Love’s Labor’s Lost

Love’s Labor’s Lost
Act 1, scene 1

Synopsis:

Characters in the Play

Entire Play

In Love’s Labor’s Lost, the comedy centers on four young men who fall in love against their wills. The men, one…

Act 1, scene 1

The King of Navarre and his lords vow to retire from the world (especially from women) and study for three…

Act 1, scene 2

Armado confides first to his page Mote and then to Jaquenetta herself that he is in love with Jaquenetta. He…

Act 2, scene 1

The Princess of France and her ladies arrive at Navarre. The King greets them but refuses to admit them into…

Act 3, scene 1

Armado frees Costard and gives him a love letter to take to Jaquenetta. Berowne then enters. He gives Costard a…

Act 4, scene 1

While hunting, the Princess, her ladies, and Boyet are visited by Costard, who, by mistake, delivers to them Armado’s letter…

Act 4, scene 2

The Pedant Holofernes, the Curate Nathaniel, and Constable Dull discuss the deer shot by the Princess. Costard and Jaquenetta enter…

Act 4, scene 3

One after the other, the King and his lords enter and confess they are in love. Each, after he confesses,…

Act 5, scene 1

Armado, ordered by the King to provide some entertainment for the Princess and her ladies, consults Holofernes, who suggests that…

Act 5, scene 2

Boyet reports to the Princess that the King and his lords, disguised as Russians, will visit the ladies. The Princess…

⌜Scene 1⌝

Enter Ferdinand, King of Navarre, Berowne,
Longaville, and Dumaine.

KING
Let fame, that all hunt after in their lives,
Live registered upon our brazen tombs,
And then grace us in the disgrace of death,
When, spite of cormorant devouring time,
5 Th’ endeavor of this present breath may buy
That honor which shall bate his scythe’s keen edge
And make us heirs of all eternity.
Therefore, brave conquerors, for so you are
That war against your own affections
10 And the huge army of the world’s desires,
Our late edict shall strongly stand in force.
Navarre shall be the wonder of the world;
Our court shall be a little academe,
Still and contemplative in living art.
15 You three, Berowne, Dumaine, and Longaville,
Have sworn for three years’ term to live with me,
My fellow scholars, and to keep those statutes
That are recorded in this schedule here.
⌜He holds up a scroll.⌝
Your oaths are passed, and now subscribe your
20 names,
That his own hand may strike his honor down

Love’s Labor’s Lost

ACT 1. SC. 1

That violates the smallest branch herein.
If you are armed to do as sworn to do,
Subscribe to your deep oaths, and keep it too.
LONGAVILLE
25 I am resolved. ’Tis but a ⟨three⟩ years’ fast.
The mind shall banquet though the body pine.
Fat paunches have lean pates, and dainty bits
Make rich the ribs but bankrout quite the wits.
⌜He signs his name.⌝
DUMAINE
My loving lord, Dumaine is mortified.
30 The grosser manner of these world’s delights
He throws upon the gross world’s baser slaves.
To love, to wealth, to ⟨pomp⟩ I pine and die,
With all these living in philosophy.
⌜He signs his name.⌝
BEROWNE
I can but say their protestation over.
35 So much, dear liege, I have already sworn,
That is, to live and study here three years.
But there are other strict observances:
As not to see a woman in that term,
Which I hope well is not enrollèd there;
40 And one day in a week to touch no food,
And but one meal on every day besides,
The which I hope is not enrollèd there;
And then to sleep but three hours in the night,
And not be seen to wink of all the day—
45 When I was wont to think no harm all night,
And make a dark night too of half the day—
Which I hope well is not enrollèd there.
O, these are barren tasks, too hard to keep,
Not to see ladies, study, fast, not sleep.
KING
50 Your oath is passed to pass away from these.

