Enter Ferdinand, King of Navarre, Berowne,
Longaville, and Dumaine.

KING
Let fame, that all hunt after in their lives,
Live registered upon our brazen tombs,
And then grace us in the disgrace of death,
When, spite of cormorant devouring time,
Th’ endeavor of this present breath may buy
That honor which shall bate his scythe’s keen edge
And make us heirs of all eternity.
Therefore, brave conquerors, for so you are
That war against your own affections
And the huge army of the world’s desires,
Our late edict shall strongly stand in force.
Navarre shall be the wonder of the world;
Our court shall be a little academe,
Still and contemplative in living art.
You three, Berowne, Dumaine, and Longaville,
Have sworn for three years’ term to live with me,
My fellow scholars, and to keep those statutes
That are recorded in this schedule here.
He holds up a scroll.
Your oaths are passed, and now subscribe your
names,
That his own hand may strike his honor down

---

That violates the smallest branch herein.
If you are armed to do as sworn to do,
Subscribe to your deep oaths, and keep it too.
LONGAVILLE
I am resolved. ’Tis but a three years’ fast.
The mind shall banquet though the body pine.
Fat paunches have lean pates, and dainty bits
Make rich the ribs but bankrout quite the wits.
He signs his name.
DUMAINE
My loving lord, Dumaine is mortified.
The grosser manner of these world’s delights
He throws upon the gross world’s baser slaves.
To love, to wealth, to pomp I pine and die,
With all these living in philosophy.
He signs his name.
BEROWNE
I can but say their protestation over.
So much, dear liege, I have already sworn,
That is, to live and study here three years.
But there are other strict observances:
As not to see a woman in that term,
Which I hope well is not enrollèd there;
And one day in a week to touch no food,
And but one meal on every day besides,
The which I hope is not enrollèd there;
And then to sleep but three hours in the night,
And not be seen to wink of all the day—
When I was wont to think no harm all night,
And make a dark night too of half the day—
Which I hope well is not enrollèd there.
O, these are barren tasks, too hard to keep,
Not to see ladies, study, fast, not sleep.
KING
Your oath is passed to pass away from these.

---

BEROWNE
Let me say no, my liege, an if you please.
I only swore to study with your Grace
And stay here in your court for three years’ space.
LONGAVILLE
You swore to that, Berowne, and to the rest.
BEROWNE
By yea and nay, sir. Then I swore in jest.
What is the end of study, let me know?
KING
Why, that to know which else we should not know.
BEROWNE
Things hid and barred, you mean, from common
sense.
KING
Ay, that is study’s godlike recompense.
BEROWNE
Come on, then, I will swear to study so,
To know the thing I am forbid to know:
As thus—to study where I well may dine,
When I to feast expressly am forbid;
Or study where to meet some mistress fine
When mistresses from common sense are hid;
Or having sworn too hard-a-keeping oath,
Study to break it, and not break my troth.
If study’s gain be thus, and this be so,
Study knows that which yet it doth not know.
Swear me to this, and I will ne’er say no.
KING
These be the stops that hinder study quite,
And train our intellects to vain delight.
BEROWNE
Why, all delights are vain, and that most vain
Which with pain purchased doth inherit pain:
As painfully to pore upon a book
To seek the light of truth, while truth the while

---

Doth falsely blind the eyesight of his look.
Light seeking light doth light of light beguile.
So, ere you find where light in darkness lies,
Your light grows dark by losing of your eyes.
Study me how to please the eye indeed
By fixing it upon a fairer eye,
Who dazzling so, that eye shall be his heed
And give him light that it was blinded by.
Study is like the heaven’s glorious sun,
That will not be deep-searched with saucy looks.
Small have continual plodders ever won,
Save base authority from others’ books.
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.
KING
How well he’s read to reason against reading.
DUMAINE
Proceeded well, to stop all good proceeding.
LONGAVILLE
He weeds the corn, and still lets grow the weeding.
BEROWNE
The spring is near when green geese are a-breeding.
DUMAINE
How follows that?
BEROWNE Fit in his place and time.
DUMAINE
In reason nothing.
BEROWNE Something then in rhyme.
KING
Berowne is like an envious sneaping frost
That bites the firstborn infants of the spring.

---

BEROWNE
Well, say I am. Why should proud summer boast
Before the birds have any cause to sing?
Why should I joy in any abortive birth?
At Christmas I no more desire a rose
Than wish a snow in May’s new-fangled shows,
But like of each thing that in season grows.
So you, to study now it is too late,
Climb o’er the house to unlock the little gate.
KING
Well, sit you out. Go home, Berowne. Adieu.
BEROWNE
No, my good lord, I have sworn to stay with you.
And though I have for barbarism spoke more
Than for that angel knowledge you can say,
Yet, confident, I’ll keep what I have sworn
And bide the penance of each three years’ day.
Give me the paper. Let me read the same,
And to the strictest decrees I’ll write my name.
KING
How well this yielding rescues thee from shame.
BEROWNE reads Item, That no woman shall come within
a mile of my court. Hath this been proclaimed?
LONGAVILLE Four days ago.
BEROWNE Let’s see the penalty. Reads : On pain of
losing her tongue. Who devised this penalty?
LONGAVILLE Marry, that did I.
BEROWNE Sweet lord, and why?
LONGAVILLE
To fright them hence with that dread penalty.
BEROWNE
A dangerous law against gentility.
Reads : Item, If any man be seen to talk with a
woman within the term of three years, he shall endure
such public shame as the rest of the court can possible
devise.

---

This article, my liege, yourself must break,
For well you know here comes in embassy
The French king’s daughter with yourself to speak—
A maid of grace and complete majesty—
About surrender up of Aquitaine
To her decrepit, sick, and bedrid father.
Therefore this article is made in vain,
Or vainly comes th’ admirèd princess hither.
KING
What say you, lords? Why, this was quite forgot.
BEROWNE
So study evermore is overshot.
While it doth study to have what it would,
It doth forget to do the thing it should.
And when it hath the thing it hunteth most,
’Tis won as towns with fire—so won, so lost.
KING
We must of force dispense with this decree.
She must lie here on mere necessity.
BEROWNE
Necessity will make us all forsworn
Three thousand times within this three years’
space;
For every man with his affects is born,
Not by might mastered, but by special grace.
If I break faith, this word shall speak for me:
I am forsworn on mere necessity.
So to the laws at large I write my name,
And he that breaks them in the least degree
Stands in attainder of eternal shame.
Suggestions are to other as to me,
But I believe, although I seem so loath,
I am the last that will last keep his oath.
He signs his name.
But is there no quick recreation granted?

---

KING
Ay, that there is. Our court, you know, is haunted
With a refinèd traveler of Spain,
A man in all the world’s new fashion planted,
That hath a mint of phrases in his brain;
One who the music of his own vain tongue
Doth ravish like enchanting harmony,
A man of compliments, whom right and wrong
Have chose as umpire of their mutiny.
This child of fancy, that Armado hight,
For interim to our studies shall relate
In high-born words the worth of many a knight
From tawny Spain lost in the world’s debate.
How you delight, my lords, I know not, I,
But I protest I love to hear him lie,
And I will use him for my minstrelsy.
BEROWNE
Armado is a most illustrious wight,
A man of fire-new words, fashion’s own knight.
LONGAVILLE
Costard the swain and he shall be our sport,
And so to study three years is but short.

Enter Dull , a Constable, with a letter, and Costard.

DULL Which is the Duke’s own person?
BEROWNE This, fellow. What wouldst?
DULL I myself reprehend his own person, for I am his
Grace’s farborough. But I would see his own
person in flesh and blood.
BEROWNE This is he.
DULL , to King Signior Arm-, Arm-, commends you.
There’s villainy abroad. This letter will tell you
more. He gives the letter to the King.
COSTARD Sir, the contempts thereof are as touching
me.
KING A letter from the magnificent Armado.

---

BEROWNE How low soever the matter, I hope in God
for high words.
LONGAVILLE A high hope for a low heaven. God grant
us patience!
BEROWNE To hear, or forbear hearing?
LONGAVILLE To hear meekly, sir, and to laugh moderately,
or to forbear both.
BEROWNE Well, sir, be it as the style shall give us cause
to climb in the merriness.
COSTARD The matter is to me, sir, as concerning
Jaquenetta. The manner of it is, I was taken with
the manner.
BEROWNE In what manner?
COSTARD In manner and form following, sir, all those
three. I was seen with her in the manor house,
sitting with her upon the form, and taken following
her into the park, which, put together, is “in manner
and form following.” Now, sir, for the manner.
It is the manner of a man to speak to a woman. For
the form—in some form.
BEROWNE For the “following,” sir?
COSTARD As it shall follow in my correction, and God
defend the right.
KING Will you hear this letter with attention?
BEROWNE As we would hear an oracle.
COSTARD Such is the sinplicity of man to hearken after
the flesh.
KING reads Great deputy, the welkin’s vicegerent and
sole dominator of Navarre, my soul’s earth’s god, and
body’s fost’ring patron—
COSTARD Not a word of Costard yet.
KING reads So it is—
COSTARD It may be so, but if he say it is so, he is, in
telling true, but so.
KING Peace.
COSTARD Be to me, and every man that dares not fight.

