Love's Labour's Lost
You find not the apostrophus, and so miss the accent. Let me supervise
the canzonet. [_He takes the letter_.] Here are only numbers ratified,
but, for the elegancy, facility, and golden cadence of poesy, _caret_.
Ovidius Naso was the man. And why indeed “Naso,” but for smelling out
the odoriferous flowers of fancy, the jerks of invention? _Imitari_ is
nothing: so doth the hound his master, the ape his keeper, the tired
horse his rider. But, damosella virgin, was this directed to you?
JAQUENETTA.
Ay, sir, from one Monsieur Berowne, one of the strange queen’s lords.
HOLOFERNES.
I will overglance the superscript: _To the snow-white hand of the most
beauteous Lady Rosaline._ I will look again on the intellect of the
letter, for the nomination of the party writing to the person written
unto: _Your Ladyship’s in all desired employment, Berowne._ Sir
Nathaniel, this Berowne is one of the votaries with the King, and here
he hath framed a letter to a sequent of the stranger queen’s, which
accidentally, or by the way of progression, hath miscarried. Trip and
go, my sweet, deliver this paper into the royal hand of the King. It
may concern much. Stay not thy compliment. I forgive thy duty. Adieu.
JAQUENETTA.
Good Costard, go with me. Sir, God save your life.
COSTARD.
Have with thee, my girl.
[_Exeunt Costard and Jaquenetta._]
NATHANIEL.
Sir, you have done this in the fear of God, very religiously; and, as a
certain Father saith—
HOLOFERNES.
Sir, tell not me of the Father, I do fear colourable colours. But to
return to the verses: did they please you, Sir Nathaniel?
NATHANIEL.
Marvellous well for the pen.
HOLOFERNES.
I do dine today at the father’s of a certain pupil of mine, where if,
before repast, it shall please you to gratify the table with a grace, I
will, on my privilege I have with the parents of the foresaid child or
pupil, undertake your _ben venuto;_ where I will prove those verses to
be very unlearned, neither savouring of poetry, wit, nor invention. I
beseech your society.
NATHANIEL.
And thank you too; for society, saith the text, is the happiness of
life.
HOLOFERNES.
And certes, the text most infallibly concludes it. [_To Dull_.] Sir, I
do invite you too. You shall not say me nay. _Pauca verba_. Away! The
gentles are at their game, and we will to our recreation.
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE III. The same
Enter Berowne with a paper in his hand, alone.
BEROWNE.
The King, he is hunting the deer; I am coursing myself. They have
pitched a toil; I am toiling in a pitch, pitch that defiles. Defile! A
foul word! Well, set thee down, sorrow, for so they say the fool said,
and so say I, and I the fool. Well proved, wit! By the Lord, this love
is as mad as Ajax. It kills sheep, it kills me, I a sheep. Well proved
again, o’ my side! I will not love; if I do, hang me! I’ faith, I will
not. O, but her eye! By this light, but for her eye, I would not love
her; yes, for her two eyes. Well, I do nothing in the world but lie,
and lie in my throat. By heaven, I do love, and it hath taught me to
rhyme, and to be melancholy. And here is part of my rhyme, and here my
melancholy. Well, she hath one o’ my sonnets already. The clown bore
it, the fool sent it, and the lady hath it. Sweet clown, sweeter fool,
sweetest lady! By the world, I would not care a pin if the other three
were in. Here comes one with a paper. God give him grace to groan!
[_He stands aside._]
Enter the King with a paper.
KING.
Ay me!
BEROWNE.
[_Aside_.] Shot, by heaven! Proceed, sweet Cupid, thou hast thumped him
with thy birdbolt under the left pap. In faith, secrets!
KING.
[_Reads_.] [_So sweet a kiss the golden sun gives not
To those fresh morning drops upon the rose,
As thy eye-beams, when their fresh rays have smote
The night of dew that on my cheeks down flows.
