Love’s Labour’s Lost

1 Enter Armado the Braggart and Moth his Boy.
2 ARMADO.
3 Warble, child, make passionate my sense of hearing.
4 MOTH.
5 [_Singing_.]
6 Concolinel.
7 ARMADO.
8 Sweet air! Go, tenderness of years, take this key, give enlargement to
9 the swain, bring him festinately hither. I must employ him in a letter
10 to my love.
11 MOTH.
12 Master, will you win your love with a French brawl?
13 ARMADO.
14 How meanest thou? Brawling in French?
15 MOTH.
16 No, my complete master; but to jig off a tune at the tongue’s end,
17 canary to it with your feet, humour it with turning up your eyelids,
18 sigh a note and sing a note, sometime through the throat, as if you
19 swallowed love with singing love, sometime through the nose, as if you
20 snuffed up love by smelling love; with your hat penthouse-like o’er the
21 shop of your eyes, with your arms crossed on your thin-belly doublet
22 like a rabbit on a spit; or your hands in your pocket like a man after
23 the old painting; and keep not too long in one tune, but a snip and
24 away. These are compliments, these are humours; these betray nice
25 wenches that would be betrayed without these; and make them men of
26 note—do you note me?—that most are affected to these.
27 ARMADO.
28 How hast thou purchased this experience?
29 MOTH.
30 By my penny of observation.
31 ARMADO.
32 But O—but O—
33 MOTH.
34 “The hobby-horse is forgot.”
35 ARMADO.
36 Call’st thou my love “hobby-horse”?
37 MOTH.
38 No, master. The hobby-horse is but a colt, and your love perhaps a
39 hackney. But have you forgot your love?
40 ARMADO.
41 Almost I had.
42 MOTH.
43 Negligent student! Learn her by heart.
44 ARMADO.
45 By heart and in heart, boy.
46 MOTH.
47 And out of heart, master. All those three I will prove.
48 ARMADO.
49 What wilt thou prove?
50 MOTH.
51 A man, if I live; and this, “by, in, and without,” upon the instant:
52 “by” heart you love her, because your heart cannot come by her; “in”
53 heart you love her, because your heart is in love with her; and “out”
54 of heart you love her, being out of heart that you cannot enjoy her.
55 ARMADO.
56 I am all these three.
57 MOTH.
58 And three times as much more, and yet nothing at all.
59 ARMADO.
60 Fetch hither the swain. He must carry me a letter.
61 MOTH.
62 A message well sympathized: a horse to be ambassador for an ass.
63 ARMADO.
64 Ha, ha, what sayest thou?
65 MOTH.
66 Marry, sir, you must send the ass upon the horse, for he is very
67 slow-gaited. But I go.
68 ARMADO.
69 The way is but short. Away!
70 MOTH.
71 As swift as lead, sir.
72 ARMADO.
73 The meaning, pretty ingenious?
74 Is not lead a metal heavy, dull, and slow?
75 MOTH.
76 _Minime_, honest master; or rather, master, no.
77 ARMADO.
78 I say lead is slow.
79 MOTH.
80 You are too swift, sir, to say so.
81 Is that lead slow which is fired from a gun?
82 ARMADO.
83 Sweet smoke of rhetoric!
84 He reputes me a cannon; and the bullet, that’s he.
85 I shoot thee at the swain.
86 MOTH.
87 Thump then, and I flee.
88 [_Exit._]
89 ARMADO.
90 A most acute juvenal, voluble and free of grace!
91 By thy favour, sweet welkin, I must sigh in thy face.
92 Most rude melancholy, valour gives thee place.
93 My herald is returned.
94 Enter Moth and Costard.
95 MOTH.
96 A wonder, master! Here’s a costard broken in a shin.
97 ARMADO.
98 Some enigma, some riddle. Come, thy _l’envoi_ begin.
99 COSTARD.
100 No egma, no riddle, no _l’envoi_, no salve in the mail, sir. O, sir,
101 plantain, a plain plantain! No _l’envoi_, no _l’envoi_, no salve, sir,
102 but a plantain.
103 ARMADO.
104 By virtue, thou enforcest laughter; thy silly thought, my spleen; the
105 heaving of my lungs provokes me to ridiculous smiling. O, pardon me, my
106 stars! Doth the inconsiderate take _salve_ for _l’envoi_, and the word
107 _l’envoi_ for a _salve?_
108 MOTH.
109 Do the wise think them other? Is not _l’envoi_ a _salve?_
110 ARMADO.
111 No, page; it is an epilogue or discourse to make plain
112 Some obscure precedence that hath tofore been sain.
113 I will example it:
114 The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee
115 Were still at odds, being but three.
116 There’s the moral. Now the _l’envoi_.
117 MOTH.
118 I will add the _l’envoi_. Say the moral again.
119 ARMADO.
120 The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee
121 Were still at odds, being but three.
122 MOTH.
123 Until the goose came out of door,
124 And stayed the odds by adding four.
125 Now will I begin your moral, and do you follow with my _l’envoi_.
126 The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee
127 Were still at odds, being but three.
128 ARMADO.
129 Until the goose came out of door,
130 Staying the odds by adding four.
131 MOTH.
132 A good _l’envoi_, ending in the goose. Would you desire more?
133 COSTARD.
134 The boy hath sold him a bargain, a goose, that’s flat.
135 Sir, your pennyworth is good, an your goose be fat.
136 To sell a bargain well is as cunning as fast and loose.
137 Let me see: a fat _l’envoi_—ay, that’s a fat goose.
138 ARMADO.
139 Come hither, come hither. How did this argument begin?
140 MOTH.
141 By saying that a costard was broken in a shin.
142 Then called you for the _l’envoi_.
143 COSTARD.
144 True, and I for a plantain. Thus came your argument in. Then the boy’s
145 fat _l’envoi_, the goose that you bought; and he ended the market.
