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• 1 2016-11-13T11:50:49-08:00 Act I 28 Loves Labours Lost Act I plain 2016-12-15T00:58:38-08:00 Scene 1
  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                              5
  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,                                 10
  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,           15
  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,   20
  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.                                  25
  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          30
  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,          35
  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,                                  40
  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,                                                45
  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.                                            50
  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, sire. The I swore in jest                                                55
  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.                                 60
  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                             65
     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.              70
  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:           75
  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,            80
  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.             85
  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,          90
     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.              95
  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?                                                                    100
  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.                                        105
  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,                                        110
  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.                                       115
  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,                                                     120
  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.                                                                           125
  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.                                                  130
  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.                                                                                               135
  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                                                         140   
  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.                                                            145
  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.                                     150
  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,                                               155
     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                                   160
  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?                                           165
  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                                       170
     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                                              175
  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.                                                180
  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?                               185
  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.                                                                    190
  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.                                                                                                 195
  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!                                                                                     200
  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.                                                                   205
  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                   210
  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                     215
  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?                                    220
  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               225
  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.                                                                              230
  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,        235
  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                           240
  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                      245
  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                   250
  base minnow of thy mirth,—
  COSTARD  Me?
  KING reads  that unlettered, small-knowing soul,—
  COSTARD  Me?
  KING reads  that shallow vassal,—                                                        255
  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,                      260
  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                           265
  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
  Dull, a man of good repute, carriage, bearing, and
  estimation.                                                                                            270
  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.              275
  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.                                                                          280
  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                  285
  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.                                                                                                  290
  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.”                                                                                                295
  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                             300
  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,                                           305
  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.                                                                                      310
  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.                                                               315
  They exit.
   
  Scene 2
  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.                                                                                                    5
  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.                                                                                          10
  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.”                                                                               15
  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?                                                                  20
  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.                                                             25
  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.                                                                                   30
  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                    35
  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                      40
  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                            45
  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                   50
  “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.                                                                  55
  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                                60
  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?                                                              65
  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,                        70
  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                             75
  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.                                                                                                   80
  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                         85
  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.                       90
  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.                                                                                                            95
  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,                                   100
                 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.                                                   105
  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                     110
  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.             115
  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.                                                                                            120
  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.                                                125
   
  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                                  130
  well.
  ARMADO, aside  I do betray myself with blushing.—
  Maid.
  JAQUENETTA  Man.
  ARMADO  I will visit thee at the lodge.                                                     135
  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?                                                                      140
  ARMADO  I love thee.
  JAQUENETTA  So I heard you say.
  ARMADO  And so, farewell.
  JAQUENETTA  Fair weather after you.
  DULL  Come, Jaquenetta, away.                                                             145
  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.                                         150
  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                  155
  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.                                    160
  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                         165
  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.                       170
  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                          175
  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                   180
  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.                                                         185
  He exits.