Love's Labour's Lost

by William Shakespeare

ACT III - Scene I.

The park

Enter ARMADO and MOTH

Warble, child; make passionate my sense of hearing.

[MOTH sings Concolinel]

Sweet air! Go, tenderness of years, take this key, give
enlargement to the swain, bring him festinately hither; I must
employ him in a letter to my love.

Master, will you win your love with a French brawl?

How meanest thou? Brawling in French?

No, my complete master; but to jig off a tune at the tongue's
end, canary to it with your feet, humour 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 snuff'd up love by smelling love,
with your hat penthouse-like o'er the shop of your eyes, with
your arms cross'd 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 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.

How hast thou purchased this experience?

By my penny of observation.

But O- but O-

The hobby-horse is forgot.

Call'st thou my love 'hobby-horse'?

No, master; the hobby-horse is but a colt, and your love
perhaps a hackney. But have you forgot your love?

Almost I had.

Negligent student! learn her by heart.

By heart and in heart, boy.

And out of heart, master; all those three I will prove.

What wilt thou prove?

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
cannot enjoy her.

I am all these three.

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

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

A message well sympathiz'd- a horse to be ambassador for an
ass.

Ha, ha, what sayest thou?

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

The way is but short; away.

As swift as lead, sir.

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

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

I say lead is slow.

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

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

Thump, then, and I flee.

Exit

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

Re-enter MOTH with COSTARD

A wonder, master! here's a costard broken in a shin.

Some enigma, some riddle; come, thy l'envoy; begin.

No egma, no riddle, no l'envoy; no salve in the mail, sir.
O, sir, plantain, a plain plantain; no l'envoy, no l'envoy; no
salve, sir, but a plantain!

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 the word 'l'envoy' for a salve?

Do the wise think them other? Is not l'envoy a salve?

No, page; it is an epilogue or discourse to make plain
Some obscure precedence that hath tofore been sain.
I will example it:
The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee,
Were still at odds, being but three.
There's the moral. Now the l'envoy.

I will add the l'envoy. Say the moral again.

The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee,
Were still at odds, being but three.

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.
The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee,
Were still at odds, being but three.

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

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

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.

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

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

True, and I for a plantain. Thus came your argument in;
Then the boy's fat l'envoy, the goose that you bought;
And he ended the market.

But tell me: how was there a costard broken in a shin?

I will tell you sensibly.

Thou hast no feeling of it, Moth; I will speak that
l'envoy.
I, Costard, running out, that was safely within,
Fell over the threshold and broke my shin.

We will talk no more of this matter.

Till there be more matter in the shin.

Sirrah Costard. I will enfranchise thee.

O, Marry me to one Frances! I smell some l'envoy, some
goose, in this.

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

True, true; and now you will be my purgation, and let me
loose.

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;
there is remuneration, for the best ward of mine honour is
rewarding my dependents. Moth, follow.

Exit

Like the sequel, I. Signior Costard, adieu.

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

[Exit MOTH]

Now will I look to his remuneration. Remuneration! 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 never buy and sell out of
this word.

Enter BEROWNE

My good knave Costard, exceedingly well met!

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

What is a remuneration?

Marry, sir, halfpenny farthing.

Why, then, three-farthing worth of silk.

I thank your worship. God be wi' you!

Stay, slave; I must employ thee.
As thou wilt win my favour, good my knave,
Do one thing for me that I shall entreat.

When would you have it done, sir?

This afternoon.

Well, I will do it, sir; fare you well.

Thou knowest not what it is.

I shall know, sir, when I have done it.

Why, villain, thou must know first.

I will come to your worship to-morrow morning.

It must be done this afternoon.
Hark, slave, it is but this:
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
This seal'd-up counsel. There's thy guerdon; go.

[Giving him a shilling]

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

And I, forsooth, in love; I, that have been love's whip;
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 wimpled, whining, purblind, wayward boy,
This senior-junior, giant-dwarf, Dan Cupid;
Regent of love-rhymes, lord of folded arms,
Th' anointed sovereign of sighs and groans,
Liege of all loiterers and malcontents,
Dread prince of plackets, king of codpieces,
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 love, I sue, I seek a wife-
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 perjur'd, which is worst of all;
And, among three, to love the worst of all,
A whitely 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.
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:
Some men must love my lady, and some Joan.

Exit