Love’s Labour’s Lost

1 Enter Ferdinand, King of Navarre, Berowne, Longaville and Dumaine.
2 KING.
3 Let fame, that all hunt after in their lives,
4 Live registered upon our brazen tombs,
5 And then grace us in the disgrace of death;
6 When, spite of cormorant devouring time,
7 Th’ endeavour of this present breath may buy
8 That honour which shall bate his scythe’s keen edge,
9 And make us heirs of all eternity.
10 Therefore, brave conquerors, for so you are
11 That war against your own affections
12 And the huge army of the world’s desires,
13 Our late edict shall strongly stand in force.
14 Navarre shall be the wonder of the world;
15 Our court shall be a little academe,
16 Still and contemplative in living art.
17 You three, Berowne, Dumaine and Longaville,
18 Have sworn for three years’ term to live with me,
19 My fellow-scholars, and to keep those statutes
20 That are recorded in this schedule here.
21 Your oaths are passed, and now subscribe your names,
22 That his own hand may strike his honour down
23 That violates the smallest branch herein.
24 If you are armed to do as sworn to do,
25 Subscribe to your deep oaths, and keep it too.
26 LONGAVILLE.
27 I am resolved. ’Tis but a three years’ fast.
28 The mind shall banquet, though the body pine.
29 Fat paunches have lean pates, and dainty bits
30 Make rich the ribs, but bankrupt quite the wits.
31 [_He signs._]
32 DUMAINE.
33 My loving lord, Dumaine is mortified.
34 The grosser manner of these world’s delights
35 He throws upon the gross world’s baser slaves.
36 To love, to wealth, to pomp, I pine and die,
37 With all these living in philosophy.
38 [_He signs._]