Nor shines the silver moon one half so bright
Through the transparent bosom of the deep
As doth thy face, through tears of mine give light.
Thou shin’st in every tear that I do weep.
No drop but as a coach doth carry thee;
So ridest thou triumphing in my woe.
Do but behold the tears that swell in me,
And they thy glory through my grief will show.
But do not love thyself; then thou wilt keep
My tears for glasses, and still make me weep.
O queen of queens, how far dost thou excel
No thought can think, nor tongue of mortal tell._
How shall she know my griefs? I’ll drop the paper.
Sweet leaves, shade folly. Who is he comes here?
[_Steps aside._]
What, Longaville, and reading! Listen, ear.
Enter Longaville with a paper.
BEROWNE.
[_Aside_.] Now, in thy likeness, one more fool appear!
LONGAVILLE.
Ay me! I am forsworn.
BEROWNE.
Why, he comes in like a perjure, wearing papers.
KING.
In love, I hope. Sweet fellowship in shame.
BEROWNE.
One drunkard loves another of the name.
LONGAVILLE.
Am I the first that have been perjured so?
BEROWNE.
I could put thee in comfort: not by two that I know.
Thou makest the triumviry, the corner-cap of society,
The shape of love’s Tyburn, that hangs up simplicity.
LONGAVILLE.
I fear these stubborn lines lack power to move.
O sweet Maria, empress of my love,
These numbers will I tear, and write in prose.
BEROWNE.
O, rhymes are guards on wanton Cupid’s hose.
Disfigure not his shop.
LONGAVILLE.
This same shall go.
[_He reads the sonnet._]
_Did not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye,
’Gainst whom the world cannot hold argument,
Persuade my heart to this false perjury?
Vows for thee broke deserve not punishment.
A woman I forswore, but I will prove,
Thou being a goddess, I forswore not thee.
My vow was earthly, thou a heavenly love;
Thy grace being gained, cures all disgrace in me.
Vows are but breath, and breath a vapour is.
Then thou, fair sun, which on my earth dost shine,
Exhal’st this vapour-vow; in thee it is.
If broken then, it is no fault of mine;
If by me broke, what fool is not so wise
To lose an oath to win a paradise?_
BEROWNE.
This is the liver vein, which makes flesh a deity,
A green goose a goddess. Pure, pure idolatry.
God amend us, God amend! We are much out o’ th’ way.
LONGAVILLE.
By whom shall I send this?—Company! Stay.
[_He steps aside._]
Enter Dumaine with a paper.
BEROWNE.
All hid, all hid, an old infant play.
Like a demigod here sit I in the sky,
And wretched fools’ secrets heedfully o’er-eye.
More sacks to the mill. O heavens, I have my wish.
Dumaine transformed! Four woodcocks in a dish!
DUMAINE.
O most divine Kate!
BEROWNE.
O most profane coxcomb!
DUMAINE.
By heaven, the wonder in a mortal eye!
BEROWNE.
By earth, she is but corporal. There you lie.
DUMAINE.
Her amber hairs for foul hath amber quoted.
BEROWNE.
An amber-coloured raven was well noted.
DUMAINE.
As upright as the cedar.
BEROWNE.
Stoop, I say.
Her shoulder is with child.
DUMAINE.
As fair as day.
BEROWNE.
Ay, as some days, but then no sun must shine.
DUMAINE.
O, that I had my wish!
LONGAVILLE.
And I had mine!
KING.
And I mine too, good Lord!
BEROWNE.
Amen, so I had mine. Is not that a good word?
DUMAINE.
I would forget her; but a fever she
Reigns in my blood, and will remembered be.
BEROWNE.
A fever in your blood? Why, then incision
Would let her out in saucers. Sweet misprision!
DUMAINE.
Once more I’ll read the ode that I have writ.
BEROWNE.
Once more I’ll mark how love can vary wit.
DUMAINE.
