William Shakespeare
-
Tragedies
- Antony and Cleopatra
- Coriolanus
- Hamlet
- Julius Caesar
- King Lear
- Macbeth
- Othello
- Romeo and Juliet
- Timon of Athens
- Titus Andronicus
-
Histories
- King Henry IV Part 1
- King Henry IV Part 2
- King Henry V
- King Henry VI Part 1
- King Henry VI Part 2
- King Henry VI Part 3
- King Henry VIII
- King John
- Richard II
- Richard III
-
Comedies
- A Midsummer Night's Dream
- All's Well That Ends Well
- As You Like It
- Cymbeline
- Love's Labour's Lost
- Measure for Measure
- Much Ado About Nothing
- Pericles, Prince of Tyre
- The Comedy of Errors
- The Merchant of Venice
- The Merry Wives of Windsor
- The Taming of the Shrew
- The Tempest
- The Two Gentlemen of Verona
- The Winter's Tale
- Troilus and Cressida
- Twelfth Night
-
Poetry
- A Lover's Complaint
- Sonnets 1 to 50
- Sonnets 50 to 100
- Sonnets 100 to 154
- The Passionate Pilgrim
- The Phoenix and the Turtle
- The Rape of Lucrece
- Venus and Adonis
Love's Labour's Lost (c. 1595)
ACT ONE
SCENE 1. The King of Navarre's park
[Enter the King, BEROWNE, LONGAVILLE, and DUMAIN.]
KING.
- Let fame, that all hunt after in their lives,
- Live regist'red upon our brazen tombs,
- And then grace us in the disgrace of death;
- When, spite of cormorant devouring Time,
- The endeavour of this present breath may buy
- That honour 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
- 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.
- You three, Berowne, Dumain, 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:
- Your oaths are pass'd; and now subscribe your names,
- That his own hand may strike his honour down
- That violates the smallest branch herein.
- If you are arm'd to do as sworn to do,
- Subscribe to your deep oaths, and keep it too.
LONGAVILLE.
- I am resolv'd; '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 bankrupt quite the wits.
DUMAINE.
- My loving lord, Dumain is mortified:
- 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.
BEROWNE.
- I can but say their protestation over;
- 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 enrolled there:
- And one day in a week to touch no food,
- And but one meal on every day beside;
- The which I hope is not enrolled there:
- And then to sleep but three hours in the night
- And not be seen to wink of all the day,—
- 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 enrolled there.
- O! these are barren tasks, too hard to keep,
- Not to see ladies, study, fast, not sleep.
KING.
- Your oath is pass'd to pass away from these.
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.
- 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 barr'd, you mean, from common sense?
KING. Ay, that is study's god-like 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;
- 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,
- 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; but that most vain
- Which, with pain purchas'd, doth inherit pain:
- As painfully to pore upon a book,
- To seek the light of truth; while truth the while
- Doth falsely blind the eyesight of his look.
- Light, seeking light, doth light of light beguile;
- 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,
- And give him light that it was blinded by.
- Study is like the heaven's glorious sun,
- That will not be deep-search'd with saucy looks;
- Small have continual plodders ever won,
- Save base authority from others' books.
- These earthly godfathers of heaven's lights
- That give a name to every fixed 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 nought but fame;
- 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.
- How follows that?
BEROWNE.
- Fit in his place and time.
DUMAINE.
- In reason nothing.
BEROWNE.
- Something then in rime.
LONGAVILLE.
- Berowne is like an envious sneaping frost
- That bites the first-born infants of the spring.
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
- 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 out; go home, Berowne; adieu.
BEROWNE.
- 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 swore,
- And bide the penance of each three years' day.
- Give me the paper; let me read the same;
- And to the strict'st decrees I'll write my name.
KING.
- How well this yielding rescues thee from shame!
BEROWNE.
- 'Item. That no woman shall come within a mile of
- my court.'Hath this been proclaimed?
LONGAVILLE.
- Four days ago.
BEROWNE.
- Let's see the penalty. 'On pain of losing her
- tongue.' Who devised this penalty?
LONGAVILLE.
- Marry, that did I.
BEROWNE.
- Sweet lord, and why?
LONGAVILLE.
- To fright them hence with that dread penalty.
BEROWNE.
- A dangerous law against gentility!
- '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 possibly devise.'