146 ARMADO.
147 But tell me, how was there a costard broken in a shin?
148 MOTH.
149 I will tell you sensibly.
150 COSTARD.
151 Thou hast no feeling of it, Moth. I will speak that _l’envoi_.
152 I, Costard, running out, that was safely within,
153 Fell over the threshold and broke my shin.
154 ARMADO.
155 We will talk no more of this matter.
156 COSTARD.
157 Till there be more matter in the shin.
158 ARMADO.
159 Sirrah Costard, I will enfranchise thee.
160 COSTARD.
161 O, marry me to one Frances! I smell some _l’envoi_, some goose, in
162 this.
163 ARMADO.
164 By my sweet soul, I mean setting thee at liberty, enfreedoming thy
165 person. Thou wert immured, restrained, captivated, bound.
166 COSTARD.
167 True, true; and now you will be my purgation, and let me loose.
168 ARMADO.
169 I give thee thy liberty, set thee from durance, and, in lieu thereof,
170 impose on thee nothing but this: [_Giving him a letter_.] bear this
171 significant to the country maid Jaquenetta. [_Giving money_.] There is
172 remuneration for the best ward of mine honour is rewarding my
173 dependents. Moth, follow.
174 [_Exit._]
175 MOTH.
176 Like the sequel, I. Signior Costard, adieu.
177 [_Exit Moth._]
178 COSTARD.
179 My sweet ounce of man’s flesh, my incony Jew!
180 Now will I look to his remuneration. “Remuneration”! O, that’s the
181 Latin word for three farthings. Three farthings—_remuneration_. “What’s
182 the price of this inkle?” “One penny.” “No, I’ll give you a
183 remuneration.” Why, it carries it! _Remuneration_. Why, it is a fairer
184 name than French crown. I will never buy and sell out of this word.
185 Enter Berowne.
186 BEROWNE.
187 My good knave Costard, exceedingly well met.
188 COSTARD.
189 Pray you, sir, how much carnation ribbon may a man buy for a
190 remuneration?
191 BEROWNE.
192 What is a remuneration?
193 COSTARD.
194 Marry, sir, halfpenny farthing.
195 BEROWNE.
196 Why, then, three-farthing worth of silk.
197 COSTARD.
198 I thank your worship. God be wi’ you.
199 BEROWNE.
200 Stay, slave. I must employ thee.
201 As thou wilt win my favour, good my knave,
202 Do one thing for me that I shall entreat.
203 COSTARD.
204 When would you have it done, sir?
205 BEROWNE.
206 This afternoon.
207 COSTARD.
208 Well, I will do it, sir. Fare you well.
209 BEROWNE.
210 Thou knowest not what it is.
211 COSTARD.
212 I shall know, sir, when I have done it.
213 BEROWNE.
214 Why, villain, thou must know first.
215 COSTARD.
216 I will come to your worship tomorrow morning.
217 BEROWNE.
218 It must be done this afternoon. Hark, slave, it is but this:
219 The Princess comes to hunt here in the park,
220 And in her train there is a gentle lady;
221 When tongues speak sweetly, then they name her name,
222 And Rosaline they call her. Ask for her
223 And to her white hand see thou do commend
224 This sealed-up counsel.
225 [_Gives him money._]
226 There’s thy guerdon. Go.
227 COSTARD.
228 Gardon, O sweet gardon! Better than remuneration, a ’levenpence
229 farthing better. Most sweet gardon! I will do it, sir, in print.
230 Gardon! Remuneration!
231 [_Exit._]
232 BEROWNE.
233 And I, forsooth, in love! I, that have been love’s whip,
234 A very beadle to a humorous sigh,
235 A critic, nay, a night-watch constable,
236 A domineering pedant o’er the boy,
237 Than whom no mortal so magnificent!
238 This wimpled, whining, purblind, wayward boy,
239 This Signior Junior, giant-dwarf, Dan Cupid,
240 Regent of love-rhymes, lord of folded arms,
241 Th’ anointed sovereign of sighs and groans,
242 Liege of all loiterers and malcontents,
243 Dread prince of plackets, king of codpieces,
244 Sole imperator, and great general
245 Of trotting paritors—O my little heart!
246 And I to be a corporal of his field
247 And wear his colours like a tumbler’s hoop!
248 What? I love, I sue, I seek a wife?
249 A woman, that is like a German clock,
250 Still a-repairing, ever out of frame,
251 And never going aright, being a watch,
252 But being watched that it may still go right!
253 Nay, to be perjured, which is worst of all;
254 And, among three, to love the worst of all,
255 A whitely wanton with a velvet brow,
256 With two pitch-balls stuck in her face for eyes;
257 Ay, and, by heaven, one that will do the deed
258 Though Argus were her eunuch and her guard.
259 And I to sigh for her, to watch for her,
260 To pray for her! Go to, it is a plague
261 That Cupid will impose for my neglect
262 Of his almighty dreadful little might.
263 Well, I will love, write, sigh, pray, sue, and groan.
264 Some men must love my lady, and some Joan.
265 [_Exit._]