No More Learning

Master Person, quasi pers-one. And if one should be
pierc'd which is the one?
COSTARD. Marry, Master Schoolmaster, he that is likest to a
hogshead.
HOLOFERNES. 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.
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.
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-
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 singes heaven's praise with such an earthly tongue. '
HOLOFERNES.