
that, twas a Pricket that the Princesse kild.
Sir