Love's Labour's Lost
You are too hard for me.
[_Exeunt._]
ACT III
SCENE I. The King of Navarre’s park
Enter Armado the Braggart and Moth his Boy.
ARMADO.
Warble, child, make passionate my sense of hearing.
MOTH.
[_Singing_.]
Concolinel.
ARMADO.
Sweet air! Go, tenderness of years, take this key, give enlargement to
the swain, bring him festinately hither. I must employ him in a letter
to my love.
MOTH.
Master, will you win your love with a French brawl?
ARMADO.
How meanest thou? Brawling in French?
MOTH.
No, my complete master; but to jig off a tune at the tongue’s end,
canary to it with your feet, humour it with turning up your eyelids,
sigh a note and sing a note, sometime through the throat, as if you
swallowed love with singing love, sometime 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 painting; and keep not too long in one tune, but a snip and
away. These are compliments, these are humours; these betray nice
wenches that would be betrayed without these; and make them men of
note—do you note me?—that most are affected to these.
ARMADO.
How hast thou purchased this experience?
MOTH.
By my penny of observation.
ARMADO.
But O—but O—
MOTH.
“The hobby-horse is forgot.”
ARMADO.
Call’st thou my love “hobby-horse”?
MOTH.
No, master. The hobby-horse is but a colt, and your love perhaps a
hackney. But have you forgot your love?
ARMADO.
Almost I had.
MOTH.
Negligent student! Learn her by heart.
ARMADO.
By heart and in heart, boy.
MOTH.
And out of heart, master. All those three I will prove.
ARMADO.
What wilt thou prove?
MOTH.
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 you cannot enjoy her.
ARMADO.
I am all these three.
MOTH.
And three times as much more, and yet nothing at all.
ARMADO.
Fetch hither the swain. He must carry me a letter.
MOTH.
A message well sympathized: a horse to be ambassador for an ass.
ARMADO.
Ha, ha, what sayest thou?
MOTH.
Marry, sir, you must send the ass upon the horse, for he is very
slow-gaited. But I go.
ARMADO.
The way is but short. Away!
MOTH.
As swift as lead, sir.
ARMADO.
The meaning, pretty ingenious?
Is not lead a metal heavy, dull, and slow?
MOTH.
_Minime_, honest master; or rather, master, no.
ARMADO.
I say lead is slow.
MOTH.
You are too swift, sir, to say so.
Is that lead slow which is fired from a gun?
ARMADO.
Sweet smoke of rhetoric!
He reputes me a cannon; and the bullet, that’s he.
I shoot thee at the swain.
MOTH.
Thump then, and I flee.
[_Exit._]
ARMADO.
A most acute juvenal, voluble and free of grace!
By thy favour, sweet welkin, I must sigh in thy face.
Most rude melancholy, valour gives thee place.
My herald is returned.
Enter Moth and Costard.
MOTH.
A wonder, master! Here’s a costard broken in a shin.
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 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?_
MOTH.
Do the wise think them other? Is not _l’envoi_ a _salve?_
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.
There’s the moral. Now the _l’envoi_.
MOTH.
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.
MOTH.
Until the goose came out of door,
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.
ARMADO.
Until the goose came out of door,
Staying the odds by adding four.
MOTH.
A good _l’envoi_, ending in the goose. Would you desire more?
COSTARD.
The boy hath sold him a bargain, a goose, that’s 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.
ARMADO.
Come hither, come hither. How did this argument begin?
MOTH.
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 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?
MOTH.
I will tell you sensibly.
COSTARD.
Thou hast no feeling of it, Moth. 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.
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 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, and, in lieu thereof,
impose on thee nothing but this: [_Giving him a letter_.] bear this
significant to the country maid Jaquenetta. [_Giving money_.] There is
remuneration for the best ward of mine honour is rewarding my
dependents. Moth, follow.
[_Exit._]
MOTH.
Like the sequel, I. Signior Costard, adieu.
[_Exit Moth._]
COSTARD.
My sweet ounce of man’s flesh, my incony Jew!
Now will I look to his remuneration. “Remuneration”! O, that’s the
Latin word for 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.
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?
COSTARD.
Marry, sir, halfpenny farthing.
BEROWNE.
Why, then, three-farthing worth of silk.
COSTARD.
I thank your worship. God be wi’ you.
BEROWNE.
Stay, slave. I must employ thee.
As thou wilt win my favour, good my knave,
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.
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, 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,
And Rosaline they call her. Ask for her
And to her white hand see thou do commend
This sealed-up counsel.
[_Gives him money._]
There’s thy guerdon. Go.
COSTARD.
Gardon, O sweet gardon! Better than remuneration, a ’levenpence
farthing better. Most sweet gardon! I will do it, sir, in print.
Gardon! Remuneration!
[_Exit._]
BEROWNE.
And I, forsooth, in love! I, that have been love’s whip,
A very beadle to a humorous sigh,
A critic, nay, a night-watch 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,
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
Of trotting paritors—O my little heart!
And I to be a corporal of his field
And wear his colours like a tumbler’s hoop!
What? I love, I sue, I seek a wife?
A woman, that is like a German clock,
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,
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,
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, and groan.
Some men must love my lady, and some Joan.
[_Exit._]
ACT IV
SCENE I. The King of Navarre’s park
Enter the Princess, a Forester, Rosaline, Maria, Katharine, Boyet and
other Lords.
PRINCESS.
Was that the King that spurred his horse so hard
Against the steep uprising of the hill?
BOYET.
I know not, but I think it was not he.
PRINCESS.
Whoe’er he was, he showed a mounting mind.
Well, lords, today we shall have our dispatch;
On Saturday we will return to France.
Then, forester, my friend, where is the bush
That we must stand and play the murderer in?
FORESTER.
Hereby, upon the edge of yonder coppice,
A stand where you may make “the fairest shoot”.
PRINCESS.
I thank my beauty, I am fair that shoot,
And thereupon thou speak’st the fairest shoot.
FORESTER.
Pardon me, madam, for I meant not so.
PRINCESS.
What, what? First praise me, and again say no?
O short-lived pride! Not fair? Alack for woe!
FORESTER.
Yes, madam, fair.
PRINCESS.
Nay, never paint me now.
Where fair is not, praise cannot mend the brow.
Here, good my glass, take this for telling true:
[_She gives him money._]
Fair payment for foul words is more than due.
FORESTER.
Nothing but fair is that which you inherit.
PRINCESS.
See, see, my beauty will be saved by merit.
O heresy in fair, fit for these days!
A giving hand, though foul, shall have fair praise.
But come, the bow. Now mercy goes to kill,
And shooting well is then accounted ill.
Thus will I save my credit in the shoot:
Not wounding, pity would not let me do’t;
If wounding, then it was to show my skill,
That more for praise than purpose meant to kill.
And out of question so it is sometimes,
Glory grows guilty of detested crimes,
When, for fame’s sake, for praise, an outward part,
We bend to that the working of the heart;
As I for praise alone now seek to spill
The poor deer’s blood, that my heart means no ill.
BOYET.
Do not curst wives hold that self-sovereignty
Only for praise’ sake, when they strive to be
Lords o’er their lords?
PRINCESS.
Only for praise; and praise we may afford
To any lady that subdues a lord.
Enter Costard.
BOYET.
Here comes a member of the commonwealth.
COSTARD.
God dig-you-den all! Pray you, which is the head lady?
PRINCESS.
Thou shalt know her, fellow, by the rest that have no heads.
COSTARD.
Which is the greatest lady, the highest?
PRINCESS.
The thickest and the tallest.
COSTARD.
The thickest and the tallest. It is so, truth is truth.