- 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 mild of grace and complete majesty—
- About surrender up of Aquitaine
- To her decrepit, sick, and bedrid father:
- Therefore this article is made in vain,
- Or vainly comes th' admired princess hither.
KING.
- What say you, lords? why, this was quite forgot.
BEROWNE.
- So study evermore is over-shot:
- 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.
- 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;
- For every man with his affects is born,
- Not by might master'd, 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; [Subscribes]
- 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.
- But is there no quick recreation granted?
KING.
- Ay, that there is. Our court, you know, is haunted
- With a refined traveller of Spain;
- A man in all the world's new fashion planted,
- That hath a mint of phrases in his brain;
- One who the music of his own vain tongue
- Doth ravish like enchanting harmony;
- A man of complements, whom right and wrong
- Have chose as umpire of their mutiny:
- This child of fancy, that Armado hight,
- 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,
- 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, with a letter, and COSTARD.]
DULL.
- Which is the duke's own person?
BEROWNE.
- This, fellow. What wouldst?
DULL.
- I myself reprehend his own person, for I am his Grace's
- tharborough: but I would see his own person in flesh and blood.
BEROWNE.
- This is he.
DULL.
- Signior Arm—Arm—commends you. There's villainy abroad:
- this letter will tell you more.
COSTARD.
- Sir, the contempts thereof are as touching me.
KING.
- A letter from the magnificent Armado.
BEROWNE.
- How long soever the matter, I hope in God for high words.
LONGAVILLE.
- A high hope for a low heaven: God grant us patience!
BEROWNE.
- To hear, or forbear laughing?
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 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.
- In 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,—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.
- Will you hear this letter with attention?
BEROWNE.
- As we would hear an oracle.
COSTARD.
- Such is the simplicity of man to hearken after the flesh.
KING.
- 'Great deputy, the welkin's vicegerent and sole dominator of
- Navarre, my soul's earth's god and body's fostering patron,'
COSTARD.
- Not a word of Costard yet.
KING.
- 'So it is,'—
COSTARD.
- It may be so; but if he say it is so, he is, in telling
- true, but so.—
KING.
- Peace!
COSTARD.
- Be to me, and every man that dares not fight!
KING.
- No words!
COSTARD.
- Of other men's secrets, I beseech you.
KING.
- 'So it is, besieged with sable-coloured melancholy, I
- did commend the black-oppressing humour 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 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 upon; it is ycleped thy park. Then
- for the place where; where, I mean, I did encounter that obscene
- and most preposterous event, that draweth from my snow-white pen
- the ebon-coloured 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 garden: there did I see that low-spirited swain,
- that base minnow of thy mirth,'—
COSTARD.
- Me.
KING.
- 'that unlettered small-knowing soul,'—
COSTARD.
- Me.
KING.
- 'that shallow vassal,'—
COSTARD.
- Still me.—
KING.
- 'which, as I remember, hight Costard,'—
COSTARD.
- O me.
KING.
- 'sorted and consorted, contrary to thy established proclaimed
- edict and continent canon, with—with,—O! with but with this I
- passion to say wherewith,'—
COSTARD.
- With a wench.
KING.
- 'with a child of our grandmother Eve, a 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, Antony Dull, a man of
- good repute, carriage, bearing, and estimation.'
DULL.
- Me, an't please you; I am Antony Dull.
KING.
- '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 shall, at the least of thy sweet notice,
- bring her to trial. Thine, in all compliments of devoted and
- heart-burning heat of duty,
- DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO.'
BEROWNE.
- This is not so well as I looked for, but the best that ever I
- heard.
KING.
- Ay, the best for the worst. But, sirrah, what say you to this?
COSTARD.
- Sir, I confess the wench.
KING.
- Did you hear the proclamation?
COSTARD.
- I 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 damosel.
KING.
- Well, it was proclaimed 'damosel'.
COSTARD.
- This was no damosel neither, sir; she was a 'virgin'.
KING.
- It is so varied too; for it was proclaimed 'virgin'.
COSTARD.
- If it were, I deny her virginity: I was taken with a maid.
KING.
- This maid not serve your turn, sir.
COSTARD.
- This maid will serve my turn, sir.
KING.
- Sir, 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.
KING.
- And Don Armado shall be your keeper.
- 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.