---

KING No words.
COSTARD Of other men’s secrets, I beseech you.
KING reads So it is, besieged with sable-colored melancholy,
I did commend the black oppressing humor
to the most wholesome physic of thy health-giving air;
and, as I am a gentleman, betook myself to walk. The
time when? About the sixth hour, when beasts most
graze, birds best peck, and men sit down to that
nourishment which is called supper. So much for the
time when. Now for the ground which—which, I
mean, I walked upon. It is yclept thy park. Then for the
place where—where, I mean, I did encounter that
obscene and most prepost’rous event that draweth
from my snow-white pen the ebon-colored ink, which
here thou viewest, beholdest, surveyest, or seest. But to
the place where. It standeth north-north-east and by
east from the west corner of thy curious-knotted
garden. There did I see that low-spirited swain, that
base minnow of thy mirth,—
COSTARD Me?
KING reads that unlettered, small-knowing soul,—
COSTARD Me?
KING reads that shallow vassal,—
COSTARD Still me?
KING reads which, as I remember, hight Costard,—
COSTARD O, me!
KING reads sorted and consorted, contrary to thy
established proclaimed edict and continent canon,
which with—O with—but with this I passion to say
wherewith—
COSTARD With a wench.
KING reads with a child of our grandmother Eve, a
female; or, for thy more sweet understanding, a
woman: him, I, as my ever-esteemed duty pricks
me on, have sent to thee, to receive the meed of
punishment by thy sweet Grace’s officer, Anthony

---

25

Love’s Labor’s Lost

ACT 1. SC. 1

Dull, a man of good repute, carriage, bearing, and
estimation.
DULL Me, an ’t shall please you. I am Anthony Dull.
KING reads For Jaquenetta—so is the weaker vessel
called which I apprehended with the aforesaid
swain—I keep her as a vessel of thy law’s fury, and
shall, at the least of thy sweet notice, bring her to trial.
Thine, in all compliments of devoted and heartburning
heat of duty,
Don Adriano de Armado.
BEROWNE This is not so well as I looked for, but the
best that ever I heard.
KING Ay, the best, for the worst. To Costard. But,
sirrah, what say you to this?
COSTARD Sir, I confess the wench.
KING Did you hear the proclamation?
COSTARD I do confess much of the hearing it, but little
of the marking of it.
KING It was proclaimed a year’s imprisonment to be
taken with a wench.
COSTARD I was taken with none, sir. I was taken with a
damsel.
KING Well, it was proclaimed “damsel.”
COSTARD This was no damsel neither, sir. She was a
virgin.
BEROWNE It is so varied too, for it was proclaimed
“virgin.”
COSTARD If it were, I deny her virginity. I was taken
with a maid.
KING This “maid” will not serve your turn, sir.
COSTARD This maid will serve my turn, sir.
KING Sir, I will pronounce your sentence: you shall
fast a week with bran and water.
COSTARD I had rather pray a month with mutton and
porridge.

---

KING And Don Armado shall be your keeper.
My Lord Berowne, see him delivered o’er,
And go we, lords, to put in practice that
Which each to other hath so strongly sworn.
King , Longaville, and Dumaine exit.
BEROWNE
I’ll lay my head to any goodman’s hat,
These oaths and laws will prove an idle scorn.
Sirrah, come on.
COSTARD I suffer for the truth, sir; for true it is I was
taken with Jaquenetta, and Jaquenetta is a true
girl. And therefore welcome the sour cup of prosperity.
Affliction may one day smile again, and till
then, sit thee down, sorrow.
They exit.

Enter Armado and Mote, his page.

ARMADO Boy, what sign is it when a man of great spirit
grows melancholy?
BOY A great sign, sir, that he will look sad.
ARMADO Why, sadness is one and the selfsame thing,
dear imp.
BOY No, no. O Lord, sir, no!
ARMADO How canst thou part sadness and melancholy,
my tender juvenal?
BOY By a familiar demonstration of the working, my
tough signior.
ARMADO Why “tough signior”? Why “tough signior”?
BOY Why “tender juvenal”? Why “tender juvenal”?
ARMADO I spoke it “tender juvenal” as a congruent
epitheton appertaining to thy young days, which
we may nominate “tender.”

---

BOY And I “tough signior” as an appurtenant title to
your old time, which we may name “tough.”
ARMADO Pretty and apt.
BOY How mean you, sir? I pretty and my saying apt, or
I apt and my saying pretty?
ARMADO Thou pretty because little.
BOY Little pretty, because little. Wherefore apt?
ARMADO And therefore apt, because quick.
BOY Speak you this in my praise, master?
ARMADO In thy condign praise.
BOY I will praise an eel with the same praise.
ARMADO What, that an eel is ingenious?
BOY That an eel is quick.
ARMADO I do say thou art quick in answers. Thou
heat’st my blood.
BOY I am answered, sir.
ARMADO I love not to be crossed.
BOY , aside He speaks the mere contrary; crosses love
not him.
ARMADO I have promised to study three years with the
Duke.
BOY You may do it in an hour, sir.
ARMADO Impossible.
BOY How many is one thrice told?
ARMADO I am ill at reckoning. It fitteth the spirit of a
tapster.
BOY You are a gentleman and a gamester, sir.
ARMADO I confess both. They are both the varnish of a
complete man.
BOY Then I am sure you know how much the gross
sum of deuce-ace amounts to.
ARMADO It doth amount to one more than two.
BOY Which the base vulgar do call “three.”
ARMADO True.
BOY Why, sir, is this such a piece of study? Now here is
“three” studied ere you’ll thrice wink. And how

---

easy it is to put “years” to the word “three” and
study “three years” in two words, the dancing horse
will tell you.
ARMADO A most fine figure.
BOY , aside To prove you a cipher.
ARMADO I will hereupon confess I am in love; and as it
is base for a soldier to love, so am I in love with a
base wench. If drawing my sword against the
humor of affection would deliver me from the
reprobate thought of it, I would take desire prisoner
and ransom him to any French courtier for a
new-devised curtsy. I think scorn to sigh; methinks
I should outswear Cupid. Comfort me, boy. What
great men have been in love?
BOY Hercules, master.
ARMADO Most sweet Hercules! More authority, dear
boy, name more; and, sweet my child, let them be
men of good repute and carriage.
BOY Samson, master; he was a man of good carriage,
great carriage, for he carried the town gates on his
back like a porter, and he was in love.
ARMADO O, well-knit Samson, strong-jointed Samson;
I do excel thee in my rapier as much as thou didst
me in carrying gates. I am in love too. Who was
Samson’s love, my dear Mote?
BOY A woman, master.
ARMADO Of what complexion?
BOY Of all the four, or the three, or the two, or one of
the four.
ARMADO Tell me precisely of what complexion.
BOY Of the sea-water green, sir.
ARMADO Is that one of the four complexions?
BOY As I have read, sir, and the best of them too.
ARMADO Green indeed is the color of lovers. But to
have a love of that color, methinks Samson had
small reason for it. He surely affected her for her
wit.

---

BOY It was so, sir, for she had a green wit.
ARMADO My love is most immaculate white and red.
BOY Most maculate thoughts, master, are masked
under such colors.
ARMADO Define, define, well-educated infant.
BOY My father’s wit and my mother’s tongue, assist
me.
ARMADO Sweet invocation of a child, most pretty and
pathetical.
BOY
If she be made of white and red,
Her faults will ne’er be known,
For blushing cheeks by faults are bred,
And fears by pale white shown.
Then if she fear, or be to blame,
By this you shall not know,
For still her cheeks possess the same
Which native she doth owe.
A dangerous rhyme, master, against the reason of
white and red.
ARMADO Is there not a ballad, boy, of “ The King and
the Beggar ” ?
BOY The world was very guilty of such a ballad some
three ages since, but I think now ’tis not to be found;
or if it were, it would neither serve for the writing
nor the tune.
ARMADO I will have that subject newly writ o’er, that I
may example my digression by some mighty precedent.
Boy, I do love that country girl that I took in
the park with the rational hind Costard. She deserves
well.
BOY , aside To be whipped—and yet a better love than
my master.
ARMADO Sing, boy. My spirit grows heavy in love.
BOY , aside And that’s great marvel, loving a light
wench.

---

ARMADO I say sing.
BOY Forbear till this company be past.

