Love's Labour's Lost by William Shakespeare

Act 4 - Scene 3

The same.

Biron : The king he is hunting the deer; I am coursing [p]myself: they have
pitched a toil; I am toiling in [p]a pitch,--pitch that defiles:
defile! a foul [p]word. Well, set thee down, sorrow! for so they
say [p]the fool said, and so say I, and I the fool: well [p]proved,
wit! By the Lord, this love is as mad as [p]Ajax: it kills sheep; it
kills me, I a sheep: [p]well proved again o' my side! I will not love:
if [p]I do, hang me; i' faith, I will not. O, but her [p]eye,--by this
light, but for her eye, I would not [p]love her; yes, for her two
eyes. Well, I do nothing [p]in the world but lie, and lie in my
throat. By [p]heaven, I do love: and it hath taught me to rhyme [p]and
to be melancholy; and here is part of my rhyme, [p]and here my
melancholy. Well, she hath one o' my [p]sonnets already: the clown
bore it, the fool sent [p]it, and the lady hath it: sweet clown,
sweeter [p]fool, sweetest lady! By the world, I would not care [p]a
pin, if the other three were in. Here comes one [p]with a paper: God
give him grace to groan!

Ferdinand : Ay me!

Biron : [Aside] Shot, by heaven! Proceed, sweet Cupid: [p]thou hast thumped
him with thy bird-bolt under the [p]left pap. In faith, secrets!

Ferdinand : [Reads] [p]So sweet a kiss the golden sun gives not [p]To those fresh
morning drops upon the rose, [p]As thy eye-beams, when their fresh
rays have smote [p]The night of dew that on my cheeks down
flows: [p]Nor shines the silver moon one half so bright [p]Through the
transparent bosom of the deep, [p]As doth thy face through tears of
mine give light; [p]Thou shinest in every tear that I do weep: [p]No
drop but as a coach doth carry thee; [p]So ridest thou triumphing in
my woe. [p]Do but behold the tears that swell in me, [p]And they thy
glory through my grief will show: [p]But do not love thyself; then
thou wilt keep [p]My tears for glasses, and still make me weep. [p]O
queen of queens! how far dost thou excel, [p]No thought can think, nor
tongue of mortal tell. [p]How shall she know my griefs? I'll drop the
paper: [p]Sweet leaves, shade folly. Who is he comes here? [p][Steps
aside] [p]What, Longaville! and reading! listen, ear.

Biron : Now, in thy likeness, one more fool appear!

Longaville : Ay me, I am forsworn!

Biron : Why, he comes in like a perjure, wearing papers.

Ferdinand : In love, I hope: sweet fellowship in shame!

Biron : One drunkard loves another of the name.

Longaville : Am I the first that have been perjured so?

Biron : I could put thee in comfort. Not by two that I know: [p]Thou makest
the triumviry, the corner-cap of society, [p]The shape of Love's
Tyburn that hangs up simplicity.

Longaville : I fear these stubborn lines lack power to move: [p]O sweet Maria,
empress of my love! [p]These numbers will I tear, and write in prose.

Biron : O, rhymes are guards on wanton Cupid's hose: [p]Disfigure not his
slop.

Longaville : This same shall go. [p][Reads] [p]Did not the heavenly rhetoric of
thine eye, [p]'Gainst whom the world cannot hold argument, [p]Persuade
my heart to this false perjury? [p]Vows for thee broke deserve not
punishment. [p]A woman I forswore; but I will prove, [p]Thou being a
goddess, I forswore not thee: [p]My vow was earthly, thou a heavenly
love; [p]Thy grace being gain'd cures all disgrace in me. [p]Vows are
but breath, and breath a vapour is: [p]Then thou, fair sun, which on
my earth dost shine, [p]Exhalest this vapour-vow; in thee it is: [p]If
broken then, it is no fault of mine: [p]If by me broke, what fool is
not so wise [p]To lose an oath to win a paradise?

