Love's Labour's Lost by William Shakespeare
Act 1 - Scene 1
The king of Navarre’s park.
Ferdinand : Let fame, that all hunt after in their lives,
[p]Live register'd upon
our brazen tombs
[p]And then grace us in the disgrace of
death;
[p]When, spite of cormorant devouring Time,
[p]The endeavor of
this present breath may buy
[p]That honour which shall bate his
scythe's keen edge
[p]And make us heirs of all eternity.
[p]Therefore,
brave conquerors,--for so you are,
[p]That war against your own
affections
[p]And the huge army of the world's desires,--
[p]Our late
edict shall strongly stand in force:
[p]Navarre shall be the wonder of
the world;
[p]Our court shall be a little Academe,
[p]Still and
contemplative in living art.
[p]You three, Biron, Dumain, and
Longaville,
[p]Have sworn for three years' term to live with me
[p]My
fellow-scholars, and to keep those statutes
[p]That are recorded in
this schedule here:
[p]Your oaths are pass'd; and now subscribe your
names,
[p]That his own hand may strike his honour down
[p]That
violates the smallest branch herein:
[p]If you are arm'd to do as
sworn to do,
[p]Subscribe to your deep oaths, and keep it too.
Longaville : I am resolved; 'tis but a three years' fast:
[p]The mind shall
banquet, though the body pine:
[p]Fat paunches have lean pates, and
dainty bits
[p]Make rich the ribs, but bankrupt quite the wits.
Dumain : My loving lord, Dumain is mortified:
[p]The grosser manner of these
world's delights
[p]He throws upon the gross world's baser
slaves:
[p]To love, to wealth, to pomp, I pine and die;
[p]With all
these living in philosophy.
Biron : I can but say their protestation over;
[p]So much, dear liege, I have
already sworn,
[p]That is, to live and study here three years.
[p]But
there are other strict observances;
[p]As, not to see a woman in that
term,
[p]Which I hope well is not enrolled there;
[p]And one day in a
week to touch no food
[p]And but one meal on every day beside,
[p]The
which I hope is not enrolled there;
[p]And then, to sleep but three
hours in the night,
[p]And not be seen to wink of all the
day--
[p]When I was wont to think no harm all night
[p]And make a dark
night too of half the day--
[p]Which I hope well is not enrolled
there:
[p]O, these are barren tasks, too hard to keep,
[p]Not to see
ladies, study, fast, not sleep!
Ferdinand : Your oath is pass'd to pass away from these.
Biron : Let me say no, my liege, an if you please:
[p]I only swore to study
with your grace
[p]And stay here in your court for three years'
space.
Longaville : You swore to that, Biron, and to the rest.
Biron : By yea and nay, sir, then I swore in jest.
[p]What is the end of
study? let me know.
Ferdinand : Why, that to know, which else we should not know.
Biron : Things hid and barr'd, you mean, from common sense?
Ferdinand : Ay, that is study's godlike recompense.
Biron : Come on, then; I will swear to study so,
[p]To know the thing I am
forbid to know:
[p]As thus,--to study where I well may dine,
[p]When I
to feast expressly am forbid;
[p]Or study where to meet some mistress
fine,
[p]When mistresses from common sense are hid;
[p]Or, having
sworn too hard a keeping oath,
[p]Study to break it and not break my
troth.
[p]If study's gain be thus and this be so,
[p]Study knows that
which yet it doth not know:
[p]Swear me to this, and I will ne'er say
no.
Ferdinand : These be the stops that hinder study quite
[p]And train our intellects
to vain delight.
Biron : Why, all delights are vain; but that most vain,
[p]Which with pain
purchased doth inherit pain:
[p]As, painfully to pore upon a
book
[p]To seek the light of truth; while truth the while
[p]Doth
falsely blind the eyesight of his look:
[p]Light seeking light doth
light of light beguile:
[p]So, ere you find where light in darkness
lies,
[p]Your light grows dark by losing of your eyes.
[p]Study me how
to please the eye indeed
[p]By fixing it upon a fairer eye,
[p]Who
dazzling so, that eye shall be his heed
[p]And give him light that it
was blinded by.
[p]Study is like the heaven's glorious sun
[p]That
will not be deep-search'd with saucy looks:
[p]Small have continual
plodders ever won
[p]Save base authority from others' books
[p]These
earthly godfathers of heaven's lights
[p]That give a name to every
fixed star
[p]Have no more profit of their shining nights
[p]Than
those that walk and wot not what they are.
[p]Too much to know is to
know nought but fame;
[p]And every godfather can give a name.
Ferdinand : How well he's read, to reason against reading!
Dumain : Proceeded well, to stop all good proceeding!
Longaville : He weeds the corn and still lets grow the weeding.
Biron : The spring is near when green geese are a-breeding.
Dumain : How follows that?
Biron : Fit in his place and time.
Dumain : In reason nothing.
Biron : Something then in rhyme.