Enter Clown ( Costard , ) Constable ( Dull , ) and Wench
( Jaquenetta . )

DULL , to Armado Sir, the Duke’s pleasure is that you
keep Costard safe, and you must suffer him to take
no delight, nor no penance, but he must fast three
days a week. For this damsel, I must keep her at the
park. She is allowed for the dey-woman. Fare you
well.
ARMADO , aside I do betray myself with blushing.—
Maid.
JAQUENETTA Man.
ARMADO I will visit thee at the lodge.
JAQUENETTA That’s hereby.
ARMADO I know where it is situate.
JAQUENETTA Lord, how wise you are.
ARMADO I will tell thee wonders.
JAQUENETTA With that face?
ARMADO I love thee.
JAQUENETTA So I heard you say.
ARMADO And so, farewell.
JAQUENETTA Fair weather after you.
DULL Come, Jaquenetta, away.
Dull and Jaquenetta exit.
ARMADO , to Costard Villain, thou shalt fast for thy
offenses ere thou be pardoned.
COSTARD Well, sir, I hope when I do it I shall do it on
a full stomach.
ARMADO Thou shalt be heavily punished.
COSTARD I am more bound to you than your fellows,
for they are but lightly rewarded.
ARMADO , to Boy Take away this villain. Shut him up.
BOY Come, you transgressing slave, away.

---

COSTARD , to Armado Let me not be pent up, sir. I will
fast being loose.
BOY No, sir, that were fast and loose. Thou shalt to
prison.
COSTARD Well, if ever I do see the merry days of
desolation that I have seen, some shall see.
BOY What shall some see?
COSTARD Nay, nothing, Master Mote, but what they
look upon. It is not for prisoners to be too silent in
their words, and therefore I will say nothing. I thank
God I have as little patience as another man, and
therefore I can be quiet.
Costard and Boy exit.
ARMADO I do affect the very ground (which is base)
where her shoe (which is baser) guided by her foot
(which is basest) doth tread. I shall be forsworn
(which is a great argument of falsehood) if I love.
And how can that be true love which is falsely
attempted? Love is a familiar; love is a devil. There is
no evil angel but love, yet was Samson so tempted,
and he had an excellent strength; yet was Solomon
so seduced, and he had a very good wit. Cupid’s
butt-shaft is too hard for Hercules’ club, and therefore
too much odds for a Spaniard’s rapier. The first
and second cause will not serve my turn; the
passado he respects not, the duello he regards not.
His disgrace is to be called “boy,” but his glory is to
subdue men. Adieu, valor; rust, rapier; be still,
drum, for your manager is in love. Yea, he loveth.
Assist me, some extemporal god of rhyme, for I am
sure I shall turn sonnet. Devise wit, write pen, for I
am for whole volumes in folio.
He exits.

Enter the Princess of France, with three attending
Ladies ( Rosaline , Maria, and Katherine ) , Boyet
and other Lords.

BOYET
Now, madam, summon up your dearest spirits.
Consider who the King your father sends,
To whom he sends, and what’s his embassy.
Yourself, held precious in the world’s esteem,
To parley with the sole inheritor
Of all perfections that a man may owe,
Matchless Navarre; the plea of no less weight
Than Aquitaine, a dowry for a queen.
Be now as prodigal of all dear grace
As nature was in making graces dear
When she did starve the general world besides
And prodigally gave them all to you.
PRINCESS
Good Lord Boyet, my beauty, though but mean,
Needs not the painted flourish of your praise.
Beauty is bought by judgment of the eye,
Not uttered by base sale of chapmen’s tongues.
I am less proud to hear you tell my worth
Than you much willing to be counted wise
In spending your wit in the praise of mine.
But now to task the tasker: good Boyet,

---

You are not ignorant all-telling fame
Doth noise abroad Navarre hath made a vow,
Till painful study shall outwear three years,
No woman may approach his silent court.
Therefore to ’s seemeth it a needful course,
Before we enter his forbidden gates,
To know his pleasure, and in that behalf,
Bold of your worthiness, we single you
As our best-moving fair solicitor.
Tell him the daughter of the King of France
On serious business craving quick dispatch,
Importunes personal conference with his Grace.
Haste, signify so much, while we attend,
Like humble-visaged suitors, his high will.
BOYET
Proud of employment, willingly I go.
PRINCESS
All pride is willing pride, and yours is so.
Boyet exits.
Who are the votaries, my loving lords,
That are vow-fellows with this virtuous duke?
A LORD
Lord Longaville is one.
PRINCESS Know you the man?
MARIA
I know him, madam. At a marriage feast
Between Lord Perigort and the beauteous heir
Of Jaques Falconbridge, solemnizèd
In Normandy, saw I this Longaville.
A man of sovereign parts he is esteemed,
Well fitted in arts, glorious in arms.
Nothing becomes him ill that he would well.
The only soil of his fair virtue’s gloss,
If virtue’s gloss will stain with any soil,
Is a sharp wit matched with too blunt a will,
Whose edge hath power to cut, whose will still wills
It should none spare that come within his power.

---

PRINCESS
Some merry mocking lord, belike. Is ’t so?
MARIA
They say so most that most his humors know.
PRINCESS
Such short-lived wits do wither as they grow.
Who are the rest?
KATHERINE
The young Dumaine, a well-accomplished youth,
Of all that virtue love for virtue loved.
Most power to do most harm, least knowing ill;
For he hath wit to make an ill shape good,
And shape to win grace though he had no wit.
I saw him at the Duke Alanson’s once,
And much too little of that good I saw
Is my report to his great worthiness.
ROSALINE
Another of these students at that time
Was there with him, if I have heard a truth.
Berowne they call him, but a merrier man,
Within the limit of becoming mirth,
I never spent an hour’s talk withal.
His eye begets occasion for his wit,
For every object that the one doth catch
The other turns to a mirth-moving jest,
Which his fair tongue, conceit’s expositor,
Delivers in such apt and gracious words
That agèd ears play truant at his tales,
And younger hearings are quite ravishèd,
So sweet and voluble is his discourse.
PRINCESS
God bless my ladies, are they all in love,
That every one her own hath garnishèd
With such bedecking ornaments of praise?
A LORD
Here comes Boyet.

---

Enter Boyet.

PRINCESS Now, what admittance, lord?
BOYET
Navarre had notice of your fair approach,
And he and his competitors in oath
Were all addressed to meet you, gentle lady,
Before I came. Marry, thus much I have learned:
He rather means to lodge you in the field,
Like one that comes here to besiege his court,
Than seek a dispensation for his oath
To let you enter his unpeopled house.

Enter King of Navarre, Longaville, Dumaine, and
Berowne.

Here comes Navarre.
KING Fair Princess, welcome to the court of Navarre.
PRINCESS “Fair” I give you back again, and “welcome”
I have not yet. The roof of this court is too
high to be yours, and welcome to the wide fields too
base to be mine.
KING
You shall be welcome, madam, to my court.
PRINCESS
I will be welcome, then. Conduct me thither.
KING
Hear me, dear lady. I have sworn an oath.
PRINCESS
Our Lady help my lord! He’ll be forsworn.
KING
Not for the world, fair madam, by my will.
PRINCESS
Why, will shall break it, will and nothing else.
KING
Your Ladyship is ignorant what it is.

---

PRINCESS
Were my lord so, his ignorance were wise,
Where now his knowledge must prove ignorance.
I hear your Grace hath sworn out housekeeping.
’Tis deadly sin to keep that oath, my lord,
And sin to break it.
But pardon me, I am too sudden bold.
To teach a teacher ill beseemeth me.
Vouchsafe to read the purpose of my coming,
And suddenly resolve me in my suit.
She gives him a paper.
KING
Madam, I will, if suddenly I may.
PRINCESS
You will the sooner that I were away,
For you’ll prove perjured if you make me stay.
They walk aside while the King reads the paper.
BEROWNE , to Rosaline
Did not I dance with you in Brabant once?
ROSALINE
Did not I dance with you in Brabant once?
BEROWNE
I know you did.
ROSALINE How needless was it then
To ask the question.
BEROWNE You must not be so quick.
ROSALINE
’Tis long of you that spur me with such questions.
BEROWNE
Your wit’s too hot, it speeds too fast; ’twill tire.
ROSALINE
Not till it leave the rider in the mire.
BEROWNE
What time o’ day?
ROSALINE The hour that fools should ask.
BEROWNE Now fair befall your mask.

---

ROSALINE Fair fall the face it covers.
BEROWNE And send you many lovers.
ROSALINE Amen, so you be none.
BEROWNE Nay, then, will I be gone.
KING , coming forward with the Princess
Madam, your father here doth intimate
The payment of a hundred thousand crowns,
Being but the one half of an entire sum
Disbursèd by my father in his wars.
But say that he or we, as neither have,
Received that sum, yet there remains unpaid
A hundred thousand more, in surety of the which
One part of Aquitaine is bound to us,
Although not valued to the money’s worth.
If then the King your father will restore
But that one half which is unsatisfied,
We will give up our right in Aquitaine,
And hold fair friendship with his Majesty.
But that, it seems, he little purposeth;
For here he doth demand to have repaid
A hundred thousand crowns, and not demands,
On payment of a hundred thousand crowns,
To have his title live in Aquitaine—
Which we much rather had depart withal,
And have the money by our father lent,
Than Aquitaine, so gelded as it is.
Dear Princess, were not his requests so far
From reason’s yielding, your fair self should make
A yielding ’gainst some reason in my breast,
And go well satisfied to France again.
PRINCESS
You do the King my father too much wrong,
And wrong the reputation of your name,
In so unseeming to confess receipt
Of that which hath so faithfully been paid.