39 BEROWNE.
40 I can but say their protestation over.
41 So much, dear liege, I have already sworn,
42 That is, to live and study here three years.
43 But there are other strict observances:
44 As not to see a woman in that term,
45 Which I hope well is not enrolled there;
46 And one day in a week to touch no food,
47 And but one meal on every day beside,
48 The which I hope is not enrolled there;
49 And then to sleep but three hours in the night,
50 And not be seen to wink of all the day,
51 When I was wont to think no harm all night,
52 And make a dark night too of half the day,
53 Which I hope well is not enrolled there.
54 O, these are barren tasks, too hard to keep,
55 Not to see ladies, study, fast, not sleep.
56 KING.
57 Your oath is passed to pass away from these.
58 BEROWNE.
59 Let me say no, my liege, an if you please.
60 I only swore to study with your Grace
61 And stay here in your court for three years’ space.
62 LONGAVILLE.
63 You swore to that, Berowne, and to the rest.
64 BEROWNE.
65 By yea and nay, sir, then I swore in jest.
66 What is the end of study, let me know?
67 KING.
68 Why, that to know which else we should not know.
69 BEROWNE.
70 Things hid and barred, you mean, from common sense?
71 KING.
72 Ay, that is study’s god-like recompense.
73 BEROWNE.
74 Come on, then, I will swear to study so,
75 To know the thing I am forbid to know:
76 As thus, to study where I well may dine,
77 When I to feast expressly am forbid;
78 Or study where to meet some mistress fine,
79 When mistresses from common sense are hid;
80 Or, having sworn too hard-a-keeping oath,
81 Study to break it, and not break my troth.
82 If study’s gain be thus, and this be so,
83 Study knows that which yet it doth not know.
84 Swear me to this, and I will ne’er say no.
85 KING.
86 These be the stops that hinder study quite,
87 And train our intellects to vain delight.
88 BEROWNE.
89 Why, all delights are vain, but that most vain
90 Which, with pain purchased, doth inherit pain:
91 As painfully to pore upon a book
92 To seek the light of truth, while truth the while
93 Doth falsely blind the eyesight of his look.
94 Light seeking light doth light of light beguile;
95 So, ere you find where light in darkness lies,
96 Your light grows dark by losing of your eyes.
97 Study me how to please the eye indeed
98 By fixing it upon a fairer eye,
99 Who dazzling so, that eye shall be his heed,
100 And give him light that it was blinded by.
101 Study is like the heaven’s glorious sun,
102 That will not be deep-searched with saucy looks;
103 Small have continual plodders ever won,
104 Save base authority from others’ books.
105 These earthly godfathers of heaven’s lights,
106 That give a name to every fixed star,
107 Have no more profit of their shining nights
108 Than those that walk and wot not what they are.
109 Too much to know is to know naught but fame,
110 And every godfather can give a name.
111 KING.
112 How well he’s read, to reason against reading.
113 DUMAINE.
114 Proceeded well, to stop all good proceeding.
115 LONGAVILLE.
116 He weeds the corn, and still lets grow the weeding.
117 BEROWNE.
118 The spring is near when green geese are a-breeding.
119 DUMAINE.
120 How follows that?
121 BEROWNE.
122 Fit in his place and time.
123 DUMAINE.
124 In reason nothing.
125 BEROWNE.
126 Something then in rhyme.
127 LONGAVILLE.
128 Berowne is like an envious sneaping frost
129 That bites the first-born infants of the spring.
130 BEROWNE.
131 Well, say I am. Why should proud summer boast
132 Before the birds have any cause to sing?
133 Why should I joy in any abortive birth?
134 At Christmas I no more desire a rose
135 Than wish a snow in May’s new-fangled shows,
136 But like of each thing that in season grows.
137 So you, to study now it is too late,
138 Climb o’er the house to unlock the little gate.
139 KING.
140 Well, sit you out. Go home, Berowne. Adieu.
141 BEROWNE.
142 No, my good lord, I have sworn to stay with you,
143 And though I have for barbarism spoke more
144 Than for that angel knowledge you can say,
145 Yet confident I’ll keep what I have sworn
146 And bide the penance of each three years’ day.
147 Give me the paper, let me read the same,
148 And to the strictest decrees I’ll write my name.
149 KING.
150 How well this yielding rescues thee from shame.
151 BEROWNE.
152 [_Reads_.] _Item, That no woman shall come within a mile of my court._
153 Hath this been proclaimed?
154 LONGAVILLE.
155 Four days ago.
156 BEROWNE.
157 Let’s see the penalty. [_Reads_.] _On pain of losing her tongue._ Who
158 devised this penalty?
159 LONGAVILLE.
160 Marry, that did I.
161 BEROWNE.
162 Sweet lord, and why?
163 LONGAVILLE.
164 To fright them hence with that dread penalty.
165 BEROWNE.
166 A dangerous law against gentility.
167 [_Reads_.] _Item, If any man be seen to talk with a woman within the
168 term of three years, he shall endure such public shame as the rest of
169 the court can possibly devise._
170 This article, my liege, yourself must break,
171 For well you know here comes in embassy
172 The French King’s daughter, with yourself to speak—
173 A mild of grace and complete majesty—
174 About surrender up of Aquitaine
175 To her decrepit, sick, and bedrid father.
176 Therefore this article is made in vain,
177 Or vainly comes th’ admired Princess hither.
178 KING.
179 What say you, lords? Why, this was quite forgot.
180 BEROWNE.
181 So study evermore is overshot.
182 While it doth study to have what it would,
183 It doth forget to do the thing it should;
184 And when it hath the thing it hunteth most,
185 ’Tis won as towns with fire: so won, so lost.