Biron : This is the liver-vein, which makes flesh a deity, [p]A green goose a
goddess: pure, pure idolatry. [p]God amend us, God amend! we are much
out o' the way.

Longaville : By whom shall I send this?--Company! stay.

Biron : All hid, all hid; an old infant play. [p]Like a demigod here sit I in
the sky. [p]And wretched fools' secrets heedfully o'ereye. [p]More
sacks to the mill! O heavens, I have my wish! [p][Enter DUMAIN, with a
paper] [p]Dumain transform'd! four woodcocks in a dish!

Dumain : O most divine Kate!

Biron : O most profane coxcomb!

Dumain : By heaven, the wonder in a mortal eye!

Biron : By earth, she is not, corporal, there you lie.

Dumain : Her amber hair for foul hath amber quoted.

Biron : An amber-colour'd raven was well noted.

Dumain : As upright as the cedar.

Biron : Stoop, I say; [p]Her shoulder is with child.

Dumain : As fair as day.

Biron : Ay, as some days; but then no sun must shine.

Dumain : O that I had my wish!

Longaville : And I had mine!

Ferdinand : And I mine too, good Lord!

Biron : Amen, so I had mine: is not that a good word?

Dumain : I would forget her; but a fever she [p]Reigns in my blood and will
remember'd be.

Biron : A fever in your blood! why, then incision [p]Would let her out in
saucers: sweet misprision!

Dumain : Once more I'll read the ode that I have writ.

Biron : Once more I'll mark how love can vary wit.

Dumain : [Reads] [p]On a day--alack the day!-- [p]Love, whose month is ever
May, [p]Spied a blossom passing fair [p]Playing in the wanton
air: [p]Through the velvet leaves the wind, [p]All unseen, can passage
find; [p]That the lover, sick to death, [p]Wish himself the heaven's
breath. [p]Air, quoth he, thy cheeks may blow; [p]Air, would I might
triumph so! [p]But, alack, my hand is sworn [p]Ne'er to pluck thee
from thy thorn; [p]Vow, alack, for youth unmeet, [p]Youth so apt to
pluck a sweet! [p]Do not call it sin in me, [p]That I am forsworn for
thee; [p]Thou for whom Jove would swear [p]Juno but an Ethiope
were; [p]And deny himself for Jove, [p]Turning mortal for thy
love. [p]This will I send, and something else more plain, [p]That
shall express my true love's fasting pain. [p]O, would the king,
Biron, and Longaville, [p]Were lovers too! Ill, to example
ill, [p]Would from my forehead wipe a perjured note; [p]For none
offend where all alike do dote.

Longaville : [Advancing] Dumain, thy love is far from charity. [p]You may look
pale, but I should blush, I know, [p]To be o'erheard and taken napping
so.

Ferdinand : [Advancing] Come, sir, you blush; as his your case is such; [p]You
chide at him, offending twice as much; [p]You do not love Maria;
Longaville [p]Did never sonnet for her sake compile, [p]Nor never lay
his wreathed arms athwart [p]His loving bosom to keep down his
heart. [p]I have been closely shrouded in this bush [p]And mark'd you
both and for you both did blush: [p]I heard your guilty rhymes,
observed your fashion, [p]Saw sighs reek from you, noted well your
passion: [p]Ay me! says one; O Jove! the other cries; [p]One, her
hairs were gold, crystal the other's eyes: [p][To LONGAVILLE] [p]You
would for paradise break faith, and troth; [p][To DUMAIN] [p]And Jove,
for your love, would infringe an oath. [p]What will Biron say when
that he shall hear [p]Faith so infringed, which such zeal did
swear? [p]How will he scorn! how will he spend his wit! [p]How will he
triumph, leap and laugh at it! [p]For all the wealth that ever I did
see, [p]I would not have him know so much by me.

