Love's Labour's Lost by William Shakespeare
Act 3 - Scene 1
The same.
Don Adriano de Armado : Warble, child; make passionate my sense of hearing.
Moth : Concolinel.
Don Adriano de Armado : Sweet air! Go, tenderness of years; take this key,
[p]give enlargement
to the swain, bring him festinately
[p]hither: I must employ him in a
letter to my love.
Moth : Master, will you win your love with a French brawl?
Don Adriano de Armado : How meanest thou? brawling in French?
Moth : No, my complete master: but to jig off a tune at
[p]the tongue's end,
canary to it with your feet, humour
[p]it with turning up your
eyelids, sigh a note and
[p]sing a note, sometime through the throat,
as if you
[p]swallowed love with singing love, sometime through
[p]the
nose, as if you snuffed up love by smelling
[p]love; with your hat
penthouse-like o'er the shop of
[p]your eyes; with your arms crossed
on your thin-belly
[p]doublet like a rabbit on a spit; or your hands
in
[p]your pocket like a man after the old painting; and
[p]keep not
too long in one tune, but a snip and away.
[p]These are complements,
these are humours; these
[p]betray nice wenches, that would be
betrayed without
[p]these; and make them men of note--do you
note
[p]me?--that most are affected to these.
Don Adriano de Armado : How hast thou purchased this experience?
Moth : By my penny of observation.
Don Adriano de Armado : But O,--but O,--
Moth : 'The hobby-horse is forgot.'
Don Adriano de Armado : Callest thou my love 'hobby-horse'?
Moth : No, master; the hobby-horse is but a colt, and your
[p]love perhaps a
hackney. But have you forgot your love?
Don Adriano de Armado : Almost I had.
Moth : Negligent student! learn her by heart.
Don Adriano de Armado : By heart and in heart, boy.
Moth : And out of heart, master: all those three I will prove.
Don Adriano de Armado : What wilt thou prove?
Moth : A man, if I live; and this, by, in, and without, upon
[p]the instant:
by heart you love her, because your
[p]heart cannot come by her; in
heart you love her,
[p]because your heart is in love with her; and out
of
[p]heart you love her, being out of heart that you
[p]cannot enjoy
her.
Don Adriano de Armado : I am all these three.
Moth : And three times as much more, and yet nothing at
[p]all.
Don Adriano de Armado : Fetch hither the swain: he must carry me a letter.
Moth : A message well sympathized; a horse to be ambassador
[p]for an ass.
Don Adriano de Armado : Ha, ha! what sayest thou?
Moth : Marry, sir, you must send the ass upon the horse,
[p]for he is very
slow-gaited. But I go.
Don Adriano de Armado : The way is but short: away!
Moth : As swift as lead, sir.
Don Adriano de Armado : The meaning, pretty ingenious?
[p]Is not lead a metal heavy, dull, and
slow?
Moth : Minime, honest master; or rather, master, no.
Don Adriano de Armado : I say lead is slow.
Moth : You are too swift, sir, to say so:
[p]Is that lead slow which is fired
from a gun?
Don Adriano de Armado : Sweet smoke of rhetoric!
[p]He reputes me a cannon; and the bullet,
that's he:
[p]I shoot thee at the swain.
Moth : Thump then and I flee.
Don Adriano de Armado : A most acute juvenal; voluble and free of grace!
[p]By thy favour,
sweet welkin, I must sigh in thy face:
[p]Most rude melancholy, valour
gives thee place.
[p]My herald is return'd.
Moth : A wonder, master! here's a costard broken in a shin.
Don Adriano de Armado : Some enigma, some riddle: come, thy l'envoy; begin.
Costard : No enigma, no riddle, no l'envoy; no salve in the
[p]mail, sir: O,
sir, plantain, a plain plantain! no
[p]l'envoy, no l'envoy; no salve,
sir, but a plantain!
Don Adriano de Armado : By virtue, thou enforcest laughter; thy silly
[p]thought my spleen;
the heaving of my lungs provokes
[p]me to ridiculous smiling. O,
pardon me, my stars!
[p]Doth the inconsiderate take salve for l'envoy,
and
[p]the word l'envoy for a salve?
Moth : Do the wise think them other? is not l'envoy a salve?
Don Adriano de Armado : No, page: it is an epilogue or discourse, to make plain
[p]Some
obscure precedence that hath tofore been sain.
[p]I will example
it:
[p]The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee,
[p]Were still at odds,
being but three.
[p]There's the moral. Now the l'envoy.
Moth : I will add the l'envoy. Say the moral again.
Don Adriano de Armado : The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee,
[p]Were still at odds, being but
three.
Moth : Until the goose came out of door,
[p]And stay'd the odds by adding
four.
[p]Now will I begin your moral, and do you follow with
[p]my
l'envoy.
[p]The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee,
[p]Were still at
odds, being but three.
Don Adriano de Armado : Until the goose came out of door,
[p]Staying the odds by adding four.
Moth : A good l'envoy, ending in the goose: would you
[p]desire more?
Costard : The boy hath sold him a bargain, a goose, that's flat.
[p]Sir, your
pennyworth is good, an your goose be fat.