[Exeunt KING, LONGAVILLE, and DUMAIN.]
BEROWNE.
- I'll lay my head to any good man's hat
- These oaths and laws will prove an idle scorn.
- 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 then, sit thee down, sorrow!
[Exeunt.]
[Enter ARMADO and MOTH.]
ARMADO.
- Boy, what sign is it when a man of great spirit grows
- melancholy?
MOTH.
- A great sign, sir, that he will look sad.
ARMADO.
- Why, sadness is one and the self-same thing, dear imp.
MOTH.
- No, no; O Lord, sir, no.
ARMADO.
- How canst thou part sadness and melancholy, my tender
- juvenal?
MOTH.
- By a familiar demonstration of the working, my tough senior.
ARMADO.
- Why tough senior? Why tough senior?
MOTH.
- Why tender juvenal? Why tender juvenal?
ARMADO.
- I spoke it, tender juvenal, as a congruent epitheton
- appertaining to thy young days, which we may nominate tender.
MOTH.
- And I, tough senior, as an appertinent title to your old
- time, which we may name tough.
ARMADO.
- Pretty and apt.
MOTH.
- How mean you, sir? I pretty, and my saying apt? or I apt, and
- my saying pretty?
ARMADO.
- Thou pretty, because little.
MOTH.
- Little pretty, because little. Wherefore apt?
ARMADO.
- And therefore apt, because quick.
MOTH.
- Speak you this in my praise, master?
ARMADO.
- In thy condign praise.
MOTH.
- I will praise an eel with the same praise.
ARMADO.
- What! That an eel is ingenious?
MOTH.
- That an eel is quick.
ARMADO.
- I do say thou art quick in answers: thou heat'st my blood.
MOTH.
- I am answered, sir.
ARMADO.
- I love not to be crossed.
MOTH.
- [Aside] He speaks the mere contrary: crosses love not him.
ARMADO.
- I have promised to study three years with the duke.
MOTH.
- You may do it in an hour, sir.
ARMADO.
- Impossible.
MOTH.
- How many is one thrice told?
- @@@@
ARMADO.
- I am ill at reck'ning; it fitteth the spirit of a tapster.
MOTH.
- You are a gentleman and a gamester, sir.
ARMADO.
- I confess both: they are both the varnish of a complete man.
MOTH.
- Then I am sure you know how much the gross sum of deuce-ace
- amounts to.
ARMADO.
- It doth amount to one more than two.
MOTH.
- Which the base vulgar do call three.
ARMADO.
- True.
MOTH.
- Why, sir, is this such a piece of study? Now here's three
- studied ere ye'll thrice wink; and how easy it is to put 'years'
- to the word 'three,' and study three years in two words, the
- dancing horse will tell you.
ARMADO.
- A most fine figure!
MOTH.
- [Aside] To prove you a cipher.
ARMADO.
- I will hereupon confess I am in love; and as it is base for
- a soldier to love, so am I in love with a base wench. If drawing
- my sword against the humour of affection would deliver me from
- the reprobate thought of it, I would take Desire prisoner, and
- ransom him to any French courtier for a new-devised curtsy. I
- think scorn to sigh: methinks I should out-swear Cupid. Comfort
- me, boy: what great men have been in love?
MOTH.
- Hercules, master.
ARMADO.
- Most sweet Hercules! More authority, dear boy, name more;
- and, sweet my child, let them be men of good repute and carriage.
MOTH.
- Samson, master: he was a man of good carriage, great
- carriage, for he carried the town gates on his back like a
- porter; and he was in love.
ARMADO.
- O well-knit Samson! strong-jointed Samson! I do excel thee
- in my rapier as much as thou didst me in carrying gates. I am in
- love too. Who was Samson's love, my dear Moth?
MOTH.
- A woman, master.
ARMADO.
- Of what complexion?
MOTH.
- Of all the four, or the three, or the two, or one of the
- four.
ARMADO.
- Tell me precisely of what complexion.
MOTH.
- Of the sea-water green, sir.
ARMADO.
- Is that one of the four complexions?
MOTH.
- As I have read, sir; and the best of them too.
ARMADO.
- Green, indeed, is the colour of lovers; but to have a love
- of that colour, methinks Samson had small reason for it. He
- surely affected her for her wit.
MOTH.
- It was so, sir, for she had a green wit.
