LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST. Air, quoth he, thy cheeks may blow; Thou for whom even Jove would swear, And deny himself for Jove, This will I send; and something else more plain, Long. Dumain, [advancing.] thy love is far from That in love's grief desir'st society: King. Come, sir, [advancing.] you blush; as You chide at him, offending twice as much: And Jove, for your love, would infringe an oath. Too bitter is thy jest. (1) Grief. (2) Cynic. (3) In trimming myself. Act IV. Are we betray'd thus to thy over-view? am betrayed, by keeping company King. A true man, or a thief, that gallops so? Soft; Whither away so fast? Jaq. God bless the king! What present hast thou there? Cost. Some certain treason. King. What makes treason here? Jaq. Of Costard. King. Where hadst thou it? Cost. Of Dun Adramadio, Dun Adramadio. thou tear it? Biron. A toy, my liege, a toy; your grace needs not fear it. Long. It did move him to passion, and therefore let's hear it. Dum. It is Biron's writing, and here is his name. Biron. Ah, you whoreson loggerhead, [To Cas[Picks up the pieces. tard.] you were born to do me shame. Guilty, my lord, guilty; I confess, I confess. King. What? Biron. That you three fools lack'd me fool to make up the mess: He, he, and you, my liege, and I, Are pick-purses in love, and we deserve to die. Will these turtles be gone? Cost. Walk aside the true folk, and let the trai tors stay. Hence, sirs, away. [Exeunt Cost. and Jaq. Biron. Sweet lords, sweet lovers, O let us em brace! The sea will ebb and flow, heaven show his face; Biron. Did they, quoth you? Who sees the That, like a rude and savage man of Inde, At the first opening of the gorgeous east, Dares look upon the heaven of her brow, now? My love, her mistress, is a gracious moon; Do meet, as at a fair, in her fair cheek; Lend me the flourish of all gentle tongues, Fie, painted rhetoric! O, she needs it not: A wither'd hermit, five-score winters worn, Might shake off fifty, looking in her eye: And gives the crutch the cradle's infancy. No face is fair, that is not full so black. O, if in black my lady's brows be deckt, It mourns, that painting, and usurping hair, For native blood is counted painting now; Long. O, some authority how to proceed; Biron. And where that you have vow'd to study, lords, Paints itself black, to imitate her brow. Dum. To look like her, are chimney-sweepers black. Long. And, since her time, are colliers counted bright. King. And Ethiops of their sweet complexion crack. Dum. Dark needs no candles now, for dark is Biron. Your mistresses dare never come in rain, I'll find a fairer face not wash'd to-day. King. Ne devil will fright thee then so much as Dum. I never knew man hold vile stuff so dear. head. King. But what of this? Are we not all in love? They sparkle still the right Promethean fire; (1) Law chicane. Or for love's sake, a word that loves all men ; King. Saint Cupid, then! and, soldiers, to the Biron. Advance your standards, and upon them, Pell-mell, down with them! but be first advis'd, Long. Now to plain-dealing; lay these glozes by: Biron. First, from the park let us conduct them Then, homeward every man attach the hand SCENE I-Another part of the same. Hol. Satis quod sufficit. Enter Hol. Quare Chirra, not sirrah? Arm. Men of peace, well encounter'd. Hol. Most military sir, salutation. Moth. They have been at a great feast of languages, and stolen the scraps. [To Costard aside. Cost. O, they have lived long in the alms-basket of words! I marvel, thy master hath not eaten thee for a word; for thou art not so long by the head as honorificabilitudinitatibus: thou art easier swallowed than a flap-dragon. Moth. Peace; the peal begins. Arm. Monsieur, [To Hol.] are you not letter'd? Moth. Yes, yes; he teaches boys the hornbook:What is a, b, spelt backward, with a horn on his head? Hol. Ba, pueritia, with a horn added. Moth. Ba, most silly sheep, with a horn:-You hear his learning. Hol. Quis, quis, thou consonant? Moth. The third of the five vowels, if you repeat them; or the fifth, if I. Hol. I will repeat them, a, e, i.