Love’s Labor’s Lost

ACT 1. SC. 1

BEROWNE
Let me say no, my liege, an if you please.
I only swore to study with your Grace
And stay here in your court for three years’ space.
LONGAVILLE
You swore to that, Berowne, and to the rest.
BEROWNE
55 By yea and nay, sir. Then I swore in jest.
What is the end of study, let me know?
KING
Why, that to know which else we should not know.
BEROWNE
Things hid and barred, you mean, from common
sense.
KING
60 Ay, that is study’s godlike recompense.
BEROWNE
Come on, then, I will swear to study so,
To know the thing I am forbid to know:
As thus—to study where I well may dine,
  When I to ⌜feast⌝ expressly am forbid;
65 Or study where to meet some mistress fine
  When mistresses from common sense are hid;
Or having sworn too hard-a-keeping oath,
Study to break it, and not break my troth.
If study’s gain be thus, and this be so,
70 Study knows that which yet it doth not know.
Swear me to this, and I will ne’er say no.
KING
These be the stops that hinder study quite,
And train our intellects to vain delight.
BEROWNE
Why, all delights are vain, ⟨and⟩ that most vain
75 Which with pain purchased doth inherit pain:
As painfully to pore upon a book
  To seek the light of truth, while truth the while

Love’s Labor’s Lost

ACT 1. SC. 1

Doth falsely blind the eyesight of his look.
  Light seeking light doth light of light beguile.
80 So, ere you find where light in darkness lies,
Your light grows dark by losing of your eyes.
Study me how to please the eye indeed
  By fixing it upon a fairer eye,
Who dazzling so, that eye shall be his heed
85  And give him light that it was blinded by.
Study is like the heaven’s glorious sun,
  That will not be deep-searched with saucy looks.
Small have continual plodders ever won,
  Save base authority from others’ books.
90 These earthly godfathers of heaven’s lights,
  That give a name to every fixèd star,
Have no more profit of their shining nights
  Than those that walk and wot not what they are.
Too much to know is to know naught but fame,
95 And every godfather can give a name.
KING
How well he’s read to reason against reading.
DUMAINE
Proceeded well, to stop all good proceeding.
LONGAVILLE
He weeds the corn, and still lets grow the weeding.
BEROWNE
The spring is near when green geese are a-breeding.
DUMAINE
100 How follows that?
BEROWNE  Fit in his place and time.
DUMAINE
In reason nothing.
BEROWNE  Something then in rhyme.
KING
Berowne is like an envious sneaping frost
105  That bites the firstborn infants of the spring.

Love’s Labor’s Lost

ACT 1. SC. 1

BEROWNE
Well, say I am. Why should proud summer boast
  Before the birds have any cause to sing?
Why should I joy in any abortive birth?
At Christmas I no more desire a rose
110 Than wish a snow in May’s new-fangled shows,
But like of each thing that in season grows.
So you, to study now it is too late,
Climb o’er the house to unlock the little gate.
KING
Well, sit you out. Go home, Berowne. Adieu.
BEROWNE
115 No, my good lord, I have sworn to stay with you.
And though I have for barbarism spoke more
  Than for that angel knowledge you can say,
Yet, confident, I’ll keep what I have sworn
  And bide the penance of each three years’ day.
120 Give me the paper. Let me read the same,
And to the strictest decrees I’ll write my name.
KING
How well this yielding rescues thee from shame.
BEROWNE ⌜reads⌝ Item, That no woman shall come within
a mile of my court. Hath this been proclaimed?
LONGAVILLE 125Four days ago.
BEROWNE Let’s see the penalty. ⌜Reads:⌝ On pain of
losing her tongue. Who devised this penalty?
LONGAVILLE Marry, that did I.
BEROWNE Sweet lord, and why?
LONGAVILLE
130 To fright them hence with that dread penalty.
⌜BEROWNE⌝
A dangerous law against gentility.
⌜Reads:⌝ Item, If any man be seen to talk with a
woman within the term of three years, he shall endure
such public shame as the rest of the court can possible
135 devise.