Ferdinand : Biron is like an envious sneaping frost,
[p]That bites the first-born
infants of the spring.
Biron : Well, say I am; why should proud summer boast
[p]Before the birds have
any cause to sing?
[p]Why should I joy in any abortive birth?
[p]At
Christmas I no more desire a rose
[p]Than wish a snow in May's
new-fangled mirth;
[p]But like of each thing that in season
grows.
[p]So you, to study now it is too late,
[p]Climb o'er the house
to unlock the little gate.
Ferdinand : Well, sit you out: go home, Biron: adieu.
Biron : No, my good lord; I have sworn to stay with you:
[p]And though I have
for barbarism spoke more
[p]Than for that angel knowledge you can
say,
[p]Yet confident I'll keep what I have swore
[p]And bide the
penance of each three years' day.
[p]Give me the paper; let me read
the same;
[p]And to the strict'st decrees I'll write my name.
Ferdinand : How well this yielding rescues thee from shame!
Biron : [Reads] 'Item, That no woman shall come within a
[p]mile of my court:'
Hath this been proclaimed?
Longaville : Four days ago.
Biron : Let's see the penalty.
[p][Reads]
[p]'On pain of losing her tongue.'
Who devised this penalty?
Longaville : Marry, that did I.
Biron : Sweet lord, and why?
Longaville : To fright them hence with that dread penalty.
Biron : A dangerous law against gentility!
[p][Reads]
[p]'Item, If any man be
seen to talk with a woman
[p]within the term of three years, he shall
endure such
[p]public shame as the rest of the court can possibly
devise.'
[p]This article, my liege, yourself must break;
[p]For well
you know here comes in embassy
[p]The French king's daughter with
yourself to speak--
[p]A maid of grace and complete majesty--
[p]About
surrender up of Aquitaine
[p]To her decrepit, sick and bedrid
father:
[p]Therefore this article is made in vain,
[p]Or vainly comes
the admired princess hither.
Ferdinand : What say you, lords? Why, this was quite forgot.
Biron : So study evermore is overshot:
[p]While it doth study to have what it
would
[p]It doth forget to do the thing it should,
[p]And when it hath
the thing it hunteth most,
[p]'Tis won as towns with fire, so won, so
lost.
Ferdinand : We must of force dispense with this decree;
[p]She must lie here on
mere necessity.
Biron : Necessity will make us all forsworn
[p]Three thousand times within
this three years' space;
[p]For every man with his affects is
born,
[p]Not by might master'd but by special grace:
[p]If I break
faith, this word shall speak for me;
[p]I am forsworn on 'mere
necessity.'
[p]So to the laws at large I write my
name:
[p][Subscribes]
[p]And he that breaks them in the least
degree
[p]Stands in attainder of eternal shame:
[p]Suggestions are to
other as to me;
[p]But I believe, although I seem so loath,
[p]I am
the last that will last keep his oath.
[p]But is there no quick
recreation granted?
Ferdinand : Ay, that there is. Our court, you know, is haunted
[p]With a refined
traveller of Spain;
[p]A man in all the world's new fashion
planted,
[p]That hath a mint of phrases in his brain;
[p]One whom the
music of his own vain tongue
[p]Doth ravish like enchanting
harmony;
[p]A man of complements, whom right and wrong
[p]Have chose
as umpire of their mutiny:
[p]This child of fancy, that Armado
hight,
[p]For interim to our studies shall relate
[p]In high-born
words the worth of many a knight
[p]From tawny Spain lost in the
world's debate.
[p]How you delight, my lords, I know not, I;
[p]But, I
protest, I love to hear him lie
[p]And I will use him for my
minstrelsy.
Biron : Armado is a most illustrious wight,
[p]A man of fire-new words,
fashion's own knight.
Longaville : Costard the swain and he shall be our sport;
[p]And so to study, three
years is but short.
Dull : Which is the duke's own person?
Biron : This, fellow: what wouldst?
Dull : I myself reprehend his own person, for I am his
[p]grace's
tharborough: but I would see his own person
[p]in flesh and blood.
Biron : This is he.
Dull : Signior Arme--Arme--commends you. There's villany
[p]abroad: this
letter will tell you more.
Costard : Sir, the contempts thereof are as touching me.
Ferdinand : A letter from the magnificent Armado.
Biron : How low soever the matter, I hope in God for high words.
Longaville : A high hope for a low heaven: God grant us patience!
Biron : To hear? or forbear laughing?
Longaville : To hear meekly, sir, and to laugh moderately; or to
[p]forbear both.
Biron : Well, sir, be it as the style shall give us cause to
[p]climb in the
merriness.
Costard : The matter is to me, sir, as concerning Jaquenetta.
[p]The manner of
it is, I was taken with the manner.
Biron : In what manner?