[p]To sell a bargain well is
as cunning as fast and loose:
[p]Let me see; a fat l'envoy; ay, that's
a fat goose.
Don Adriano de Armado : Come hither, come hither. How did this argument begin?
Moth : By saying that a costard was broken in a shin.
[p]Then call'd you for
the l'envoy.
Costard : True, and I for a plantain: thus came your
[p]argument in;
[p]Then the
boy's fat l'envoy, the goose that you bought;
[p]And he ended the
market.
Don Adriano de Armado : But tell me; how was there a costard broken in a shin?
Moth : I will tell you sensibly.
Costard : Thou hast no feeling of it, Moth: I will speak that l'envoy:
[p]I
Costard, running out, that was safely within,
[p]Fell over the
threshold and broke my shin.
Don Adriano de Armado : We will talk no more of this matter.
Costard : Till there be more matter in the shin.
Don Adriano de Armado : Sirrah Costard, I will enfranchise thee.
Costard : O, marry me to one Frances: I smell some l'envoy,
[p]some goose, in
this.
Don Adriano de Armado : By my sweet soul, I mean setting thee at liberty,
[p]enfreedoming thy
person; thou wert immured,
[p]restrained, captivated, bound.
Costard : True, true; and now you will be my purgation and let me loose.
Don Adriano de Armado : I give thee thy liberty, set thee from durance; and,
[p]in lieu
thereof, impose on thee nothing but this:
[p]bear this
significant
[p][Giving a letter]
[p]to the country maid
Jaquenetta:
[p]there is remuneration; for the best ward of
mine
[p]honour is rewarding my dependents. Moth, follow.
Moth : Like the sequel, I. Signior Costard, adieu.
Costard : My sweet ounce of man's flesh! my incony Jew!
[p][Exit MOTH]
[p]Now
will I look to his remuneration. Remuneration!
[p]O, that's the Latin
word for three farthings: three
[p]farthings--remuneration.--'What's
the price of this
[p]inkle?'--'One penny.'--'No, I'll give you
a
[p]remuneration:' why, it carries it. Remuneration!
[p]why, it is a
fairer name than French crown. I will
[p]never buy and sell out of
this word.
Biron : O, my good knave Costard! exceedingly well met.
Costard : Pray you, sir, how much carnation ribbon may a man
[p]buy for a
remuneration?
Biron : What is a remuneration?
Costard : Marry, sir, halfpenny farthing.
Biron : Why, then, three-farthing worth of silk.
Costard : I thank your worship: God be wi' you!
Biron : Stay, slave; I must employ thee:
[p]As thou wilt win my favour, good
my knave,
[p]Do one thing for me that I shall entreat.
Costard : When would you have it done, sir?
Biron : This afternoon.
Costard : Well, I will do it, sir: fare you well.
Biron : Thou knowest not what it is.
Costard : I shall know, sir, when I have done it.
Biron : Why, villain, thou must know first.
Costard : I will come to your worship to-morrow morning.
Biron : It must be done this afternoon.
[p]Hark, slave, it is but this:
[p]The
princess comes to hunt here in the park,
[p]And in her train there is
a gentle lady;
[p]When tongues speak sweetly, then they name her
name,
[p]And Rosaline they call her: ask for her;
[p]And to her white
hand see thou do commend
[p]This seal'd-up counsel. There's thy
guerdon; go.
Costard : Gardon, O sweet gardon! better than remuneration,
[p]a'leven-pence
farthing better: most sweet gardon! I
[p]will do it sir, in print.
Gardon! Remuneration!
Biron : And I, forsooth, in love! I, that have been love's whip;
[p]A very
beadle to a humorous sigh;
[p]A critic, nay, a night-watch
constable;
[p]A domineering pedant o'er the boy;
[p]Than whom no
mortal so magnificent!
[p]This whimpled, whining, purblind, wayward
boy;
[p]This senior-junior, giant-dwarf, Dan Cupid;
[p]Regent of
love-rhymes, lord of folded arms,
[p]The anointed sovereign of sighs
and groans,
[p]Liege of all loiterers and malcontents,
[p]Dread prince
of plackets, king of codpieces,
[p]Sole imperator and great
general
[p]Of trotting 'paritors:--O my little heart:--
[p]And I to be
a corporal of his field,
[p]And wear his colours like a tumbler's
hoop!
[p]What, I! I love! I sue! I seek a wife!
[p]A woman, that is
like a German clock,
[p]Still a-repairing, ever out of frame,
[p]And
never going aright, being a watch,
[p]But being watch'd that it may
still go right!
[p]Nay, to be perjured, which is worst of all;
[p]And,
among three, to love the worst of all;
[p]A wightly wanton with a
velvet brow,
[p]With two pitch-balls stuck in her face for
eyes;
[p]Ay, and by heaven, one that will do the deed
[p]Though Argus
were her eunuch and her guard:
[p]And I to sigh for her! to watch for
her!
[p]To pray for her! Go to; it is a plague
[p]That Cupid will
impose for my neglect
[p]Of his almighty dreadful little
might.
[p]Well, I will love, write, sigh, pray, sue and groan:
[p]Some
men must love my lady and some Joan.
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