---

KING
I do protest I never heard of it;
And if you prove it, I’ll repay it back
Or yield up Aquitaine.
PRINCESS We arrest your word.—
Boyet, you can produce acquittances
For such a sum from special officers
Of Charles his father.
KING Satisfy me so.
BOYET
So please your Grace, the packet is not come
Where that and other specialties are bound.
Tomorrow you shall have a sight of them.
KING
It shall suffice me; at which interview
All liberal reason I will yield unto.
Meantime receive such welcome at my hand
As honor (without breach of honor) may
Make tender of to thy true worthiness.
You may not come, fair princess, within my gates,
But here without you shall be so received
As you shall deem yourself lodged in my heart,
Though so denied fair harbor in my house.
Your own good thoughts excuse me, and farewell.
Tomorrow shall we visit you again.
PRINCESS
Sweet health and fair desires consort your Grace.
KING
Thy own wish wish I thee in every place.
He exits with Dumaine,
Longaville, and Attendants.
BEROWNE , to Rosaline Lady, I will commend you to
my own heart.
ROSALINE Pray you, do my commendations. I would
be glad to see it.
BEROWNE I would you heard it groan.

---

ROSALINE Is the fool sick?
BEROWNE Sick at the heart.
ROSALINE Alack, let it blood.
BEROWNE Would that do it good?
ROSALINE My physic says “ay.”
BEROWNE Will you prick ’t with your eye?
ROSALINE No point, with my knife.
BEROWNE Now God save thy life.
ROSALINE And yours from long living.
BEROWNE I cannot stay thanksgiving. He exits.

Enter Dumaine.

DUMAINE , to Boyet
Sir, I pray you, a word. What lady is that same?
BOYET
The heir of Alanson, Katherine her name.
DUMAINE
A gallant lady, monsieur. Fare you well. He exits.

Enter Longaville.

LONGAVILLE , to Boyet
I beseech you, a word. What is she in the white?
BOYET
A woman sometimes, an you saw her in the light.
LONGAVILLE
Perchance light in the light. I desire her name.
BOYET
She hath but one for herself; to desire that were a
shame.
LONGAVILLE Pray you, sir, whose daughter?
BOYET Her mother’s, I have heard.
LONGAVILLE God’s blessing on your beard!
BOYET Good sir, be not offended. She is an heir of
Falconbridge.
LONGAVILLE Nay, my choler is ended. She is a most
sweet lady.

---

BOYET Not unlike, sir, that may be.
Longaville exits.

Enter Berowne.

BEROWNE , to Boyet What’s her name in the cap?
BOYET Rosaline , by good hap.
BEROWNE Is she wedded or no?
BOYET To her will, sir, or so.
BEROWNE You are welcome, sir. Adieu.
BOYET Farewell to me, sir, and welcome to you.
Berowne exits.
MARIA
That last is Berowne, the merry madcap lord.
Not a word with him but a jest.
BOYET And every jest but
a word.
PRINCESS
It was well done of you to take him at his word.
BOYET
I was as willing to grapple as he was to board.
KATHERINE
Two hot sheeps, marry.
BOYET And wherefore not ships?
No sheep, sweet lamb, unless we feed on your lips.
KATHERINE
You sheep and I pasture. Shall that finish the jest?
BOYET
So you grant pasture for me. He tries to kiss her.
KATHERINE Not so, gentle beast,
My lips are no common, though several they be.
BOYET
Belonging to whom?
KATHERINE To my fortunes and me.
PRINCESS
Good wits will be jangling; but, gentles, agree,
This civil war of wits were much better used
On Navarre and his bookmen, for here ’tis abused.

---

BOYET
If my observation, which very seldom lies,
By the heart’s still rhetoric, disclosèd wi’ th’ eyes,
Deceive me not now, Navarre is infected.
PRINCESS With what?
BOYET
With that which we lovers entitle “affected.”
PRINCESS Your reason?
BOYET
Why, all his behaviors did make their retire
To the court of his eye, peeping thorough desire.
His heart like an agate with your print impressed,
Proud with his form, in his eye pride expressed.
His tongue, all impatient to speak and not see,
Did stumble with haste in his eyesight to be;
All senses to that sense did make their repair,
To feel only looking on fairest of fair.
Methought all his senses were locked in his eye,
As jewels in crystal for some prince to buy,
Who, tend’ring their own worth from where they
were glassed,
Did point you to buy them along as you passed.
His face’s own margent did quote such amazes
That all eyes saw his eyes enchanted with gazes.
I’ll give you Aquitaine, and all that is his,
An you give him for my sake but one loving kiss.
PRINCESS , to her Ladies
Come, to our pavilion. Boyet is disposed.
BOYET
But to speak that in words which his eye hath
disclosed.
I only have made a mouth of his eye
By adding a tongue which I know will not lie.
MARIA
Thou art an old lovemonger and speakest skillfully.

---

KATHERINE
He is Cupid’s grandfather, and learns news of him.
ROSALINE
Then was Venus like her mother, for her father is
but grim.
BOYET
Do you hear, my mad wenches?
MARIA No.
BOYET What then, do
you see?
MARIA
Ay, our way to be gone.
BOYET You are too hard for me.
They all exit.

Enter Braggart Armado and his Boy.

ARMADO Warble, child, make passionate my sense of
hearing.
BOY sings Concolinel .
ARMADO Sweet air. Go, tenderness of years. He hands
over a key. Take this key, give enlargement to the
swain, bring him festinately hither. I must employ
him in a letter to my love.
BOY Master, will you win your love with a French
brawl?
ARMADO How meanest thou? Brawling in French?
BOY No, my complete master, but to jig off a tune at the
tongue’s end, canary to it with your feet, humor it
with turning up your eyelids, sigh a note and sing a
note, sometimes through the throat as if you
swallowed love with singing love, sometimes
through the nose as if you snuffed up love by
smelling love; with your hat penthouse-like o’er the
shop of your eyes, with your arms crossed on your
thin-belly doublet like a rabbit on a spit; or your
hands in your pocket like a man after the old
painting; and keep not too long in one tune, but a
snip and away. These are compliments, these are
humors; these betray nice wenches that would be
betrayed without these, and make them men of

---

note—do you note me ? —that most are affected
to these.
ARMADO How hast thou purchased this experience?
BOY By my penny of observation.
ARMADO But O— but O—.
BOY “The hobby-horse is forgot.”
ARMADO Call’st thou my love “hobby-horse”?
BOY No, master. The hobby-horse is but a colt, aside
and your love perhaps a hackney.—But have you
forgot your love?
ARMADO Almost I had.
BOY Negligent student, learn her by heart.
ARMADO By heart and in heart, boy.
BOY And out of heart, master. All those three I will
prove.
ARMADO What wilt thou prove?
BOY A man, if I live; and this “by, in, and without,”
upon the instant: “by” heart you love her, because
your heart cannot come by her; “in” heart you love
her, because your heart is in love with her; and
“out” of heart you love her, being out of heart that
you cannot enjoy her.
ARMADO I am all these three.
BOY And three times as much more, aside and yet
nothing at all.
ARMADO Fetch hither the swain. He must carry me a
letter.
BOY A message well sympathized—a horse to be ambassador
for an ass.
ARMADO Ha? Ha? What sayest thou?
BOY Marry, sir, you must send the ass upon the horse,
for he is very slow-gaited. But I go.
ARMADO The way is but short. Away!
BOY As swift as lead, sir.
ARMADO Thy meaning, pretty ingenious?
Is not lead a metal heavy, dull, and slow?

---

BOY
Minime , honest master, or rather, master, no.
ARMADO
I say lead is slow.
BOY You are too swift, sir, to say so.
Is that lead slow which is fired from a gun?
ARMADO Sweet smoke of rhetoric!
He reputes me a cannon, and the bullet, that’s
he.—
I shoot thee at the swain.
BOY Thump, then, and I flee.
He exits.
ARMADO
A most acute juvenal, voluble and free of grace.
By thy favor, sweet welkin, I must sigh in thy face.
Most rude melancholy, valor gives thee place.
My herald is returned.

Enter Boy and Clown Costard .