Biron : Now step I forth to whip hypocrisy. [p][Advancing] [p]Ah, good my
liege, I pray thee, pardon me! [p]Good heart, what grace hast thou,
thus to reprove [p]These worms for loving, that art most in
love? [p]Your eyes do make no coaches; in your tears [p]There is no
certain princess that appears; [p]You'll not be perjured, 'tis a
hateful thing; [p]Tush, none but minstrels like of sonneting! [p]But
are you not ashamed? nay, are you not, [p]All three of you, to be thus
much o'ershot? [p]You found his mote; the king your mote did
see; [p]But I a beam do find in each of three. [p]O, what a scene of
foolery have I seen, [p]Of sighs, of groans, of sorrow and of
teen! [p]O me, with what strict patience have I sat, [p]To see a king
transformed to a gnat! [p]To see great Hercules whipping a gig, [p]And
profound Solomon to tune a jig, [p]And Nestor play at push-pin with
the boys, [p]And critic Timon laugh at idle toys! [p]Where lies thy
grief, O, tell me, good Dumain? [p]And gentle Longaville, where lies
thy pain? [p]And where my liege's? all about the breast: [p]A caudle,
ho!

Ferdinand : Too bitter is thy jest. [p]Are we betray'd thus to thy over-view?

Biron : Not you to me, but I betray'd by you: [p]I, that am honest; I, that
hold it sin [p]To break the vow I am engaged in; [p]I am betray'd, by
keeping company [p]With men like men of inconstancy. [p]When shall you
see me write a thing in rhyme? [p]Or groan for love? or spend a
minute's time [p]In pruning me? When shall you hear that I [p]Will
praise a hand, a foot, a face, an eye, [p]A gait, a state, a brow, a
breast, a waist, [p]A leg, a limb?

Ferdinand : Soft! whither away so fast? [p]A true man or a thief that gallops so?

Biron : I post from love: good lover, let me go.

Jaquenetta : God bless the king!

Ferdinand : What present hast thou there?

Costard : Some certain treason.

Ferdinand : What makes treason here?

Costard : Nay, it makes nothing, sir.

Ferdinand : If it mar nothing neither, [p]The treason and you go in peace away
together.

Jaquenetta : I beseech your grace, let this letter be read: [p]Our parson misdoubts
it; 'twas treason, he said.

Ferdinand : Biron, read it over. [p][Giving him the paper] [p]Where hadst thou
it?

Jaquenetta : Of Costard.

Ferdinand : Where hadst thou it?

Costard : Of Dun Adramadio, Dun Adramadio.

Ferdinand : How now! what is in you? why dost thou tear it?

Biron : A toy, my liege, a toy: your grace needs not fear it.

Longaville : It did move him to passion, and therefore let's hear it.

Dumain : It is Biron's writing, and here is his name.

Biron : [To COSTARD] Ah, you whoreson loggerhead! you were [p]born to do me
shame. [p]Guilty, my lord, guilty! I confess, I confess.

Ferdinand : What?

Biron : That you three fools lack'd me fool to make up the mess: [p]He, he,
and you, and you, my liege, and I, [p]Are pick-purses in love, and we
deserve to die. [p]O, dismiss this audience, and I shall tell you
more.

Dumain : Now the number is even.

Biron : True, true; we are four. [p]Will these turtles be gone?

Ferdinand : Hence, sirs; away!

Costard : Walk aside the true folk, and let the traitors stay.

Biron : Sweet lords, sweet lovers, O, let us embrace! [p]As true we are as
flesh and blood can be: [p]The sea will ebb and flow, heaven show his
face; [p]Young blood doth not obey an old decree: [p]We cannot cross
the cause why we were born; [p]Therefore of all hands must we be
forsworn.

Ferdinand : What, did these rent lines show some love of thine?

Biron : Did they, quoth you? Who sees the heavenly Rosaline, [p]That, like a
rude and savage man of Inde, [p]At the first opening of the gorgeous
east, [p]Bows not his vassal head and strucken blind [p]Kisses the
base ground with obedient breast? [p]What peremptory eagle-sighted
eye [p]Dares look upon the heaven of her brow, [p]That is not blinded
by her majesty?

