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• 1 2016-11-13T11:53:58-08:00 Act III 12 Loves Labours Lost Act III plain 2016-12-14T19:53:53-08:00 Scene 1
  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                            5
  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?                           10
  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                                 15
  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                                   20
  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                              25
  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.”                                                           30
  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.                                                                            35
  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?                                                            40
  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                         45
  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                        50
  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,                       55
  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?                                            60
  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!                                                       65
  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.                                70
  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.                                                          75
  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                       80
  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?                        85
  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.                                             90
  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                                               95
              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.                                          100
  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                            105
  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.                              110
  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                     115
  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.                                                                   120
  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.                                  125
  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                         130
  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,                  135
  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,                        140
  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                     145
  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.                       150
   
  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?                                                    155
  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,                                     160
  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.                                             165
  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,                   170
  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,                                                                                                     175
  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                         180
  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,                                                      185
  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,                                    190
  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                                                         195
  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,                                               200
  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,                                        205
  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,                                               210
  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.                                 215
  He exits.