— Moth. The sheep: the other two concludes it; o, u. Arm. Now, by the salt wave of the Mediterra neum, a sweet touch," a quick venew of wit: snip, snap, quick and home; it rejoiceth my intellect: true wit Moth. Offer'd by a child to an old man; which is wit-old. Hol. What is the figure? what is the figure? Hol. Thou disputest like an infant: go, whip thy gig. Moth. Lend me your horn to make one, and I will whip about your infamy circùm circà; A gig of a cuckold's horn! Nath. I praise God for you, sir: your reasons' at dinner have been sharp and sententious; plea sant without scurrility, witty without affection, Cost. An I had but one penny in the world, audacious without impudency, learned without thou should'st have it to buy gingerbread: hold, opinion, and strange without heresy. I did con- there is the very remuneration I had of thy master, verse this quondam day with a companion of the thou half-penny purse of wit, thou pigeon-egg of king's, who is intituled, nominated, or called, Don discretion. O, an the heavens were so pleased, that Adriano de Armado. thou wert but my bastard! what a joyful father would'st thou make me! Go to; thou hast it ad dunghill, at the fingers' ends, as they say. Hol. O, I smell false Latin; dunghill for un Arm. At your sweet pleasure, for the mountain. Hol. Novi hominem tanquam te: His humour is lofty, his discourse peremptory, his tongue filed, his eye ambitious, his gait majestical, and his general behaviour vain, ridiculous, and thrasonical.guem. He is too picked,4 too spruce, too affected, too odd, | Arm. Arts-man, præambula; we will be singled as it were, too perigrinate, as I may call it. from the barbarous. Do you not educate youth at Nath. A most singular and choice epithet. the charge-house on the top of the mountain? [Takes out his table-book. Hol. Or, mons, the hill. Hol. He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument. I abhor such fanatical phantasms, such insociable and point-devise companions; such rackers of orthography, as to speak, dout, fine, when he should say doubt; det, when he should pronounce debt; d, e, b, t; not d, e, t: he clepeth a calf, cauf; half, hauf; Hol. The posterior of the day, most generous neighbour, vocatur, nebour; neigh, abbreviated, sir, is liable, congruent, and measurable for the ne: This is abhominable (which he would call afternoon: the word is well cull'd, chose; sweet abominable,) it insinuateth me of insanie; Ne and apt, I do assure you, sir, I do assure. intelligis domine? to make frantic, lunatic. Nath. Laus deo, bone intelligo. Arm. Sir, it is the king's most sweet pleasure and affection, to congratulate the princess at her pavilion, in the posteriors of this day; which the rude multitude call the afternoon. Arm. Sir, the king is a noble gentleman; and my familiar, I do assure you, very good friend: (6) A small inflammable substance, swallowed in a glass of wine. (7) A hit. (8) Free-school. For what is inward1 between us, let it pass:-I do Prin. Nothing but this? yes, as much love in beseech thee, remember thy courtesy-I beseech rhyme Ros. That was the way to make his god-head wax;6 For he hath been five thousand years a boy. thee, apparel thy head; and among other importu- As would be cramm'd up in a sheet of paper, nate and most serious designs,-and of great im- Writ on both sides the leaf, margent and all; port, indeed, too;-but let that pass:-for I must That he was fain to seal on Cupid's name. tell thee, it will please his grace (by the world) sometime to lean upon my poor shoulder; and with his royal finger, thus, dally with my excrement, with my mustachio: but sweet heart, let that pass. By the world, I recount no fable; some certain special honours it pleaseth his greatness to impart to Armado, a soldier, a man of travel, that hath Kath. He made her melancholy, sad, and heavy; seen the world: but let that pass.-The very all of And so she died: had she been light, like you, all is, but, sweet heart, I do implore secrecy,-Of such a merry, nimble, stirring spirit, that the king would have me present the princess, She might have been a grandam ere she died: sweet chuck, with some delightful ostentation, or And so may you; for a light heart lives long. show, or pageant, or antic, or fire-work. Now, Ros. What's your dark meaning, mouse, of this understanding that the curate and your sweet self, are good at such eruptions, and sudden breaking out of mirth, as it were, I have acquainted you withal, to the end to crave your assistance. Hol. Sir, you shall present before her the nine worthies.