Ferdinand : What zeal, what fury hath inspired thee now? [p]My love, her mistress,
is a gracious moon; [p]She an attending star, scarce seen a light.

Biron : My eyes are then no eyes, nor I Biron: [p]O, but for my love, day
would turn to night! [p]Of all complexions the cull'd
sovereignty [p]Do meet, as at a fair, in her fair cheek, [p]Where
several worthies make one dignity, [p]Where nothing wants that want
itself doth seek. [p]Lend me the flourish of all gentle
tongues,-- [p]Fie, painted rhetoric! O, she needs it not: [p]To things
of sale a seller's praise belongs, [p]She passes praise; then praise
too short doth blot. [p]A wither'd hermit, five-score winters
worn, [p]Might shake off fifty, looking in her eye: [p]Beauty doth
varnish age, as if new-born, [p]And gives the crutch the cradle's
infancy: [p]O, 'tis the sun that maketh all things shine.

Ferdinand : By heaven, thy love is black as ebony.

Biron : Is ebony like her? O wood divine! [p]A wife of such wood were
felicity. [p]O, who can give an oath? where is a book? [p]That I may
swear beauty doth beauty lack, [p]If that she learn not of her eye to
look: [p]No face is fair that is not full so black.

Ferdinand : O paradox! Black is the badge of hell, [p]The hue of dungeons and the
suit of night; [p]And beauty's crest becomes the heavens well.

Biron : Devils soonest tempt, resembling spirits of light. [p]O, if in black
my lady's brows be deck'd, [p]It mourns that painting and usurping
hair [p]Should ravish doters with a false aspect; [p]And therefore is
she born to make black fair. [p]Her favour turns the fashion of the
days, [p]For native blood is counted painting now; [p]And therefore
red, that would avoid dispraise, [p]Paints itself black, to imitate
her brow.

Dumain : To look like her are chimney-sweepers black.

Longaville : And since her time are colliers counted bright.

Ferdinand : And Ethiopes of their sweet complexion crack.

Dumain : Dark needs no candles now, for dark is light.

Biron : Your mistresses dare never come in rain, [p]For fear their colours
should be wash'd away.

Ferdinand : 'Twere good, yours did; for, sir, to tell you plain, [p]I'll find a
fairer face not wash'd to-day.

Biron : I'll prove her fair, or talk till doomsday here.

Ferdinand : No devil will fright thee then so much as she.

Dumain : I never knew man hold vile stuff so dear.

Longaville : Look, here's thy love: my foot and her face see.

Biron : O, if the streets were paved with thine eyes, [p]Her feet were much
too dainty for such tread!

Dumain : O, vile! then, as she goes, what upward lies [p]The street should see
as she walk'd overhead.

Ferdinand : But what of this? are we not all in love?

Biron : Nothing so sure; and thereby all forsworn.

Ferdinand : Then leave this chat; and, good Biron, now prove [p]Our loving lawful,
and our faith not torn.

Dumain : Ay, marry, there; some flattery for this evil.

Longaville : O, some authority how to proceed; [p]Some tricks, some quillets, how
to cheat the devil.

Dumain : Some salve for perjury.

