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Love's Labour's Lost
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]
Where hadst thou it?
JAQUENETTA. Of Costard.
KING. Where hadst thou it?
COSTARD. Of Dun Adramadio, Dun Adramadio.
[BEROWNE tears the letter]
KING. 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.
DUMAIN. It is Berowne's writing, and here is his name.
[Gathering up the pieces]
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 lack'd me fool to make up the
mess;
He, he, and you- and you, my liege! – and I
Are pick-purses in love, and we deserve to die.
O, dismiss this audience, and I shall tell you more.
DUMAIN. Now the number is even.
BEROWNE. True, true, we are four.
Will these turtles be gone?
KING. Hence, sirs, away.
COSTARD. Walk aside the true folk, and let the traitors stay.
Exeunt COSTARD and JAQUENETTA
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 Inde
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 inspir'd 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 cull'd 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 wither'd hermit, five-score winters worn,
Might shake off fifty, looking in her eye.
Beauty doth varnish age, as if new-born,
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 wood 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 deckt,
It mourns that painting and usurping hair
Should ravish doters with a false aspect;
And therefore is she born to make black fair.
Her favour 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.
DUMAIN. 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.
DUMAIN. Dark needs no candles now, for dark is light.
BEROWNE. Your mistresses dare never come in rain
For fear their colours should be wash'd away.
KING. 'Twere good yours did; for, sir, to tell you plain,
I'll find a fairer face not wash'd to-day.
BEROWNE. I'll prove her fair, or talk till doomsday here.
KING. No devil will fright thee then so much as she.
DUMAIN. I never knew man hold vile stuff so dear.
LONGAVILLE. Look, here's thy love: my foot and her face see.
[Showing his shoe]
BEROWNE. O, if the streets were paved with thine eyes,
Her feet were much too dainty for such tread!
DUMAIN. O vile! Then, as she goes, what upward lies
The street should see as she walk'd 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.
DUMAIN. Ay, marry, there; some flattery for this evil.
LONGAVILLE. O, some authority how to proceed;
Some tricks, some quillets, how to cheat the devil!
DUMAIN. Some salve for perjury.
BEROWNE. 'Tis more than need.
Have at you, then, affection's men-at-arms.
Consider what you first did swear unto:
To fast, to study, and to see no woman-
Flat treason 'gainst the kingly state of youth.
Say, can you fast? Your stomachs are too young,
And abstinence engenders maladies.
And, where that you you have vow'd to study, lords,
In that each of you have forsworn his book,
Can you still dream, and pore, and thereon look?
For when would you, my lord, or you, or you,
Have found the ground of study's excellence
Without the beauty of a woman's face?
From women's eyes this doctrine I derive:
They are the ground, the books, the academes,
From whence doth spring the true Promethean fire.
Why, universal plodding poisons up
The nimble spirits in the arteries,
As motion and long-during action tires
The sinewy vigour of the traveller.
Now, for not looking on a woman's face,
You have in that forsworn the use of eyes,
And study too, the causer of your vow;
For where is author in the world
Teaches such beauty as a woman's eye?
Learning is but an adjunct to ourself,
And where we are our learning likewise is;
Then when ourselves we see in ladies' eyes,
With ourselves.
Do we not likewise see our learning there?
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 enrich'd you with?
Other slow arts entirely keep the brain;
And therefore, finding barren practisers,
Scarce show a harvest of their heavy toil;
But love, first learned in a lady's eyes,
Lives not alone immured 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 stopp'd.
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 valour, 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 temp'red 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 aught 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 fulfils 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! be first advis'd,
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, masks, 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! Sow'd cockle reap'd 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. Exeunt
ACT V. SCENE I. The park
Enter HOLOFERNES, SIR NATHANIEL, and DULL
HOLOFERNES. Satis quod sufficit.
NATHANIEL. I praise God for you, sir. Your reasons at dinner
have
been sharp and sententious; pleasant without scurrility,
witty
without affection, audacious without impudency, learned
without
opinion, and strange without heresy. I did converse this
quondam
day with a companion of the King's who is intituled,
nominated,
or called, Don Adriano de Armado.
HOLOFERNES. Novi hominem tanquam te. His humour is lofty, his
discourse peremptory, his tongue filed, his eye ambitious,
his
gait majestical and his general behaviour vain, ridiculous,
and
thrasonical. He is too picked, too spruce, too affected, too
odd,
as it were, too peregrinate, as I may call it.
NATHANIEL. A most singular and choice epithet.
[Draws out his table-book]
HOLOFERNES. He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer
than
the staple of his argument. I abhor such fanatical
phantasimes,
such insociable and point-devise companions; such rackers of
orthography, as to speak 'dout' fine, when he should say
'doubt';
'det' when he should pronounce 'debt'– d, e, b, t, not d, e,
t.
He clepeth a calf 'cauf,' half 'hauf'; neighbour vocatur
'nebour'; 'neigh' abbreviated 'ne.' This is abhominable-
which he
would call 'abbominable.' It insinuateth me of insanie: ne
intelligis, domine? to make frantic, lunatic.
NATHANIEL. Laus Deo, bone intelligo.
HOLOFERNES. 'Bone'? – 'bone' for 'bene.' Priscian a little
scratch'd; 'twill serve.
Enter ARMADO, MOTH, and COSTARD
NATHANIEL. Videsne quis venit?
HOLOFERNES. Video, et gaudeo.
ARMADO. [To MOTH] Chirrah!
HOLOFERNES. Quare 'chirrah,' not 'sirrah'?