-Sir Nathaniel, as concerning some entertainment of time, some show in the posterior of this day, to be rendered by our assistance,-the king's command, and this most gallant, illustrate, and learned gentleman,-before the princess; say, none so fit as to present the nine worthies. Nath. Where will you find men worthy enough to present them? Hol. Joshua, yourself; myself, or this gallant gentleman, Judas Maccabæus; this swain, because of his great limb or joint, shall pass Pompey the great; the page, Hercules. light word? Kath. A light condition in a beauty dark. out. Kath. You'll mar the light, by taking it in snuff;* Ros. Look, what you do, you do it still i' the dark. for me. Ros. Great reason; for, Past cure is still past care. Ros. I would, you knew: An if my face were but as fair as yours, Arm. Pardon, sir, error: he is not quantity My favour were as great; be witness this. enough for that worthy's thumb: he is not so big Nay, I have verses too, I thank Birón: as the end of his club. Hol. Shall I have audience? he shall present Hercules in minority; his enter and exit shall be strangling a snake; and I will have an apology for that purpose. Moth. An excellent device! so, if any of the audience hiss, you may cry well done, Hercules! now thou crusheth the snake! that is the way to make an offence gracious; though few have the grace to do it. Arm. For the rest of the worthies? Hol. We attend. Arm. We will have, if this fadge4 not, an antic. I beseech you, follow. Hol. Via, good man Dull! thou has spoken no word all this while. Dull. Nor understood none neither, sir. 'Hol. Allons! we will employ thee. Dull. I'll make one in a dance, or so; or I will play on the tabor to the worthies, and let them dance the hay. Hol. Most dull, honest Dull, to our sport, away. [Exeunt. SCENE II-Another part of the same. Before the Princess's Pavilion. Enter the Princess, Katharine, Rosaline, and Maria. I The numbers true; and, were the numb'ring too, I Ros. Much, in the letters; nothing in the praise. My red dominical, my golden letter: Kath. A pox of that jest! and beshrew all shrows! Kath. Madam, this glove. Prin. Mar. This, and these pearls, to me sent Longa The letter is too long by half a mile. Prin. I think no less: Dost thou not wish in The chain were longer, and the letter short? Prin. We are wise girls, to mock our lovers so. Prin. Sweet hearts, we shall be rich ere we depart, That same Birón I'll torture ere I go. If fairings come thus plentifully in: A lady walled about with diamonds!- O, that I knew he were but in by the week! Prin. Here comes Boyet, and mirth is in his face. Boyet. O, I am stabb'd with laughter! Where's her grace? Prin. Thy news, Boyet? That charge their breath against us? say, scout, say. Making the bold wag by their praises bolder. For, ladies, we will every one be mask'd; Hold, Rosaline, this favour thou shalt wear; Ros. Come on then; wear the favours most in sight. Ros. But shall we dance, if they desire us to't! Prin. No; to the death, we will not move a foot: Nor to their penn'd speech render we no grace; But, while 'tis spoke, each turn away her face. Boyet. Why, that contempt will kill the speaker's heart, And quite divorce his memory from his part. Prin. Therefore I do it; and, I make no doubt, The rest will ne'er come in, if he be out. There's no such sport, as sport by sport o'erthrown; To make theirs ours, and ours none but our own: So shall we stay, mocking intended game; And they, well mock'd, depart away with shame. [Trumpets sound within. Boyet. The trumpet sounds be mask'd, the maskers come. The ladies mask. Enter the King, Biron, Longaville, and Dumain, in Russian habits, and masked; Moth, mustcians, and attendants. Moth. All hail! the richest beauties on the earth! Boyet. Beauties no richer than rich taffeta. Moth. A holy parcel of the fairest dames, The ladies turn their backs to him, That ever turn'd their-backs-to mortal views! Boyet. True; out, indeed. Moth. Out of your favours, heavenly spirits, vouchsafe Not to behold Biron. Once to behold, rogue. Moth. Once to behold with your sun-beamed eyes,——with your sun-beamed eyes— Boyet. They will not answer to that epithet; You were best call it, daughter-beamed eyes. Moth. They do not mark me, and that brings me out. |