BOY A wonder, master!
Here’s a costard broken in a shin.
ARMADO
Some enigma, some riddle. Come, thy l’envoi begin.
COSTARD No egma, no riddle, no l’envoi , no salve in
the mail, sir. O, sir, plantain, a plain plantain! No
l’envoi , no l’envoi , no salve, sir, but a plantain.
ARMADO By virtue, thou enforcest laughter; thy silly
thought, my spleen. The heaving of my lungs
provokes me to ridiculous smiling. O pardon me,
my stars! Doth the inconsiderate take salve for
l’envoi , and the word l’envoi for a salve ?
BOY
Do the wise think them other? Is not l’envoi a salve ?
ARMADO
No, page, it is an epilogue or discourse to make plain

---

Some obscure precedence that hath tofore been sain.
I will example it:
The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee
Were still at odds, being but three.
There’s the moral. Now the l’envoi .
BOY I will add the l’envoi . Say the moral again.
ARMADO
The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee
Were still at odds, being but three.
BOY
Until the goose came out of door
And stayed the odds by adding four.
Now will I begin your moral, and do you follow with
my l’envoi .
The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee
Were still at odds, being but three.
ARMADO
Until the goose came out of door,
Staying the odds by adding four.
BOY A good l’envoi , ending in the goose. Would you
desire more?
COSTARD
The boy hath sold him a bargain—a goose, that’s
flat.—
Sir, your pennyworth is good, an your goose be fat.
To sell a bargain well is as cunning as fast and
loose.
Let me see: a fat l’envoi —ay, that’s a fat goose.
ARMADO
Come hither, come hither. How did this argument
begin?
BOY
By saying that a costard was broken in a shin.
Then called you for the l’envoi .

---

COSTARD True, and I for a plantain. Thus came your
argument in. Then the boy’s fat l’envoi , the goose
that you bought; and he ended the market.
ARMADO But tell me, how was there a costard broken
in a shin?
BOY I will tell you sensibly.
COSTARD Thou hast no feeling of it, Mote. I will speak
that l’envoi .
I, Costard, running out, that was safely within,
Fell over the threshold and broke my shin.
ARMADO We will talk no more of this matter.
COSTARD Till there be more matter in the shin.
ARMADO Sirrah Costard, I will enfranchise thee.
COSTARD O, marry me to one Frances! I smell some
l’envoi , some goose, in this.
ARMADO By my sweet soul, I mean, setting thee at
liberty, enfreedoming thy person. Thou wert immured,
restrained, captivated, bound.
COSTARD True, true; and now you will be my purgation,
and let me loose.
ARMADO I give thee thy liberty, set thee from durance,
and, in lieu thereof, impose on thee nothing but
this: bear this significant to the country maid
Jaquenetta. ( He gives him a paper. ) There is remuneration
( giving him a coin, ) for the best ward of
mine honor is rewarding my dependents.—Mote,
follow. He exits.
BOY Like the sequel, I. Signior Costard, adieu.
He exits.
COSTARD
My sweet ounce of man’s flesh, my incony Jew!
Now will I look to his remuneration. He looks at the
coin. “Remuneration”! O, that’s the Latin word for
three farthings. Three farthings— remuneration .

---

“What’s the price of this inkle?” “One penny.” “No,
I’ll give you a remuneration.” Why, it carries it!
Remuneration . Why, it is a fairer name than “French
crown.” I will never buy and sell out of this word.

Enter Berowne.

BEROWNE My good knave Costard, exceedingly well
met.
COSTARD Pray you, sir, how much carnation ribbon
may a man buy for a remuneration?
BEROWNE What is a remuneration?
COSTARD Marry, sir, halfpenny farthing.
BEROWNE Why then, three farthing worth of silk.
COSTARD I thank your Worship. God be wi’ you.
He begins to exit.
BEROWNE Stay, slave, I must employ thee.
As thou wilt win my favor, good my knave,
Do one thing for me that I shall entreat.
COSTARD When would you have it done, sir?
BEROWNE This afternoon.
COSTARD Well, I will do it, sir. Fare you well.
BEROWNE Thou knowest not what it is.
COSTARD I shall know, sir, when I have done it.
BEROWNE Why, villain, thou must know first.
COSTARD I will come to your Worship tomorrow
morning.
BEROWNE It must be done this afternoon. Hark, slave,
it is but this:
The Princess comes to hunt here in the park,
And in her train there is a gentle lady.
When tongues speak sweetly, then they name her
name,
And Rosaline they call her. Ask for her,
And to her white hand see thou do commend

---

This sealed-up counsel. There’s thy guerdon. He
gives him money. Go.
COSTARD Gardon. He looks at the money. O sweet
gardon! Better than remuneration, a ’levenpence
farthing better! Most sweet gardon. I will do it, sir,
in print. Gardon! Remuneration! He exits.
BEROWNE
And I forsooth in love! I that have been love’s whip,
A very beadle to a humorous sigh,
A critic, nay, a nightwatch constable,
A domineering pedant o’er the boy,
Than whom no mortal so magnificent.
This wimpled, whining, purblind, wayward boy,
This Signior Junior, giant dwarf, Dan Cupid,
Regent of love rhymes, lord of folded arms,
Th’ anointed sovereign of sighs and groans,
Liege of all loiterers and malcontents,
Dread prince of plackets, king of codpieces,
Sole imperator and great general
Of trotting paritors—O my little heart!
And I to be a corporal of his field
And wear his colors like a tumbler’s hoop!
What? I love, I sue, I seek a wife?
A woman, that is like a German clock ,
Still a-repairing, ever out of frame,
And never going aright, being a watch,
But being watched that it may still go right.
Nay, to be perjured, which is worst of all.
And, among three, to love the worst of all,
A whitely wanton with a velvet brow,
With two pitch-balls stuck in her face for eyes.
Ay, and by heaven, one that will do the deed
Though Argus were her eunuch and her guard.
And I to sigh for her, to watch for her,
To pray for her! Go to. It is a plague

---

That Cupid will impose for my neglect
Of his almighty dreadful little might.
Well, I will love, write, sigh, pray, sue, groan.
Some men must love my lady, and some Joan.
He exits.

Enter the Princess, a Forester, her Ladies, Boyet and
her other Lords.

PRINCESS
Was that the King that spurred his horse so hard
Against the steep uprising of the hill?
FORESTER
I know not, but I think it was not he.
PRINCESS
Whoe’er he was, he showed a mounting mind.—
Well, lords, today we shall have our dispatch.
Or Saturday we will return to France.—
Then, forester, my friend, where is the bush
That we must stand and play the murderer in?
FORESTER
Hereby, upon the edge of yonder coppice,
A stand where you may make the fairest shoot.
PRINCESS
I thank my beauty, I am fair that shoot,
And thereupon thou speakst “the fairest shoot.”
FORESTER
Pardon me, madam, for I meant not so.
PRINCESS
What, what? First praise me, and again say no?
O short-lived pride. Not fair? Alack, for woe!

---

FORESTER
Yes, madam, fair.
PRINCESS Nay, never paint me now.
Where fair is not, praise cannot mend the brow.
Here, good my glass, take this for telling true.
She gives him money.
Fair payment for foul words is more than due.
FORESTER
Nothing but fair is that which you inherit.
PRINCESS
See, see, my beauty will be saved by merit.
O heresy in fair, fit for these days!
A giving hand, though foul, shall have fair praise.
But come, the bow. He hands her a bow. Now
mercy goes to kill,
And shooting well is then accounted ill.
Thus will I save my credit in the shoot:
Not wounding, pity would not let me do ’t;
If wounding, then it was to show my skill,
That more for praise than purpose meant to kill.
And out of question so it is sometimes:
Glory grows guilty of detested crimes,
When for fame’s sake, for praise, an outward part,
We bend to that the working of the heart;
As I for praise alone now seek to spill
The poor deer’s blood, that my heart means no ill.
BOYET
Do not curst wives hold that self sovereignty
Only for praise’ sake when they strive to be
Lords o’er their lords?
PRINCESS
Only for praise; and praise we may afford
To any lady that subdues a lord.

Enter Clown Costard .

---

BOYET
Here comes a member of the commonwealth.
COSTARD God dig-you-den all! Pray you, which is the
head lady?
PRINCESS Thou shalt know her, fellow, by the rest that
have no heads.
COSTARD Which is the greatest lady, the highest?
PRINCESS The thickest and the tallest.
COSTARD
The thickest and the tallest: it is so, truth is
truth.
An your waist, mistress, were as slender as my wit,
One o’ these maids’ girdles for your waist should be
fit.
Are not you the chief woman? You are the thickest
here.
PRINCESS What’s your will, sir? What’s your will?
COSTARD I have a letter from Monsieur Berowne to
one Lady Rosaline.
PRINCESS
O, thy letter, thy letter! He’s a good friend of mine.
Stand aside, good bearer.—Boyet, you can carve.
Break up this capon.
BOYET , taking the letter I am bound to serve.
This letter is mistook; it importeth none here.
It is writ to Jaquenetta.
PRINCESS We will read it, I swear.
Break the neck of the wax, and everyone give ear.
BOYET reads. By heaven, that thou art fair is most
infallible, true that thou art beauteous, truth itself
that thou art lovely. More fairer than fair, beautiful
than beauteous, truer than truth itself, have commiseration
on thy heroical vassal. The magnanimous and
most illustrate King Cophetua set eye upon the pernicious
and indubitate beggar Zenelophon; and he it
was that might rightly say “Veni, vidi, vici,” which to