186 KING.
187 We must of force dispense with this decree.
188 She must lie here on mere necessity.
189 BEROWNE.
190 Necessity will make us all forsworn
191 Three thousand times within this three years’ space;
192 For every man with his affects is born,
193 Not by might mastered, but by special grace.
194 If I break faith, this word shall speak for me:
195 I am forsworn on mere necessity.
196 So to the laws at large I write my name,
197 And he that breaks them in the least degree
198 Stands in attainder of eternal shame.
199 Suggestions are to other as to me;
200 But I believe, although I seem so loath,
201 I am the last that will last keep his oath.
202 [_He signs._]
203 But is there no quick recreation granted?
204 KING.
205 Ay, that there is. Our court, you know, is haunted
206 With a refined traveller of Spain,
207 A man in all the world’s new fashion planted,
208 That hath a mint of phrases in his brain;
209 One who the music of his own vain tongue
210 Doth ravish like enchanting harmony,
211 A man of complements, whom right and wrong
212 Have chose as umpire of their mutiny.
213 This child of fancy, that Armado hight,
214 For interim to our studies shall relate
215 In high-born words the worth of many a knight
216 From tawny Spain lost in the world’s debate.
217 How you delight, my lords, I know not, I,
218 But I protest I love to hear him lie,
219 And I will use him for my minstrelsy.
220 BEROWNE.
221 Armado is a most illustrious wight,
222 A man of fire-new words, fashion’s own knight.
223 LONGAVILLE.
224 Costard the swain and he shall be our sport,
225 And so to study three years is but short.
226 Enter Dull, a Constable, with a letter, and Costard.
227 DULL.
228 Which is the Duke’s own person?
229 BEROWNE.
230 This, fellow. What wouldst?
231 DULL.
232 I myself reprehend his own person, for I am his Grace’s farborough. But
233 I would see his own person in flesh and blood.
234 BEROWNE.
235 This is he.
236 DULL.
237 Signior Arm… Arm… commends you. There’s villainy abroad. This letter
238 will tell you more.
239 COSTARD.
240 Sir, the contempts thereof are as touching me.
241 KING.
242 A letter from the magnificent Armado.
243 BEROWNE.
244 How long soever the matter, I hope in God for high words.
245 LONGAVILLE.
246 A high hope for a low heaven. God grant us patience!
247 BEROWNE.
248 To hear, or forbear laughing?
249 LONGAVILLE.
250 To hear meekly, sir, and to laugh moderately, or to forbear both.
251 BEROWNE.
252 Well, sir, be it as the style shall give us cause to climb in the
253 merriness.
254 COSTARD.
255 The matter is to me, sir, as concerning Jaquenetta. The manner of it
256 is, I was taken with the manner.
257 BEROWNE.
258 In what manner?
259 COSTARD.
260 In manner and form following, sir, all those three. I was seen with her
261 in the manor-house, sitting with her upon the form, and taken following
262 her into the park, which, put together, is “in manner and form
263 following”. Now, sir, for the manner. It is the manner of a man to
264 speak to a woman. For the form—in some form.