Costard : In manner and form following, sir; all those three:
[p]I was seen with
her in the manor-house, sitting with
[p]her upon the form, and taken
following her into the
[p]park; which, put together, is in manner and
form
[p]following. Now, sir, for the manner,--it is the
[p]manner of a
man to speak to a woman: for the form,--
[p]in some form.
Biron : For the following, sir?
Costard : As it shall follow in my correction: and God defend
[p]the right!
Ferdinand : Will you hear this letter with attention?
Biron : As we would hear an oracle.
Costard : Such is the simplicity of man to hearken after the flesh.
Ferdinand : [Reads] 'Great deputy, the welkin's vicegerent and
[p]sole dominator
of Navarre, my soul's earth's god,
[p]and body's fostering patron.'
Costard : Not a word of Costard yet.
Ferdinand : [Reads] 'So it is,'--
Costard : It may be so: but if he say it is so, he is, in
[p]telling true, but
so.
Ferdinand : Peace!
Costard : Be to me and every man that dares not fight!
Ferdinand : No words!
Costard : Of other men's secrets, I beseech you.
Ferdinand : [Reads] 'So it is, besieged with sable-coloured
[p]melancholy, I did
commend the black-oppressing humour
[p]to the most wholesome physic of
thy health-giving
[p]air; and, as I am a gentleman, betook myself
to
[p]walk. The time when. About the sixth hour; when
[p]beasts most
graze, birds best peck, and men sit down
[p]to that nourishment which
is called supper: so much
[p]for the time when. Now for the ground
which; which,
[p]I mean, I walked upon: it is y-cleped thy park.
Then
[p]for the place where; where, I mean, I did encounter
[p]that
obscene and preposterous event, that draweth
[p]from my snow-white pen
the ebon-coloured ink, which
[p]here thou viewest, beholdest,
surveyest, or seest;
[p]but to the place where; it standeth
north-north-east
[p]and by east from the west corner of thy
curious-
[p]knotted garden: there did I see that
low-spirited
[p]swain, that base minnow of thy mirth,'--
Costard : Me?
Ferdinand : [Reads] 'that unlettered small-knowing soul,'--
Costard : Me?
Ferdinand : [Reads] 'that shallow vassal,'--
Costard : Still me?
Ferdinand : [Reads] 'which, as I remember, hight Costard,'--
Costard : O, me!
Ferdinand : [Reads] 'sorted and consorted, contrary to thy
[p]established
proclaimed edict and continent canon,
[p]which with,--O, with--but
with this I passion to say
[p]wherewith,--
Costard : With a wench.
Ferdinand : [Reads] 'with a child of our grandmother Eve, a
[p]female; or, for thy
more sweet understanding, a
[p]woman. Him I, as my ever-esteemed duty
pricks me on,
[p]have sent to thee, to receive the meed
of
[p]punishment, by thy sweet grace's officer, Anthony
[p]Dull; a man
of good repute, carriage, bearing, and
[p]estimation.'
Dull : 'Me, an't shall please you; I am Anthony Dull.
Ferdinand : [Reads] 'For Jaquenetta,--so is the weaker vessel
[p]called which I
apprehended with the aforesaid
[p]swain,--I keep her as a vessel of
the law's fury;
[p]and shall, at the least of thy sweet notice,
bring
[p]her to trial. Thine, in all compliments of devoted
[p]and
heart-burning heat of duty.
[p]DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO.'
Biron : This is not so well as I looked for, but the best
[p]that ever I
heard.
Ferdinand : Ay, the best for the worst. But, sirrah, what say
[p]you to this?
Costard : Sir, I confess the wench.
Ferdinand : Did you hear the proclamation?
Costard : I do confess much of the hearing it but little of
[p]the marking of
it.
Ferdinand : It was proclaimed a year's imprisonment, to be taken
[p]with a wench.
Costard : I was taken with none, sir: I was taken with a damsel.
Ferdinand : Well, it was proclaimed 'damsel.'
Costard : This was no damsel, neither, sir; she was a virgin.
Ferdinand : It is so varied, too; for it was proclaimed 'virgin.'
Costard : If it were, I deny her virginity: I was taken with a maid.
Ferdinand : This maid will not serve your turn, sir.
Costard : This maid will serve my turn, sir.
Ferdinand : Sir, I will pronounce your sentence: you shall fast
[p]a week with
bran and water.
Costard : I had rather pray a month with mutton and porridge.
Ferdinand : And Don Armado shall be your keeper.
[p]My Lord Biron, see him
deliver'd o'er:
[p]And go we, lords, to put in practise that
[p]Which
each to other hath so strongly sworn.
Biron : I'll lay my head to any good man's hat,
[p]These oaths and laws will
prove an idle scorn.
[p]Sirrah, come on.
Costard : I suffer for the truth, sir; for true it is, I was
[p]taken with
Jaquenetta, and Jaquenetta is a true
[p]girl; and therefore welcome
the sour cup of
[p]prosperity! Affliction may one day smile again;
and
[p]till then, sit thee down, sorrow!
Next: Act 1 - Scene 2