---

89

Love’s Labor’s Lost

ACT 4. SC. 1

annothanize in the vulgar (O base and obscure vulgar!)
videlicet, “He came, see, and overcame”: He
came, one; see, two; overcame, three. Who came? The
King. Why did he come? To see. Why did he see? To
overcome. To whom came he? To the beggar. What
saw he? The beggar. Who overcame he? The beggar.
The conclusion is victory. On whose side? The
King’s . The captive is enriched. On whose side? The
beggar’s. The catastrophe is a nuptial. On whose side?
The King’s—no, on both in one, or one in both. I am
the King, for so stands the comparison; thou the
beggar, for so witnesseth thy lowliness. Shall I command
thy love? I may. Shall I enforce thy love? I could.
Shall I entreat thy love? I will. What shalt thou
exchange for rags? Robes. For tittles? Titles. For thyself?
Me. Thus expecting thy reply, I profane my lips on thy
foot, my eyes on thy picture, and my heart on thy every
part.
Thine, in the dearest design of industry,
Don Adriano de Armado.
Thus dost thou hear the Nemean lion roar
’Gainst thee, thou lamb, that standest as his prey.
Submissive fall his princely feet before,
And he from forage will incline to play.
But if thou strive, poor soul, what art thou then?
Food for his rage, repasture for his den.
PRINCESS
What plume of feathers is he that indited this letter?
What vane? What weathercock? Did you ever hear
better?
BOYET
I am much deceived but I remember the style.
PRINCESS
Else your memory is bad, going o’er it erewhile.
BOYET
This Armado is a Spaniard that keeps here in court,

---

A phantasime, a Monarcho, and one that makes
sport
To the Prince and his bookmates.
PRINCESS , to Costard Thou, fellow, a word.
Who gave thee this letter?
COSTARD I told you: my lord.
PRINCESS
To whom shouldst thou give it?
COSTARD From my lord to my
lady.
PRINCESS From which lord to which lady?
COSTARD
From my Lord Berowne, a good master of mine,
To a lady of France that he called Rosaline.
PRINCESS
Thou hast mistaken his letter. Come, lords, away.
To Rosaline. Here, sweet, put up this; ’twill be
thine another day.
The Princess, Katherine, Lords, and
Forester exit. Boyet, Rosaline, Maria,
and Costard remain.
BOYET
Who is the shooter? Who is the shooter?
ROSALINE Shall I
teach you to know?
BOYET
Ay, my continent of beauty.
ROSALINE Why, she that bears the bow.
Finely put off.
BOYET
My lady goes to kill horns, but if thou marry,
Hang me by the neck if horns that year miscarry.
Finely put on.
ROSALINE
Well, then, I am the shooter.
BOYET And who is your deer?

---

ROSALINE
If we choose by the horns, yourself come not near.
Finely put on, indeed.
MARIA
You still wrangle with her, Boyet, and she strikes at
the brow.
BOYET
But she herself is hit lower. Have I hit her now?
ROSALINE Shall I come upon thee with an old saying,
that was a man when King Pippen of France was a
little boy, as touching the hit it?
BOYET So I may answer thee with one as old, that was a
woman when Queen Guinover of Britain was a little
wench, as touching the hit it.
ROSALINE sings
Thou canst not hit it, hit it, hit it,
Thou canst not hit it, my good man.
BOYET sings
An I cannot, cannot, cannot,
An I cannot, another can.
Rosaline exits.
COSTARD
By my troth, most pleasant. How both did fit it!
MARIA
A mark marvelous well shot, for they both did hit
it .
BOYET
A mark! O, mark but that mark. “A mark,” says my
lady.
Let the mark have a prick in ’t to mete at, if it may
be.
MARIA
Wide o’ the bow hand! I’ faith, your hand is out.
COSTARD
Indeed, he must shoot nearer, or he’ll ne’er hit the
clout.

---

BOYET , to Maria
An if my hand be out, then belike your hand is in.
COSTARD
Then will she get the upshoot by cleaving the pin .
MARIA
Come, come, you talk greasily. Your lips grow foul.
COSTARD , to Boyet
She’s too hard for you at pricks, sir. Challenge her
to bowl.
BOYET
I fear too much rubbing. Good night, my good owl.
Boyet and Maria exit.
COSTARD
By my soul, a swain, a most simple clown.
Lord, Lord, how the ladies and I have put him
down.
O’ my troth, most sweet jests, most incony vulgar
wit,
When it comes so smoothly off, so obscenely, as it
were, so fit.
Armado o’ th’ one side, O, a most dainty man!
To see him walk before a lady and to bear her fan.
To see him kiss his hand, and how most sweetly he
will swear.
And his page o’ t’ other side, that handful of wit!
Ah heavens, it is a most pathetical nit.
Shout within.
Sola, sola!
He exits.

Enter Dull the Constable, Holofernes the Pedant, and
Nathaniel the Curate.

NATHANIEL Very reverend sport, truly, and done in the
testimony of a good conscience.

---

HOLOFERNES 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.
NATHANIEL Truly, Master Holofernes, the epithets are
sweetly varied, like a scholar at the least. But, sir, I
assure you, it was a buck of the first head.
HOLOFERNES Sir Nathaniel, haud credo .
DULL ’Twas not a haud credo , ’twas a pricket.
HOLOFERNES 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.
DULL I said the deer was not a haud credo , ’twas a
pricket.
HOLOFERNES Twice-sod simplicity, bis coctus !
O thou monster ignorance, how deformed dost thou
look!
NATHANIEL
Sir, he hath never fed of the dainties that are bred
in a book.
He hath not eat paper, as it were; he hath not drunk
ink. His intellect is not replenished. He is only an
animal, only sensible in the duller parts.
And such barren plants are set before us that we
thankful should be—
Which we of taste and feeling are—for those parts
that do fructify in us more than he.
For as it would ill become me to be vain, indiscreet,
or a fool,
So were there a patch set on learning, to see him in
a school.

---

But omne bene , say I, being of an old father’s mind:
Many can brook the weather that love not the wind.
DULL
You two are bookmen. Can you tell me by your wit
What was a month old at Cain’s birth that’s not
five weeks old as yet?
HOLOFERNES Dictynna, goodman Dull, Dictynna,
goodman Dull.
DULL What is “dictima”?
NATHANIEL
A title to Phoebe, to Luna, to the moon.
HOLOFERNES
The moon was a month old when Adam was no
more.
And raught not to five weeks when he came to
fivescore.
Th’ allusion holds in the exchange.
DULL ’Tis true indeed. The collusion holds in the
exchange.
HOLOFERNES God comfort thy capacity! I say, th’ allusion
holds in the exchange.
DULL And I say the pollution holds in the exchange, for
the moon is never but a month old. And I say besides
that, ’twas a pricket that the Princess killed.
HOLOFERNES Sir Nathaniel, will you hear an extemporal
epitaph on the death of the deer? And, to humor
the ignorant , call I the deer the Princess killed a
pricket.
NATHANIEL Perge , good Master Holofernes, perge , so it
shall please you to abrogate scurrility.
HOLOFERNES I will something affect the letter, for it
argues facility.
The preyful princess pierced and pricked
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 o’ sorel.
Of one sore I an hundred make by adding but one
more “L.”
NATHANIEL A rare talent.
DULL , aside If a talent be a claw, look how he claws
him with a talent.
HOLOFERNES 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.
NATHANIEL 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 greatly under
you. You are a good member of the
commonwealth.
HOLOFERNES Mehercle , if their sons be ingenious ,
they shall want no instruction; if their daughters be
capable, I will put it to them. But Vir sapis qui pauca
loquitur . A soul feminine saluteth us.

Enter Jaquenetta and the Clown Costard .

JAQUENETTA , to Nathaniel God give you good morrow,
Master Person.
HOLOFERNES Master Person, quasi pierce one. And
if one should be pierced, which is the one?
COSTARD Marry, Master Schoolmaster, he that is likeliest
to a hogshead.

---

HOLOFERNES Of piercing a hogshead! A good luster
of conceit in a turf of earth; fire enough for a flint,
pearl enough for a swine. ’Tis pretty, it is well.
JAQUENETTA , to Nathaniel 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.
She hands Nathaniel a paper, which he looks at.
HOLOFERNES
Facile precor gelida quando peccas omnia sub umbra.
Ruminat—
and so forth. Ah, good old Mantuan! I may speak of
thee as the traveler doth of Venice:
Venetia, Venetia,
Chi non ti vede, non ti pretia.
Old Mantuan, old Mantuan! Who understandeth
thee not, loves thee not. ( He sings. ) Ut, re, sol, la,
mi, fa. ( To Nathaniel. ) Under pardon, sir, what are
the contents? Or rather, as Horace says in his—
( Looking at the letter. ) What, my soul, verses?
NATHANIEL Ay, sir, and very learned.
HOLOFERNES Let me hear a staff, a stanza, 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-learnèd is that tongue that well can thee
commend.

---

105

Love’s Labor’s Lost

ACT 4. SC. 2

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 sings heaven’s praise with such an earthly tongue.
HOLOFERNES You find not the apostrophus, and so
miss the accent. Let me supervise the canzonet .
He takes the paper. 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 odoriferous
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?
JAQUENETTA Ay, sir, from one Monsieur Berowne, one
of the strange queen’s lords.
HOLOFERNES 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, Berowne.” Sir Nathaniel , this
Berowne 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. To Jaquenetta.
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.
JAQUENETTA Good Costard, go with me.—Sir, God
save your life.
COSTARD Have with thee, my girl.
Costard and Jaquenetta exit.