Love’s Labor’s Lost

ACT 1. SC. 1

This article, my liege, yourself must break,
  For well you know here comes in embassy
The French king’s daughter with yourself to speak—
  A maid of grace and complete majesty—
140 About surrender up of Aquitaine
  To her decrepit, sick, and bedrid father.
Therefore this article is made in vain,
  Or vainly comes th’ admirèd princess hither.
KING
What say you, lords? Why, this was quite forgot.
BEROWNE
145 So study evermore is overshot.
While it doth study to have what it would,
It doth forget to do the thing it should.
And when it hath the thing it hunteth most,
’Tis won as towns with fire—so won, so lost.
KING
150 We must of force dispense with this decree.
She must lie here on mere necessity.
BEROWNE
Necessity will make us all forsworn
  Three thousand times within this three years’
  space;
155 For every man with his affects is born,
  Not by might mastered, but by special grace.
If I break faith, this word shall speak for me:
I am forsworn on mere necessity.
So to the laws at large I write my name,
160  And he that breaks them in the least degree
Stands in attainder of eternal shame.
  Suggestions are to other as to me,
But I believe, although I seem so loath,
I am the last that will last keep his oath.
⌜He signs his name.⌝
165 But is there no quick recreation granted?

Love’s Labor’s Lost

ACT 1. SC. 1

KING
Ay, that there is. Our court, you know, is haunted
  With a refinèd traveler of Spain,
A man in all the world’s new fashion planted,
  That hath a mint of phrases in his brain;
170 One who the music of his own vain tongue
  Doth ravish like enchanting harmony,
A man of compliments, whom right and wrong
  Have chose as umpire of their mutiny.
This child of fancy, that Armado hight,
175  For interim to our studies shall relate
In high-born words the worth of many a knight
  From tawny Spain lost in the world’s debate.
How you delight, my lords, I know not, I,
But I protest I love to hear him lie,
180 And I will use him for my minstrelsy.
BEROWNE
Armado is a most illustrious wight,
A man of fire-new words, fashion’s own knight.
LONGAVILLE
Costard the swain and he shall be our sport,
And so to study three years is but short.

Enter ⌜Dull,⌝ a Constable, with a letter, ⌜and⌝ Costard.

DULL 185Which is the Duke’s own person?
BEROWNE This, fellow. What wouldst?
DULL I myself reprehend his own person, for I am his
Grace’s farborough. But I would see his own
person in flesh and blood.
BEROWNE 190This is he.
DULL, ⌜to King⌝ Signior Arm-, Arm-, commends you.
There’s villainy abroad. This letter will tell you
more.⌜He gives the letter to the King.⌝
COSTARD Sir, the contempts thereof are as touching
195 me.
KING A letter from the magnificent Armado.

Love’s Labor’s Lost

ACT 1. SC. 1

BEROWNE How low soever the matter, I hope in God
for high words.
LONGAVILLE A high hope for a low heaven. God grant
200 us patience!
BEROWNE To hear, or forbear hearing?
LONGAVILLE To hear meekly, sir, and to laugh moderately,
or to forbear both.
BEROWNE Well, sir, be it as the style shall give us cause
205 to climb in the merriness.
COSTARD The matter is to me, sir, as concerning
Jaquenetta. The manner of it is, I was taken with
the manner.
BEROWNE In what manner?
COSTARD 210In manner and form following, sir, all those
three. I was seen with her in the manor house,
sitting with her upon the form, and taken following
her into the park, which, put together, is “in manner
and form following.” Now, sir, for the manner.
215 It is the manner of a man to speak to a woman. For
the form—in some form.
BEROWNE For the “following,” sir?
COSTARD As it shall follow in my correction, and God
defend the right.
KING 220Will you hear this letter with attention?
BEROWNE As we would hear an oracle.
COSTARD Such is the sinplicity of man to hearken after
the flesh.
KING ⌜reads⌝ Great deputy, the welkin’s vicegerent and
225 sole dominator of Navarre, my soul’s earth’s god, and
body’s fost’ring patron—
COSTARD Not a word of Costard yet.
KING ⌜reads⌝ So it is—
COSTARD It may be so, but if he say it is so, he is, in
230 telling true, but so.
KING Peace.
COSTARD Be to me, and every man that dares not fight.