265 BEROWNE.
266 For the “following”, sir?
267 COSTARD.
268 As it shall follow in my correction, and God defend the right!
269 KING.
270 Will you hear this letter with attention?
271 BEROWNE.
272 As we would hear an oracle.
273 COSTARD.
274 Such is the simplicity of man to hearken after the flesh.
275 KING.
276 [_Reads_.] _Great deputy, the welkin’s vicegerent and sole dominator of
277 Navarre, my soul’s earth’s god and body’s fostering patron—_
278 COSTARD.
279 Not a word of Costard yet.
280 KING.
281 [_Reads_.] _So it is—_
282 COSTARD.
283 It may be so; but if he say it is so, he is, in telling true, but so.
284 KING.
285 Peace!
286 COSTARD.
287 Be to me, and every man that dares not fight.
288 KING.
289 No words!
290 COSTARD.
291 Of other men’s secrets, I beseech you.
292 KING.
293 [_Reads_.] _So it is, besieged with sable-coloured melancholy, I did
294 commend the black-oppressing humour to the most wholesome physic of thy
295 health-giving air; and, as I am a gentleman, betook myself to walk. The
296 time when? About the sixth hour, when beasts most graze, birds best
297 peck, and men sit down to that nourishment which is called supper. So
298 much for the time when. Now for the ground which? Which, I mean, I
299 walked upon. It is ycleped thy park. Then for the place, where? Where,
300 I mean, I did encounter that obscene and most preposterous event that
301 draweth from my snow-white pen the ebon-coloured ink, which here thou
302 viewest, beholdest, surveyest, or seest. But to the place where? It
303 standeth north-north-east and by east from the west corner of thy
304 curious-knotted garden. There did I see that low-spirited swain, that
305 base minnow of thy mirth—_
306 COSTARD.
307 Me?
308 KING.
309 [_Reads_.] _That unlettered small-knowing soul—_
310 COSTARD.
311 Me?
312 KING.
313 [_Reads_.] _That shallow vassal—_
314 COSTARD.
315 Still me?
316 KING.
317 [_Reads_.] _Which, as I remember, hight Costard—_
318 COSTARD.
319 O me!
320 KING.
321 [_Reads_.] _Sorted and consorted, contrary to thy established
322 proclaimed edict and continent canon, which with, O, with—but with this
323 I passion to say wherewith—_
324 COSTARD.
325 With a wench.
326 KING.
327 [_Reads_.] _With a child of our grandmother Eve, a female; or, for thy
328 more sweet understanding, a woman. Him, I, as my ever-esteemed duty
329 pricks me on, have sent to thee, to receive the meed of punishment, by
330 thy sweet Grace’s officer, Antony Dull, a man of good repute, carriage,
331 bearing, and estimation._
332 DULL.
333 Me, an’t shall please you; I am Antony Dull.
334 KING.
335 [_Reads_.] _For Jaquenetta, so is the weaker vessel called which I
336 apprehended with the aforesaid swain, I keep her as a vessel of thy
337 law’s fury, and shall, at the least of thy sweet notice, bring her to
338 trial. Thine, in all compliments of devoted and heartburning heat of
339 duty,
340 Don Adriano de Armado._
341 BEROWNE.
342 This is not so well as I looked for, but the best that ever I heard.
343 KING.
344 Ay, the best for the worst. But, sirrah, what say you to this?
345 COSTARD.
346 Sir, I confess the wench.
347 KING.
348 Did you hear the proclamation?
349 COSTARD.
350 I do confess much of the hearing it, but little of the marking of it.
351 KING.
352 It was proclaimed a year’s imprisonment to be taken with a wench.
353 COSTARD.
354 I was taken with none, sir. I was taken with a damsel.
355 KING.
356 Well, it was proclaimed “damsel”.
357 COSTARD.
358 This was no damsel neither, sir; she was a virgin.
359 KING.
360 It is so varied too, for it was proclaimed “virgin”.
361 COSTARD.
362 If it were, I deny her virginity. I was taken with a maid.
363 KING.
364 This maid will not serve your turn, sir.
365 COSTARD.
366 This maid will serve my turn, sir.
367 KING.
368 Sir, I will pronounce your sentence: you shall fast a week with bran
369 and water.
370 COSTARD.
371 I had rather pray a month with mutton and porridge.
372 KING.
373 And Don Armado shall be your keeper.
374 My Lord Berowne, see him delivered o’er;
375 And go we, lords, to put in practice that
376 Which each to other hath so strongly sworn.
377 [_Exeunt King, Longaville and Dumaine._]
378 BEROWNE.
379 I’ll lay my head to any good man’s hat
380 These oaths and laws will prove an idle scorn.
381 Sirrah, come on.
382 COSTARD.
383 I suffer for the truth, sir; for true it is I was taken with
384 Jaquenetta, and Jaquenetta is a true girl. And therefore welcome the
385 sour cup of prosperity! Affliction may one day smile again, and till
386 then, sit thee down, sorrow.
387 [_Exeunt._]