[_Dumaine reads his sonnet_.]
_On a day—alack the day!—
Love, whose month is ever May,
Spied a blossom passing fair
Playing in the wanton air.
Through the velvet leaves the wind,
All unseen, can passage find;
That the lover, sick to death,
Wished himself the heaven’s breath.
“Air,” quoth he, “thy cheeks may blow;
Air, would I might triumph so!”
But, alack, my hand is sworn
Ne’er to pluck thee from thy thorn.
Vow, alack, for youth unmeet,
Youth so apt to pluck a sweet.
Do not call it sin in me,
That I am forsworn for thee;
Thou for whom Jove would swear
Juno but an Ethiope were,
And deny himself for Jove,
Turning mortal for thy love._
This will I send, and something else more plain,
That shall express my true love’s fasting pain.
O, would the King, Berowne and Longaville
Were lovers too! Ill, to example ill,
Would from my forehead wipe a perjured note,
For none offend where all alike do dote.
LONGAVILLE.
[_Comes forward_.] Dumaine, thy love is far from charity,
That in love’s grief desir’st society.
You may look pale, but I should blush, I know,
To be o’erheard and taken napping so.
KING.
[_Comes forward_.] Come, sir, you blush. As his, your case is such.
You chide at him, offending twice as much.
You do not love Maria? Longaville
Did never sonnet for her sake compile,
Nor never lay his wreathed arms athwart
His loving bosom to keep down his heart.
I have been closely shrouded in this bush,
And marked you both, and for you both did blush.
I heard your guilty rhymes, observed your fashion,
Saw sighs reek from you, noted well your passion.
“Ay, me!” says one. “O Jove!” the other cries.
One, her hairs were gold; crystal the other’s eyes.
[_To Longaville_.] You would for paradise break faith and troth;
[_To Dumaine_.] And Jove, for your love would infringe an oath.
What will Berowne say when that he shall hear
Faith infringed which such zeal did swear?
How will he scorn, how will he spend his wit!
How will he triumph, leap, and laugh at it!
For all the wealth that ever I did see,
I would not have him know so much by me.
BEROWNE.
[_Comes forward_.]
Now step I forth to whip hypocrisy.
Ah, good my liege, I pray thee pardon me.
Good heart, what grace hast thou thus to reprove
These worms for loving, that art most in love?
Your eyes do make no coaches; in your tears
There is no certain princess that appears.
You’ll not be perjured, ’tis a hateful thing:
Tush, none but minstrels like of sonneting!
But are you not ashamed? Nay, are you not,
All three of you, to be thus much o’ershot?
You found his mote, the King your mote did see;
But I a beam do find in each of three.
O, what a scene of foolery have I seen,
Of sighs, of groans, of sorrow, and of teen!
O me, with what strict patience have I sat,
To see a king transformed to a gnat!
To see great Hercules whipping a gig,
And profound Solomon to tune a jig,
And Nestor play at push-pin with the boys,
And critic Timon laugh at idle toys.
Where lies thy grief, O, tell me, good Dumaine?
And, gentle Longaville, where lies thy pain?
And where my liege’s? All about the breast?
A caudle, ho!
KING.
Too bitter is thy jest.
Are we betrayed thus to thy over-view?
BEROWNE.
Not you to me, but I betrayed by you.
I that am honest, I that hold it sin
To break the vow I am engaged in.
I am betrayed by keeping company
With men like you, men of inconstancy.
When shall you see me write a thing in rhyme?
Or groan for Joan? Or spend a minute’s time
In pruning me? When shall you hear that I
Will praise a hand, a foot, a face, an eye,
A gait, a state, a brow, a breast, a waist,
A leg, a limb—
KING.
Soft! Whither away so fast?
A true man, or a thief, that gallops so?
BEROWNE.
I post from love. Good lover, let me go.
Enter Jaquenetta, with a letter, and Costard.
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?