---

NATHANIEL Sir, you have done this in the fear of God
very religiously; and, as a certain Father saith—
HOLOFERNES Sir, tell not me of the Father. I do fear
colorable colors. But to return to the verses: did
they please you, Sir Nathaniel?
NATHANIEL Marvelous well for the pen.
HOLOFERNES I do dine today 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 savoring of poetry, wit, nor invention.
I beseech your society.
NATHANIEL And thank you too; for society, saith the
text, is the happiness of life.
HOLOFERNES 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.
They exit.

Enter Berowne with a paper in his hand, alone.

BEROWNE The King, he is hunting the deer; I am
coursing myself. They have pitched a toil; I am
toiling in a pitch—pitch that defiles. Defile! A foul
word. Well, “set thee down, sorrow”; for so they
say the fool said, and so say I, and I the fool. Well
proved, wit. By the Lord, this love is as mad as Ajax.
It kills sheep, it kills me, I a sheep. Well proved
again, o’ my side. I will not love. If I do, hang me. I’
faith, I will not. O, but her eye! By this light, but for
her eye I would not love her; yes, for her two eyes.

---

Well, I do nothing in the world but lie, and lie in my
throat. By heaven, I do love, and it hath taught me to
rhyme, and to be melancholy. And here is part of my
rhyme, and here my melancholy. Well, she hath one
o’ my sonnets already. The clown bore it, the fool
sent it, and the lady hath it. Sweet clown, sweeter
fool, sweetest lady. By the world, I would not care a
pin, if the other three were in. Here comes one with
a paper. God give him grace to groan.
He stands aside.

The King entereth with a paper.

KING Ay me!
BEROWNE , aside Shot, by heaven! Proceed, sweet
Cupid. Thou hast thumped him with thy birdbolt
under the left pap. In faith, secrets!
KING reads
So sweet a kiss the golden sun gives not
To those fresh morning drops upon the rose
As thy eyebeams, when their fresh rays have smote
The night of dew that on my cheeks down flows.
Nor shines the silver moon one-half so bright
Through the transparent bosom of the deep
As doth thy face, through tears of mine, give light.
Thou shin’st in every tear that I do weep.
No drop but as a coach doth carry thee;
So ridest thou triumphing in my woe.
Do but behold the tears that swell in me,
And they thy glory through my grief will show.
But do not love thyself; then thou wilt keep
My tears for glasses, and still make me weep.
O queen of queens, how far dost thou excel
No thought can think, nor tongue of mortal tell.

How shall she know my griefs? I’ll drop the paper.
Sweet leaves, shade folly. Who is he comes here?

---

Enter Longaville, with papers. The King steps aside.

What, Longaville, and reading! Listen, ear.
BEROWNE , aside
Now, in thy likeness, one more fool appear!
LONGAVILLE Ay me! I am forsworn.
BEROWNE , aside
Why, he comes in like a perjure, wearing papers!
KING , aside
In love, I hope! Sweet fellowship in shame.
BEROWNE , aside
One drunkard loves another of the name.
LONGAVILLE
Am I the first that have been perjured so?
BEROWNE , aside
I could put thee in comfort: not by two that I know.
Thou makest the triumviry, the corner-cap of
society,
The shape of love’s Tyburn, that hangs up simplicity.
LONGAVILLE
I fear these stubborn lines lack power to move.
Reads . O sweet Maria, empress of my love—
These numbers will I tear and write in prose.
He tears the paper.
BEROWNE , aside
O, rhymes are guards on wanton Cupid’s hose.
Disfigure not his shop!
LONGAVILLE , taking another paper This same shall go.
( He reads the sonnet. )
Did not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye,
’Gainst whom the world cannot hold argument,
Persuade my heart to this false perjury?
Vows for thee broke deserve not punishment.
A woman I forswore, but I will prove,
Thou being a goddess, I forswore not thee.
My vow was earthly, thou a heavenly love.

---

113

Love’s Labor’s Lost

ACT 4. SC. 3

Thy grace being gained cures all disgrace in me.
Vows are but breath, and breath a vapor is.
Then thou, fair sun, which on my Earth dost
shine,
Exhal’st this vapor-vow; in thee it is.
If broken, then, it is no fault of mine.
If by me broke, what fool is not so wise
To lose an oath to win a paradise?
BEROWNE , aside
This is the liver vein, which makes flesh a deity,
A green goose a goddess. Pure, pure idolatry .
God amend us, God amend. We are much out o’ th’
way.
LONGAVILLE
By whom shall I send this?—Company? Stay.
He steps aside.

Enter Dumaine, with a paper.

BEROWNE , aside
All hid, all hid—an old infant play.
Like a demigod here sit I in the sky,
And wretched fools’ secrets heedfully o’ereye.
More sacks to the mill. O heavens, I have my wish.
Dumaine transformed! Four woodcocks in a dish.
DUMAINE O most divine Kate!
BEROWNE , aside O most profane coxcomb!
DUMAINE
By heaven, the wonder in a mortal eye!
BEROWNE , aside
By Earth, she is not, corporal. There you lie.
DUMAINE
Her amber hairs for foul hath amber quoted.
BEROWNE , aside
An amber-colored raven was well noted.
DUMAINE
As upright as the cedar.

---

BEROWNE , aside Stoop, I say.
Her shoulder is with child.
DUMAINE As fair as day.
BEROWNE , aside
Ay, as some days, but then no sun must shine.
DUMAINE
O, that I had my wish!
LONGAVILLE , aside And I had mine!
KING , aside And mine too, good Lord!
BEROWNE , aside
Amen, so I had mine. Is not that a good word?
DUMAINE
I would forget her, but a fever she
Reigns in my blood, and will remembered be.
BEROWNE , aside
A fever in your blood? Why, then incision
Would let her out in saucers! Sweet misprision.
DUMAINE
Once more I’ll read the ode that I have writ.
BEROWNE , aside
Once more I’ll mark how love can vary wit.
DUMAINE reads his sonnet.
On a day—alack the day!—
Love, whose month is ever May,
Spied a blossom passing fair,
Playing in the wanton air.
Through the velvet leaves the wind,
All unseen, can passage find;
That the lover, sick to death,
Wished himself the heaven’s breath.
“Air,” quoth he, “thy cheeks may blow.
Air, would I might triumph so!”
But, alack, my hand is sworn
Ne’er to pluck thee from thy thorn .

---

117

Love’s Labor’s Lost

ACT 4. SC. 3

Vow, alack, for youth unmeet,
Youth so apt to pluck a sweet.
Do not call it sin in me
That I am forsworn for thee—
Thou for whom Jove would swear
Juno but an Ethiope were,
And deny himself for Jove,
Turning mortal for thy love.
This will I send, and something else more plain
That shall express my true love’s fasting pain.
O, would the King, Berowne, and Longaville
Were lovers too! Ill to example ill
Would from my forehead wipe a perjured note,
For none offend where all alike do dote.
LONGAVILLE , coming forward
Dumaine, thy love is far from charity,
That in love’s grief desir’st society.
You may look pale, but I should blush, I know,
To be o’er-heard and taken napping so.
KING , coming forward
To Longaville. Come, sir, you blush! As his, your
case is such.
You chide at him, offending twice as much.
You do not love Maria? Longaville
Did never sonnet for her sake compile,
Nor never lay his wreathèd arms athwart
His loving bosom to keep down his heart?
I have been closely shrouded in this bush
And marked you both, and for you both did blush.
I heard your guilty rhymes, observed your fashion,
Saw sighs reek from you, noted well your passion.
“Ay, me!” says one. “O Jove!” the other cries.
One, her hairs were gold, crystal the other’s eyes.
To Longaville. You would for paradise break faith
and troth,

---

To Dumaine. And Jove, for your love, would
infringe an oath.
What will Berowne say when that he shall hear
Faith infringed, which such zeal did swear?
How will he scorn, how will he spend his wit!
How will he triumph, leap, and laugh at it!
For all the wealth that ever I did see,
I would not have him know so much by me.
BEROWNE , coming forward
Now step I forth to whip hypocrisy.
Ah, good my liege, I pray thee pardon me.
Good heart, what grace hast thou thus to reprove
These worms for loving, that art most in love?
Your eyes do make no coaches ; in your tears
There is no certain princess that appears.
You’ll not be perjured, ’tis a hateful thing!
Tush, none but minstrels like of sonneting!
But are you not ashamed? Nay, are you not,
All three of you, to be thus much o’ershot?
To Longaville. You found his mote, the King your
mote did see,
But I a beam do find in each of three.
O, what a scene of fool’ry have I seen,
Of sighs, of groans, of sorrow, and of teen!
O me, with what strict patience have I sat,
To see a king transformèd to a gnat!
To see great Hercules whipping a gig,
And profound Solomon to tune a jig,
And Nestor play at pushpin with the boys,
And critic Timon laugh at idle toys.
Where lies thy grief, O tell me, good Dumaine?
And gentle Longaville, where lies thy pain?
And where my liege’s? All about the breast!
A caudle, ho!
KING Too bitter is thy jest.
Are we betrayed thus to thy overview?