ARMADO. Men of peace, well encount'red.
HOLOFERNES. Most military sir, salutation.
MOTH. [Aside to COSTARD] They have been at a great feast of
languages and stol'n the scraps.
COSTARD. O, they have liv'd long on the alms-basket of words. I
marvel thy master hath not eaten thee for a word, for thou
are
not so long by the head as honorificabilitudinitatibus; thou
art
easier swallowed than a flap-dragon.
MOTH. Peace! the peal begins.
ARMADO. [To HOLOFERNES] Monsieur, are you not lett'red?
MOTH. Yes, yes; he teaches boys the hornbook. What is a, b,
spelt
backward with the horn on his head?
HOLOFERNES. Ba, pueritia, with a horn added.
MOTH. Ba, most silly sheep with a horn. You hear his learning.
HOLOFERNES. Quis, quis, thou consonant?
MOTH. The third of the five vowels, if You repeat them; or the
fifth, if I.
HOLOFERNES. I will repeat them: a, e, I-
MOTH. The sheep; the other two concludes it: o, U.
ARMADO. Now, by the salt wave of the Mediterraneum, a sweet
touch,
a quick venue of wit- snip, snap, quick and home. It
rejoiceth my
intellect. True wit!
MOTH. Offer'd by a child to an old man; which is wit-old.
HOLOFERNES. What is the figure? What is the figure?
MOTH. Horns.
HOLOFERNES. Thou disputes like an infant; go whip thy gig.
MOTH. Lend me your horn to make one, and I will whip about your
infamy circum circa- a gig of a cuckold's horn.
COSTARD. An I had but one penny in the world, thou shouldst
have it
to buy ginger-bread. Hold, there is the very remuneration I
had
of thy master, thou halfpenny purse of wit, thou pigeon-egg
of
discretion. O, an the heavens were so pleased that thou wert
but
my bastard, what a joyful father wouldst thou make me! Go to;
thou hast it ad dunghill, at the fingers' ends, as they say.
HOLOFERNES. O, I smell false Latin; 'dunghill' for unguem.
ARMADO. Arts-man, preambulate; we will be singuled from the
barbarous. Do you not educate youth at the charge-house on
the
top of the mountain?
HOLOFERNES. Or mons, the hill.
ARMADO. At your sweet pleasure, for the mountain.
HOLOFERNES. I do, sans question.
ARMADO. Sir, it is the King's most sweet pleasure and affection
to
congratulate the Princess at her pavilion, in the posteriors
of
this day; which the rude multitude call the afternoon.
HOLOFERNES. The posterior of the day, most generous sir, is
liable,
congruent, and measurable, for the afternoon. The word is
well
cull'd, chose, sweet, and apt, I do assure you, sir, I do
assure.
ARMADO. Sir, the King is a noble gentleman, and my familiar, I
do
assure ye, very good friend. For what is inward between us,
let
it pass. I do beseech thee, remember thy courtesy. I beseech
thee, apparel thy head. And among other importunate and most
serious designs, and of great import indeed, too- but let
that
pass; for I must tell thee it will please his Grace, by the
world, sometime to lean upon my poor shoulder, and with his
royal
finger thus dally with my excrement, with my mustachio; but,
sweet heart, let that pass. By the world, I recount no fable:
some certain special honours it pleaseth his greatness to
impart
to Armado, a soldier, a man of travel, that hath seen the
world;
but let that pass. The very all of all is- but, sweet heart,
I do
implore secrecy- that the King would have me present the
Princess, sweet chuck, with some delightful ostentation, or
show,
or pageant, or antic, or firework. Now, understanding that
the
curate and your sweet self are good at such eruptions and
sudden
breaking-out of mirth, as it were, I have acquainted you
withal,
to the end to crave your assistance.
HOLOFERNES. Sir, you shall present before her the Nine
Worthies.
Sir Nathaniel, as concerning some entertainment of time, some
show in the posterior of this day, to be rend'red by our
assistance, the King's command, and this most gallant,
illustrate, and learned gentleman, before the Princess- I say
none so fit as to present the Nine Worthies.
NATHANIEL. Where will you find men worthy enough to present
them?
HOLOFERNES. Joshua, yourself; myself, Alexander; this gallant
gentleman, Judas Maccabaeus; this swain, because of his great
limb or joint, shall pass Pompey the Great; the page,
Hercules.
ARMADO. Pardon, sir; error: he is not quantity enough for that
Worthy's thumb; he is not so big as the end of his club.
HOLOFERNES. Shall I have audience? He shall present Hercules in
minority: his enter and exit shall be strangling a snake; and
I
will have an apology for that purpose.
MOTH. An excellent device! So, if any of the audience hiss, you
may
cry 'Well done, Hercules; now thou crushest the snake!' That
is
the way to make an offence gracious, though few have the
grace to
do it.
ARMADO. For the rest of the Worthies?
HOLOFERNES. I will play three myself.
MOTH. Thrice-worthy gentleman!
ARMADO. Shall I tell you a thing?
HOLOFERNES. We attend.
ARMADO. We will have, if this fadge not, an antic. I beseech
you,
follow.
HOLOFERNES. Via, goodman Dull! Thou has spoken no word all this
while.
DULL. Nor understood none neither, sir.
HOLOFERNES. Allons! we will employ thee.
DULL. I'll make one in a dance, or so, or I will play
On the tabor to the Worthies, and let them dance the hay.
HOLOFERNES. Most dull, honest Dull! To our sport, away.
Exeunt
