Love's Labour's Lost
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.
DUMAINE.
[_Picking up the pieces_.]
It is Berowne’s writing, and here is his name.
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 lacked 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.
DUMAINE.
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 Ind,
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 inspired 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 culled 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 withered 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 word 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 decked,
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.
DUMAINE.
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.
DUMAINE.
Dark needs no candles now, for dark is light.
BEROWNE.
Your mistresses dare never come in rain,
For fear their colours should be washed away.
KING.
’Twere good yours did; for, sir, to tell you plain,
I’ll find a fairer face not washed today.
BEROWNE.
I’ll prove her fair, or talk till doomsday here.
KING.
No devil will fright thee then so much as she.
DUMAINE.
I never knew man hold vile stuff so dear.
LONGAVILLE.
[_Showing his shoe_.]
Look, here’s thy love, my foot and her face see.
BEROWNE.
O, if the streets were paved with thine eyes,
Her feet were much too dainty for such tread.
DUMAINE.
O vile! Then, as she goes, what upward lies
The street should see as she walked over head.
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.
DUMAINE.
Ay, marry, there; some flattery for this evil.
LONGAVILLE.
O, some authority how to proceed.
Some tricks, some quillets, how to cheat the devil.
DUMAINE.
Some salve for perjury.
BEROWNE.
O, ’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.
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 enriched 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 stopped.
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 tempered 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! But be first advised
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, masques, 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!_ Sowed cockle reaped 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 King of Navarre’s 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” _sine_ “b”, 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 “abominable”. 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 scratched; ’twill serve.
Enter Armado, Moth and Costard.
NATHANIEL.
_Videsne quis venit?_
HOLOFERNES.
_Video, et gaudeo._
ARMADO.
_Chirrah!_
HOLOFERNES.
_Quare_ “chirrah”, not “sirrah”?
ARMADO.
Men of peace, well encountered.
HOLOFERNES.
Most military sir, salutation.
MOTH.
[_Aside to Costard_.] They have been at a great feast of languages and
stolen the scraps.
COSTARD.
O, they have lived long on the almsbasket of words. I marvel thy master
hath not eaten thee for a word, for thou art 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 lettered?
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.
Offered 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 _unum
cita_. A gig of a cuckold’s horn.
COSTARD.
An I had but one penny in the world, thou shouldst have it to buy
gingerbread. 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