Synopsis:
Armado frees Costard and gives him a love letter to take to Jaquenetta. Berowne then enters. He gives Costard a letter to take to Rosaline. Berowne, alone, admits that he is in love.
Love’s Labor’s LostLove’s Labor’s Lost
Contents
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 Braggart ⌜Armado⌝ and his Boy.ARMADO Warble, child, make passionate my sense of
hearing.
BOY ⌜sings⌝ Concolinel.
ARMADO Sweet air. Go, tenderness of years. ⌜He hands
over a key.⌝ 5Take this key, give enlargement to the
swain, bring him festinately hither. I must employ
him in a letter to my love.
BOY Master, will you win your love with a French
brawl?
ARMADO 10How meanest thou? Brawling in French?
BOY No, my complete master, but to jig off a tune at the
tongue’s end, canary to it with your feet, humor it
with turning up your eyelids, sigh a note and sing a
note, sometimes through the throat ⌜as⌝ if you
15 swallowed love with singing love, sometimes
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
20 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
humors; these betray nice wenches that would be
betrayed without these, and make them men of
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ACT 3. SC. 1
to these.
ARMADO How hast thou purchased this experience?
BOY By my ⌜penny⌝ of observation.
ARMADO But O— but O—.
BOY 30“The hobby-horse is forgot.”
ARMADO Call’st thou my love “hobby-horse”?
BOY No, master. The hobby-horse is but a colt, ⌜aside⌝
and your love perhaps a hackney.—But have you
forgot your love?
ARMADO 35Almost I had.
BOY Negligent student, learn her by heart.
ARMADO By heart and in heart, boy.
BOY And out of heart, master. All those three I will
prove.
ARMADO 40What wilt thou prove?
BOY 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
45 “out” of heart you love her, being out of heart that
you cannot enjoy her.
ARMADO I am all these three.
BOY And three times as much more, ⌜aside⌝ and yet
nothing at all.
ARMADO 50Fetch hither the swain. He must carry me a
letter.
BOY A message well sympathized—a horse to be ambassador
for an ass.
ARMADO Ha? Ha? What sayest thou?
BOY 55Marry, 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!
BOY As swift as lead, sir.
ARMADO ⟨Thy⟩ meaning, pretty ingenious?
60 Is not lead a metal heavy, dull, and slow?
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Love’s Labor’s Lost
ACT 3. SC. 1
Minime, honest master, or rather, master, no.
ARMADO
I say lead is slow.
BOY You are too swift, sir, to say so.
Is that lead slow which is fired from a gun?
ARMADO 65Sweet smoke of rhetoric!
He reputes me a cannon, and the bullet, that’s
he.—
I shoot thee at the swain.
BOY Thump, then, and I flee.
⌜He exits.⌝
ARMADO
70 A most acute juvenal, voluble and free of grace.
By thy favor, sweet welkin, I must sigh in thy face.
Most rude melancholy, valor gives thee place.
My herald is returned.
Enter ⌜Boy⌝ and Clown ⌜Costard.⌝
BOY A wonder, master!
75 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 80By 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?
BOY
85 Do the wise think them other? Is not l’envoi a salve?
ARMADO
No, page, it is an epilogue or discourse to make plain
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Love’s Labor’s Lost
ACT 3. SC. 1
I will example it:
The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee
90 Were still at odds, being but three.
There’s the moral. Now the l’envoi.
BOY 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.
BOY
95 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
100 Were still at odds, being but three.
ARMADO
Until the goose came out of door,
Staying the odds by adding four.
BOY A good l’envoi, ending in the goose. Would you
desire more?
COSTARD
105 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.
110 Let me see: a fat l’envoi—ay, that’s a fat goose.
ARMADO
Come hither, come hither. How did this argument
begin?
BOY
By saying that a costard was broken in a shin.
Then called you for the l’envoi.
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ACT 3. SC. 1
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?
BOY 120I will tell you sensibly.
COSTARD Thou hast no feeling of it, Mote. I will speak
that l’envoi.
I, Costard, running out, that was safely within,
Fell over the threshold and broke my shin.
ARMADO 125We 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 130By 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 135I give thee thy liberty, set thee from durance,
and, in lieu thereof, impose on thee nothing but
this: bear this significant to the country maid
Jaquenetta. (⌜He gives him a paper.⌝) There is remuneration
(⌜giving him a coin,⌝) for the best ward of
140 mine honor is rewarding my dependents.—Mote,
follow.⌜He exits.⌝
BOY Like the sequel, I. Signior Costard, adieu.
He exits.
COSTARD
My sweet ounce of man’s flesh, my incony Jew!
Now will I look to his remuneration. ⌜He looks at the
coin.⌝ 145“Remuneration”! O, that’s the Latin word for
three farthings. Three farthings—remuneration.
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Love’s Labor’s Lost
ACT 3. SC. 1
I’ll give you a remuneration.” Why, it carries it!
Remuneration. Why, it is a fairer name than “French
150 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 155What 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.
⌜He begins to exit.⌝
BEROWNE Stay, slave, I must employ thee.
160 As thou wilt win my favor, 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 165Thou 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 170It 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
175 name,
And Rosaline they call her. Ask for her,
And to her white hand see thou do commend
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ACT 3. SC. 1
gives him money.⌝ Go.
COSTARD 180Gardon. ⌜He looks at the money.⌝ O sweet
gardon! Better than remuneration, a ’levenpence
farthing better! Most sweet gardon. I will do it, sir,
in print. Gardon! Remuneration!He exits.
BEROWNE
And I forsooth in love! I that have been love’s whip,
185 A very beadle to a humorous sigh,
A critic, nay, a nightwatch constable,
A domineering pedant o’er the boy,
Than whom no mortal so magnificent.
This wimpled, whining, purblind, wayward boy,
190 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,
195 Sole imperator and great general
Of trotting paritors—O my little heart!
And I to be a corporal of his field
And wear his colors like a tumbler’s hoop!
What? I love, I sue, I seek a wife?
200 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.
205 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.
210 And I to sigh for her, to watch for her,
To pray for her! Go to. It is a plague
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ACT 3. SC. 1
Of his almighty dreadful little might.
Well, I will love, write, sigh, pray, sue, groan.
215 Some men must love my lady, and some Joan.
⌜He exits.⌝
