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These earthly godfathers of heaven’s lights,
That give a name to every fixèd star,
Have no more profit of their shining nights
Than those that walk and wot not what they are.
Too much to know is to know naught but fame,
And every godfather can give a name. (1.1.90–95)
Berowne speaks these lines as part of his interrogation of the oath the King and his companions have already agreed to sign. Before he contests the particular restrictions required by the oath, Berowne starts with a broad questioning of the point of scholarship in the first place. He clearly indicates his suspicion in these lines, where he says that scholarship has no real bearing on the experience of everyday life. He cites the example of astrologers. Just as ordinary godfathers are charged with naming newborns, astrologers “give a name to every fixèd star.” And yet for all their efforts, the names they choose change nothing about the “shining nights,” which can still be fully enjoyed by those who “wot not what they are.” His point is that knowledge of the stars might confer “fame,” but fame, like knowledge, is ultimately inconsequential. Later in this same scene, Berowne will make the even stronger claim that “study evermore is overshot” (1.1.145). Here, he develops a hunting metaphor where the scholar, like the hunter, only gets what he wants by killing it.
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. (4.2.82–89)
The schoolmaster Holofernes addresses these words to Nathaniel right after making some abstruse jokes involving Latin wordplay and Roman numerals. Holofernes celebrates his gifted mind and the vast learning he’s managed to accumulate “in the womb of pia mater”—that is, within the membrane that envelops the brain. However, the presence of the uncomprehending Constable Dull in this scene also comically underscores just how ridiculous Holofernes is. His discourse is so poorly attuned to the situation, which is ironic given that, as a schoolteacher, his real skill should be to recognize where his pupil’s understanding falls short. Instead, it’s clear that his approach to study is entirely self-indulgent, self-congratulatory, self-involved.
None are so surely caught, when they are catched,
As wit turned fool. Folly in wisdom hatched
Hath wisdom’s warrant and the help of school,
And wit’s own grace to grace a learnèd fool. (5.2.74–77)
The Princess says these lines to her ladies as they conclude their discussion of the foolish love sonnets the lords have written for them. They’ve complained about the sheer volume of the verses, which are “too long by half a mile” (5.2.59) and have been “crammed up in a sheet of paper / Writ o’ both sides the leaf, margent and all” (5.2.7–8). They’ve also complained about the content of these sonnets, which characteristically fail to capture anything meaningful or true about the ladies. As Rosaline says wryly: “I am compared to twenty thousand fairs” (5.2.40). Here, the Princess concludes by emphasizing that the lords’ have been trained in their foolishness through “the help of school.” Instead of the “wisdom” they were supposed to derive from their studies, they’ve achieved nothing but “folly.” Despite the mystique often attributed to scholars, they are little more than “learnèd fool[s].”