Biron : 'Tis more than need. [p]Have at you, then, affection's men at
arms. [p]Consider what you first did swear unto, [p]To fast, to study,
and to see no woman; [p]Flat treason 'gainst the kingly state of
youth. [p]Say, can you fast? your stomachs are too young; [p]And
abstinence engenders maladies. [p]And where that you have vow'd to
study, lords, [p]In that each of you have forsworn his book, [p]Can
you still dream and pore and thereon look? [p]For when would you, my
lord, or you, or you, [p]Have found the ground of study's
excellence [p]Without the beauty of a woman's face? [p][From women's
eyes this doctrine I derive;] [p]They are the ground, the books, the
academes [p]From whence doth spring the true Promethean fire] [p]Why,
universal plodding poisons up [p]The nimble spirits in the
arteries, [p]As motion and long-during action tires [p]The sinewy
vigour of the traveller. [p]Now, for not looking on a woman's
face, [p]You have in that forsworn the use of eyes [p]And study too,
the causer of your vow; [p]For where is any author in the
world [p]Teaches such beauty as a woman's eye? [p]Learning is but an
adjunct to ourself [p]And where we are our learning likewise
is: [p]Then when ourselves we see in ladies' eyes, [p]Do we not
likewise see our learning there? [p]O, we have made a vow to study,
lords, [p]And in that vow we have forsworn our books. [p]For when
would you, my liege, or you, or you, [p]In leaden contemplation have
found out [p]Such fiery numbers as the prompting eyes [p]Of beauty's
tutors have enrich'd you with? [p]Other slow arts entirely keep the
brain; [p]And therefore, finding barren practisers, [p]Scarce show a
harvest of their heavy toil: [p]But love, first learned in a lady's
eyes, [p]Lives not alone immured in the brain; [p]But, with the motion
of all elements, [p]Courses as swift as thought in every power, [p]And
gives to every power a double power, [p]Above their functions and
their offices. [p]It adds a precious seeing to the eye; [p]A lover's
eyes will gaze an eagle blind; [p]A lover's ear will hear the lowest
sound, [p]When the suspicious head of theft is stopp'd: [p]Love's
feeling is more soft and sensible [p]Than are the tender horns of
cockl'd snails; [p]Love's tongue proves dainty Bacchus gross in
taste: [p]For valour, is not Love a Hercules, [p]Still climbing trees
in the Hesperides? [p]Subtle as Sphinx; as sweet and musical [p]As
bright Apollo's lute, strung with his hair: [p]And when Love speaks,
the voice of all the gods [p]Makes heaven drowsy with the
harmony. [p]Never durst poet touch a pen to write [p]Until his ink
were temper'd with Love's sighs; [p]O, then his lines would ravish
savage ears [p]And plant in tyrants mild humility. [p]From women's
eyes this doctrine I derive: [p]They sparkle still the right
Promethean fire; [p]They are the books, the arts, the
academes, [p]That show, contain and nourish all the world: [p]Else
none at all in ought proves excellent. [p]Then fools you were these
women to forswear, [p]Or keeping what is sworn, you will prove
fools. [p]For wisdom's sake, a word that all men love, [p]Or for
love's sake, a word that loves all men, [p]Or for men's sake, the
authors of these women, [p]Or women's sake, by whom we men are
men, [p]Let us once lose our oaths to find ourselves, [p]Or else we
lose ourselves to keep our oaths. [p]It is religion to be thus
forsworn, [p]For charity itself fulfills the law, [p]And who can sever
love from charity?

Ferdinand : Saint Cupid, then! and, soldiers, to the field!

Biron : Advance your standards, and upon them, lords; [p]Pell-mell, down with
them! but be first advised, [p]In conflict that you get the sun of
them.

Longaville : Now to plain-dealing; lay these glozes by: [p]Shall we resolve to woo
these girls of France?

Ferdinand : And win them too: therefore let us devise [p]Some entertainment for
them in their tents.

Biron : First, from the park let us conduct them thither; [p]Then homeward
every man attach the hand [p]Of his fair mistress: in the
afternoon [p]We will with some strange pastime solace them, [p]Such as
the shortness of the time can shape; [p]For revels, dances, masks and
merry hours [p]Forerun fair Love, strewing her way with flowers.

Ferdinand : Away, away! no time shall be omitted [p]That will betime, and may by
us be fitted.

Biron : Allons! allons! Sow'd cockle reap'd no corn; [p]And justice always
whirls in equal measure: [p]Light wenches may prove plagues to men
forsworn; [p]If so, our copper buys no better treasure.

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Next: Act 5 - Scene 1

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