Love’s Labor’s Lost

ACT 1. SC. 1

KING No words.
COSTARD Of other men’s secrets, I beseech you.
KING ⌜reads⌝ 235So it is, ⟨besieged⟩ with sable-colored melancholy,
I did commend the black oppressing humor
to the most wholesome physic of thy health-giving air;
and, as I am a gentleman, betook myself to walk. The
time when? About the sixth hour, when beasts most
240 graze, birds best peck, and men sit down to that
nourishment which is called supper. So much for the
time when. Now for the ground which—which, I
mean, I walked upon. It is yclept thy park. Then for the
place where—where, I mean, I did encounter that
245 obscene and most prepost’rous event that draweth
from my snow-white pen the ebon-colored ink, which
here thou viewest, beholdest, surveyest, or seest. But to
the place where. It standeth north-north-east and by
east from the west corner of thy curious-knotted
250 garden. There did I see that low-spirited swain, that
base minnow of thy mirth,—
COSTARD Me?
KING ⌜reads⌝ that unlettered, small-knowing soul,—
COSTARD Me?
KING ⌜reads⌝ 255that shallow vassal,—
COSTARD Still me?
KING ⌜reads⌝ which, as I remember, hight Costard,—
COSTARD O, me!
KING ⌜reads⌝ sorted and consorted, contrary to thy
260 established proclaimed edict and continent canon,
which with—O with—but with this I passion to say
wherewith—
COSTARD With a wench.
KING ⌜reads⌝ with a child of our grandmother Eve, a
265 female; or, for thy more sweet understanding, a
woman: him, I, as my ever-esteemed duty pricks
me on, have sent to thee, to receive the meed of
punishment by thy sweet Grace’s officer, Anthony

Love’s Labor’s Lost

ACT 1. SC. 1

Dull, a man of good repute, carriage, bearing, and
270 estimation.
DULL Me, an ’t shall please you. I am Anthony Dull.
KING ⌜reads⌝ For Jaquenetta—so is the weaker vessel
called which I apprehended with the aforesaid
swain—I keep her as a vessel of thy law’s fury, and
275 shall, at the least of thy sweet notice, bring her to trial.
Thine, in all compliments of devoted and heartburning
heat of duty,
Don Adriano de Armado.
BEROWNE This is not so well as I looked for, but the
280 best that ever I heard.
KING Ay, the best, for the worst. ⌜To Costard.⌝ But,
sirrah, what say you to this?
COSTARD Sir, I confess the wench.
KING Did you hear the proclamation?
COSTARD 285I do confess much of the hearing it, but little
of the marking of it.
KING It was proclaimed a year’s imprisonment to be
taken with a wench.
COSTARD I was taken with none, sir. I was taken with a
290 damsel.
KING Well, it was proclaimed “damsel.”
COSTARD This was no damsel neither, sir. She was a
virgin.
BEROWNE It is so varied too, for it was proclaimed
295 “virgin.”
COSTARD If it were, I deny her virginity. I was taken
with a maid.
KING This “maid” will not serve your turn, sir.
COSTARD This maid will serve my turn, sir.
KING 300Sir, I will pronounce your sentence: you shall
fast a week with bran and water.
COSTARD I had rather pray a month with mutton and
porridge.

Love’s Labor’s Lost

ACT 1. SC. 2

KING And Don Armado shall be your keeper.
305 My Lord Berowne, see him delivered o’er,
And go we, lords, to put in practice that
Which each to other hath so strongly sworn.
⌜King, Longaville, and Dumaine exit.⌝
BEROWNE
I’ll lay my head to any goodman’s hat,
These oaths and laws will prove an idle scorn.
310 Sirrah, come on.
COSTARD I suffer for the truth, sir; for true it is I was
taken with Jaquenetta, and Jaquenetta is a true
girl. And therefore welcome the sour cup of prosperity.
Affliction may one day smile again, and till
315 then, sit thee down, sorrow.
They exit.

Synopsis:

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Contents

Characters in the Play

Entire Play

Act 1, scene 1

Act 1, scene 2

Act 2, scene 1

Act 3, scene 1

Act 4, scene 1

Act 4, scene 2

Act 4, scene 3

Act 5, scene 1

Act 5, scene 2