Love's Labour's Lost: ACT III , SCENE I. The same.

Love's Labour's Lost: ACT III


	Introduction

	ACT I

	ACT II

	ACT III

		SCENE I. The same.

	ACT IV

	ACT V

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SCENE I. The same.

Enter DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO and MOTH

DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO

Warble, child; make passionate my sense of hearing.

MOTH

Concolinel.

Singing

DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO

      Sweet air! Go, tenderness of years; take this key,
      give enlargement to the swain, bring him festinately
5     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
      the tongue's end, canary to it with your feet, humour
10    it with turning up your eyelids, sigh a note and
      sing a note, sometime through the throat, as if you
      swallowed love with singing love, sometime through
      the nose, as if you snuffed up love by smelling
      love; with your hat penthouse-like o'er the shop of
15    your eyes; with your arms crossed on your thin-belly
      doublet like a rabbit on a spit; or your hands in
      your pocket like a man after the old painting; and
      keep not too long in one tune, but a snip and away.
      These are complements, these are humours; these
20    betray nice wenches, that would be betrayed without
      these; and make them men of note--do you note
      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

25 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
love perhaps a hackney. But have you forgot your love?

DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO

30 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

35    A man, if I live; and this, by, in, and without, upon
      the instant: by heart you love her, because your
      heart cannot come by her; in heart you love her,
      because your heart is in love with her; and out of
      heart you love her, being out of heart that you
40    cannot enjoy her.

DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO

I am all these three.

MOTH

And three times as much more, and yet nothing at
all.

DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO

Fetch hither the swain: he must carry me a letter.

MOTH

45 A message well sympathized; a horse to be ambassador
for an ass.

DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO

Ha, ha! what sayest thou?

MOTH

Marry, sir, you must send the ass upon the horse,
for he is very slow-gaited. But I go.

DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO

50 The way is but short: away!

MOTH

As swift as lead, sir.

DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO

The meaning, pretty ingenious?
Is not lead a metal heavy, dull, and slow?

MOTH

Minime, honest master; or rather, master, no.

DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO

55 I say lead is slow.

MOTH

You are too swift, sir, to say so:
Is that lead slow which is fired from a gun?

DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO

      Sweet smoke of rhetoric!
      He reputes me a cannon; and the bullet, that's he:
60    I shoot thee at the swain.

MOTH

Thump then and I flee.

Exit

DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO

      A most acute juvenal; voluble and free of grace!
      By thy favour, sweet welkin, I must sigh in thy face:
      Most rude melancholy, valour gives thee place.
65    My herald is return'd.

Re-enter MOTH with COSTARD

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
      mail, sir: O, sir, plantain, a plain plantain! no
70    l'envoy, no l'envoy; no salve, sir, but a plantain!

DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO

      By virtue, thou enforcest laughter; thy silly
      thought my spleen; the heaving of my lungs provokes
      me to ridiculous smiling. O, pardon me, my stars!
      Doth the inconsiderate take salve for l'envoy, and
75    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
      Some obscure precedence that hath tofore been sain.
      I will example it:
80    The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee,
      Were still at odds, being but three.
      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,
85 Were still at odds, being but three.

MOTH

      Until the goose came out of door,
      And stay'd the odds by adding four.
      Now will I begin your moral, and do you follow with
      my l'envoy.
90    The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee,
      Were still at odds, being but three.

DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO

Until the goose came out of door,
Staying the odds by adding four.

MOTH

A good l'envoy, ending in the goose: would you
95 desire more?

COSTARD

      The boy hath sold him a bargain, a goose, that's flat.
      Sir, your pennyworth is good, an your goose be fat.
      To sell a bargain well is as cunning as fast and loose:
      Let me see; a fat l'envoy; ay, that's a fat goose.

DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO

100 Come hither, come hither. How did this argument begin?

MOTH

By saying that a costard was broken in a shin.
Then call'd you for the l'envoy.

COSTARD

      True, and I for a plantain: thus came your
      argument in;
105   Then the boy's fat l'envoy, the goose that you bought;
      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:
110   I Costard, running out, that was safely within,
      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

115 O, marry me to one Frances: I smell some l'envoy,
some goose, in this.

DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO

      By my sweet soul, I mean setting thee at liberty,
      enfreedoming thy person; thou wert immured,
      restrained, captivated, bound.

COSTARD

120 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,
      in lieu thereof, impose on thee nothing but this:
      bear this significant

Giving a letter

      to the country maid Jaquenetta:
125   there is remuneration; for the best ward of mine
      honour is rewarding my dependents. Moth, follow.

Exit

MOTH

Like the sequel, I. Signior Costard, adieu.

COSTARD

My sweet ounce of man's flesh! my incony Jew!

Exit MOTH

      Now will I look to his remuneration. Remuneration!
130   O, that's the Latin word for three farthings: three
      farthings--remuneration.--'What's the price of this
      inkle?'--'One penny.'--'No, I'll give you a
      remuneration:' why, it carries it. Remuneration!
      why, it is a fairer name than French crown. I will
135   never buy and sell out of this word.

Enter BIRON

BIRON

O, my good knave Costard! exceedingly well met.

COSTARD

Pray you, sir, how much carnation ribbon may a man
buy for a remuneration?

BIRON

What is a remuneration?

COSTARD

140 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:
      As thou wilt win my favour, good my knave,
145   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

150 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.
      Hark, slave, it is but this:
155   The princess comes to hunt here in the park,
      And in her train there is a gentle lady;
      When tongues speak sweetly, then they name her name,
      And Rosaline they call her: ask for her;
      And to her white hand see thou do commend
160   This seal'd-up counsel. There's thy guerdon; go.

Giving him a shilling

COSTARD

      Gardon, O sweet gardon! better than remuneration,
      a'leven-pence farthing better: most sweet gardon! I
      will do it sir, in print. Gardon! Remuneration!

Exit

BIRON

      And I, forsooth, in love! I, that have been love's whip;
165   A very beadle to a humorous sigh;
      A critic, nay, a night-watch constable;
      A domineering pedant o'er the boy;
      Than whom no mortal so magnificent!
      This whimpled, whining, purblind, wayward boy;
170   This senior-junior, giant-dwarf, Dan Cupid;
      Regent of love-rhymes, lord of folded arms,
      The anointed sovereign of sighs and groans,
      Liege of all loiterers and malcontents,
      Dread prince of plackets, king of codpieces,
175   Sole imperator and great general
      Of trotting 'paritors:--O my little heart:--
      And I to be a corporal of his field,
      And wear his colours like a tumbler's hoop!
      What, I! I love! I sue! I seek a wife!
180   A woman, that is like a German clock,
      Still a-repairing, ever out of frame,
      And never going aright, being a watch,
      But being watch'd that it may still go right!
      Nay, to be perjured, which is worst of all;
185   And, among three, to love the worst of all;
      A wightly wanton with a velvet brow,
      With two pitch-balls stuck in her face for eyes;
      Ay, and by heaven, one that will do the deed
      Though Argus were her eunuch and her guard:
190   And I to sigh for her! to watch for her!
      To pray for her! Go to; it is a plague
      That Cupid will impose for my neglect
      Of his almighty dreadful little might.
      Well, I will love, write, sigh, pray, sue and groan:
195   Some men must love my lady and some Joan.

Exit

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