---

BEROWNE
Not you to me, but I betrayed by you.
I, that am honest, I, that hold it sin
To break the vow I am engagèd in.
I am betrayed by keeping company
With men like you , men of inconstancy.
When shall you see me write a thing in rhyme?
Or groan for Joan? or spend a minute’s time
In pruning me? When shall you hear that I
Will praise a hand, a foot, a face, an eye,
A gait, a state, a brow, a breast, a waist,
A leg, a limb—

Enter Jaquenetta, with a paper, and Clown Costard .
Berowne begins to exit.

KING Soft, whither away so fast?
A true man, or a thief, that gallops so?
BEROWNE
I post from love. Good lover, let me go.
JAQUENETTA
God bless the King.
KING What present hast thou there?
COSTARD
Some certain treason.
KING What makes treason here?
COSTARD
Nay, it makes nothing, sir.
KING If it mar nothing neither,
The treason and you go in peace away together.
JAQUENETTA
I beseech your Grace, let this letter be read.
Our person misdoubts it. ’Twas treason, he said.
KING
Berowne, read it over.
Berowne reads the letter.
To Jaquenetta. Where hadst thou it?

---

JAQUENETTA Of Costard.
KING , to Costard Where hadst thou it?
COSTARD Of Dun Adramadio, Dun Adramadio.
Berowne tears the paper.
KING , to Berowne
How now, what is in you? Why dost thou tear it?
BEROWNE
A toy, my liege, a toy. Your Grace needs not fear it.
LONGAVILLE
It did move him to passion, and therefore let’s hear
it.
DUMAINE , picking up the papers
It is Berowne’s writing, and here is his name.
BEROWNE , to Costard
Ah, you whoreson loggerhead, you were born to do
me shame.—
Guilty, my lord, guilty. I confess, I confess.
KING What?
BEROWNE
That you three fools lacked me fool to make up
the mess.
He, he, and you—and you, my liege—and I
Are pickpurses in love, and we deserve to die.
O, dismiss this audience, and I shall tell you more.
DUMAINE
Now the number is even.
BEROWNE True, true, we are four.
Pointing to Jaquenetta and Costard. Will these
turtles be gone?
KING Hence, sirs. Away.
COSTARD
Walk aside the true folk, and let the traitors stay.
Jaquenetta and Costard exit.
BEROWNE
Sweet lords, sweet lovers, O, let us embrace.
As true we are as flesh and blood can be.

---

The sea will ebb and flow, heaven show his face;
Young blood doth not obey an old decree.
We cannot cross the cause why we were born;
Therefore of all hands must we be forsworn.
KING
What, did these rent lines show some love of thine?
BEROWNE
Did they, quoth you? Who sees the heavenly
Rosaline
That, like a rude and savage man of Ind
At the first op’ning of the gorgeous East,
Bows not his vassal head and, strucken blind,
Kisses the base ground with obedient breast?
What peremptory eagle-sighted eye
Dares look upon the heaven of her brow
That is not blinded by her majesty?
KING
What zeal, what fury, hath inspired thee now?
My love, her mistress, is a gracious moon,
She an attending star scarce seen a light.
BEROWNE
My eyes are then no eyes, nor I Berowne.
O, but for my love, day would turn to night!
Of all complexions the culled sovereignty
Do meet as at a fair in her fair cheek.
Where several worthies make one dignity,
Where nothing wants that want itself doth seek.
Lend me the flourish of all gentle tongues—
Fie, painted rhetoric! O, she needs it not!
To things of sale a seller’s praise belongs.
She passes praise. Then praise too short doth blot.
A withered hermit, fivescore winters worn,
Might shake off fifty, looking in her eye.
Beauty doth varnish age, as if newborn,

---

And gives the crutch the cradle’s infancy.
O, ’tis the sun that maketh all things shine!
KING
By heaven, thy love is black as ebony.
BEROWNE
Is ebony like her? O word divine!
A wife of such wood were felicity.
O, who can give an oath? Where is a book,
That I may swear beauty doth beauty lack
If that she learn not of her eye to look?
No face is fair that is not full so black.
KING
O, paradox! Black is the badge of hell,
The hue of dungeons and the school of night,
And beauty’s crest becomes the heavens well.
BEROWNE
Devils soonest tempt, resembling spirits of light.
O, if in black my lady’s brows be decked,
It mourns that painting and usurping hair
Should ravish doters with a false aspect:
And therefore is she born to make black fair.
Her favor turns the fashion of the days,
For native blood is counted painting now.
And therefore red, that would avoid dispraise,
Paints itself black to imitate her brow.
DUMAINE
To look like her are chimney-sweepers black.
LONGAVILLE
And since her time are colliers counted bright.
KING
And Ethiopes of their sweet complexion crack.
DUMAINE
Dark needs no candles now, for dark is light.
BEROWNE
Your mistresses dare never come in rain,
For fear their colors should be washed away.

---

KING
’Twere good yours did, for, sir, to tell you plain,
I’ll find a fairer face not washed today.
BEROWNE
I’ll prove her fair, or talk till doomsday here.
KING
No devil will fright thee then so much as she.
DUMAINE
I never knew man hold vile stuff so dear.
LONGAVILLE , showing his shoe
Look, here’s thy love; my foot and her face see.
BEROWNE
O, if the streets were pavèd with thine eyes.
Her feet were much too dainty for such tread.
DUMAINE
O vile! Then as she goes, what upward lies
The street should see as she walked overhead.
KING
But what of this? Are we not all in love?
BEROWNE
Nothing so sure, and thereby all forsworn.
KING
Then leave this chat, and, good Berowne, now prove
Our loving lawful, and our faith not torn.
DUMAINE
Ay, marry, there, some flattery for this evil.
LONGAVILLE
O, some authority how to proceed,
Some tricks, some quillets, how to cheat the devil.
DUMAINE
Some salve for perjury.
BEROWNE O, ’tis more than need.
Have at you, then, affection’s men-at-arms!
O, we have made a vow to study, lords,
And in that vow we have forsworn our books.

---

For when would you, my liege, or you, or you,
In leaden contemplation have found out
Such fiery numbers as the prompting eyes
Of beauty’s tutors have enriched you with?
Other slow arts entirely keep the brain
And therefore, finding barren practicers,
Scarce show a harvest of their heavy toil.
But love, first learnèd in a lady’s eyes,
Lives not alone immurèd in the brain,
But with the motion of all elements
Courses as swift as thought in every power,
And gives to every power a double power,
Above their functions and their offices.
It adds a precious seeing to the eye.
A lover’s eyes will gaze an eagle blind.
A lover’s ear will hear the lowest sound,
When the suspicious head of theft is stopped.
Love’s feeling is more soft and sensible
Than are the tender horns of cockled snails.
Love’s tongue proves dainty Bacchus gross in taste.
For valor, is not love a Hercules,
Still climbing trees in the Hesperides?
Subtle as Sphinx, as sweet and musical
As bright Apollo’s lute strung with his hair.
And when love speaks, the voice of all the gods
Make heaven drowsy with the harmony.
Never durst poet touch a pen to write
Until his ink were tempered with love’s sighs.
O, then his lines would ravish savage ears
And plant in tyrants mild humility.
From women’s eyes this doctrine I derive.
They sparkle still the right Promethean fire.
They are the books, the arts, the academes
That show, contain, and nourish all the world.
Else none at all in ought proves excellent.

---

Then fools you were these women to forswear,
Or, keeping what is sworn, you will prove fools.
For wisdom’s sake, a word that all men love,
Or for love’s sake, a word that loves all men,
Or for men’s sake, the authors of these women,
Or women’s sake, by whom we men are men,
Let us once lose our oaths to find ourselves,
Or else we lose ourselves to keep our oaths.
It is religion to be thus forsworn,
For charity itself fulfills the law,
And who can sever love from charity?
KING
Saint Cupid, then, and, soldiers, to the field!
BEROWNE
Advance your standards, and upon them, lords.
Pell-mell, down with them. But be first advised
In conflict that you get the sun of them.
LONGAVILLE
Now to plain dealing. Lay these glozes by.
Shall we resolve to woo these girls of France?
KING
And win them, too. Therefore let us devise
Some entertainment for them in their tents.
BEROWNE
First, from the park let us conduct them thither.
Then homeward every man attach the hand
Of his fair mistress. In the afternoon
We will with some strange pastime solace them,
Such as the shortness of the time can shape;
For revels, dances, masques, and merry hours
Forerun fair love, strewing her way with flowers.
KING
Away, away! No time shall be omitted
That will betime and may by us be fitted.

---

BEROWNE
Allons ! Allons! Sowed cockle reaped no corn,
And justice always whirls in equal measure.
Light wenches may prove plagues to men forsworn;
If so, our copper buys no better treasure.
They exit.