ARMADO.
- My love is most immaculate white and red.
MOTH.
- Most maculate thoughts, master, are masked under such
- colours.
ARMADO.
- Define, define, well-educated infant.
MOTH.
- My father's wit my mother's tongue assist me!
ARMADO.
- Sweet invocation of a child; most pretty, and pathetical!
MOTH.
- If she be made of white and red,
- Her faults will ne'er be known;
- For blushing cheeks by faults are bred,
- And fears by pale white shown.
- Then if she fear, or be to blame,
- By this you shall not know,
- For still her cheeks possess the same
- Which native she doth owe.
- A dangerous rhyme, master, against the reason of white and red.
ARMADO.
- Is there not a ballad, boy, of the King and the Beggar?
MOTH.
- The world was very guilty of such a ballad some three ages
- since; but I think now 'tis not to be found; or if it were, it
- would neither serve for the writing nor the tune.
ARMADO.
- I will have that subject newly writ o'er, that I may
- example my digression by some mighty precedent. Boy, I do love
- that country girl that I took in the park with the rational hind
- Costard: she deserves well.
MOTH.
- [Aside] To be whipped; and yet a better love than my master.
ARMADO.
- Sing, boy: my spirit grows heavy in love.
MOTH.
- And that's great marvel, loving a light wench.
ARMADO.
- I say, sing.
MOTH.
- Forbear till this company be past.
[Enter DULL, COSTARD, and JAQUENETTA.]
DULL.
- Sir, the Duke's pleasure is, that you keep Costard safe: and
- you must suffer him to take no delight nor no penance; but a'
- must fast three days a week. For this damsel, I must keep her at
- the park; she is allowed for the day-woman. Fare you well.
ARMADO.
- I do betray myself with blushing. Maid!
JAQUENETTA.
- Man?
ARMADO.
- I will visit thee at the lodge.
JAQUENETTA.
- That's hereby.
ARMADO.
- I know where it is situate.
JAQUENETTA.
- Lord, how wise you are!
ARMADO.
- I will tell thee wonders.
JAQUENETTA.
- With that face?
ARMADO.
- I love thee.
JAQUENETTA.
- So I heard you say.
ARMADO.
- And so, farewell.
JAQUENETTA.
- Fair weather after you!
DULL.
- Come, Jaquenetta, away!
[Exit with JAQUENETTA.]
ARMADO.
- Villain, thou shalt fast for thy offences ere thou be
- pardoned.
COSTARD.
- Well, sir, I hope when I do it I shall do it on a full
- stomach.
ARMADO.
- Thou shalt be heavily punished.
COSTARD.
- I am more bound to you than your fellows, for they are but
- lightly rewarded.
ARMADO.
- Take away this villain: shut him up.
MOTH.
- Come, you transgressing slave: away!
COSTARD.
- Let me not be pent up, sir: I will fast, being loose.
MOTH.
- No, sir; that were fast and loose: thou shalt to prison.
COSTARD.
- Well, if ever I do see the merry days of desolation that I
- have seen, some shall see—
MOTH.
- What shall some see?
COSTARD.
- Nay, nothing, Master Moth, but what they look upon. It is
- not for prisoners to be too silent in their words, and therefore
- I will say nothing. I thank God I have as little patience as
- another man, and therefore I can be quiet.
[Exeunt MOTH and COSTARD.]
ARMADO.
- I do affect the very ground, which is base, where her shoe,
- which is baser, guided by her foot, which is basest, doth tread.
- I shall be forsworn,—which is a great argument of falsehood,—if
- I love. And how can that be true love which is falsely attempted?
- Love is a familiar; Love is a devil; there is no evil angel but
- Love. Yet was Samson so tempted, and he had an excellent
- strength; yet was Solomon so seduced, and he had a very good wit.
- Cupid's butt-shaft is too hard for Hercules' club, and therefore
- too much odds for a Spaniard's rapier. The first and second cause
- will not serve my turn; the passado he respects not, the duello
- he regards not; his disgrace is to be called boy, but his glory
- is to subdue men. Adieu, valour! rust, rapier! be still, drum!
- for your manager is in love; yea, he loveth. Assist me, some
- extemporal god of rime, for I am sure I shall turn sonneter.
- Devise, wit; write, pen; for I am for whole volumes in folio.
[Exit.]