DRAMATIS PERSONE

FERDINAND, King of Navarre.

BIRONE,

LONGAVILLE, Lords, attending on the King.

DUMAINE,

BOYET,

MERCADE, Lords, attending on the Princess of France.

DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO, a Spaniard.

SIR NATHANIEL, a Curate.

HOLOFERNES, a Schoolmaster.

DULL, a Constable.

COSTARD, a Clown.

MOTH, [or MOTE,] Page to Armado.

Officers and others, attendants on the King and Princess.

SCENE: Navarre.

Love's Labour's Lost

ACT ONE.

SCENE I. Navarre. A Park, near a Palace.

Enter the KING, BIRONE, LONGAVILLE, and DUMAINE.

KING.

ING. Let fame, that all hunt after in their lives,
Live register'd upon our brazen tombs,

And then grace us in the disgrace of death;

When, spite of cormorant devouring Time,
Th' endeavour of this present breath may buy

That honour which shall bate his scythe's keen edge,
And make us heirs of all eternity.

Therefore, brave conquerors! -for so you are,
That war against your own affections,

And the huge army of the world's desires, —
Our late edict shall strongly stand in force.
Navarre shall be the wonder of the world:
Our Court shall be a little Academe,
Still and contemplative in living art.

You three, Birone, Dumaine, and Longaville,
Have sworn for three years' term to live with me,
My fellow-scholars, and to keep those statutes
That are recorded in this schedule here:

Your oaths are pass'd; and now subscribe your names,
That his own hand may strike his honour down

18 Academe. This is the old and the more correct form. . . . The modern "academy" was, however, in use in Shakespeare's day. (w)

16 Birone. The original spells

10

20

this French name, in all cases, Berowne. It has of late been the practice to print it Biron, sometimes with an accent on the o; but this does not express the proper sound.

That violates the smallest branch herein.

If you are arm'd to do, as sworn to do,
Subscribe to your deep oaths, and keep it too.
Longaville. I am resolv'd: 't is but a three years'
fast:

The mind shall banquet, though the body pine.
Fat paunches have lean pates; and dainty bits
Make rich the ribs, but bankerout the wits.

Dumaine. My loving lord, Dumaine is mortified.
The grosser manner of these world's delights
He throws upon the gross world's baser slaves:
To love, to wealth, to pomp, I pine and die,
With all these living in philosophy.

Birone. I can but say their protestation over;
So much, dear liege, I have already sworn, -
That is, To live and study here three years.
But there are other strict observances;
As, not to see a woman in that term,
Which, I hope well, is not enrolled there :
And one day in a week to touch no food,
And but one meal on every day beside,
The which, I hope, is not enrolled there:
And then, to sleep but three hours in the night,
And not be seen to wink of all the day,
(When I was wont to think no harm all night,
And make a dark night, too, of half the day,)
Which, I hope well, is not enrolled there.
O! these are barren tasks, too hard to keep,
Not to see ladies, study, fast, not sleep.

King. Your oath is pass'd to pass away from these.

Cambridge, bankrupt quite, admits the tautology of the quarto. 48 of, during.

Bir. Let me say no, my liege, an if you please.
I only swore to study with your Grace,
And stay here in your Court for three years' space.

Long. You swore to that, Birone, and to the rest.
Bir. By yea, and nay, sir, then I swore in jest.
What is the end of study, let me know?

King. Why, that to know which else we should not know.

Bir. Things hid and barr'd, you mean, from common sense?

King. Ay, that is study's god-like recompense.
Bir. Come on, then: I will swear to study so,

To know the thing I am forbid to know

As thus, to study where I well may dine,

When I to feast expressly am forbid;
Or study where to meet some mistress fine,
When mistresses from common sense are hid;
Or, having sworn too hard-a-keeping oath,
Study to break it, and not break my troth.

If study's gain be thus, and this be so,

Study knows that which yet it doth not know.

Swear me to this, and I will ne'er say no.

50

60

King. These be the stops that hinder study quite, 70

And train our intellects to vain delight.

Bir. Why, all delights are vain; and that most vain, Which, with pain purchas'd, doth inherit pain:

As, painfully to pore upon a book,

To seek the light of truth; while truth, the while, Doth falsely blind the eyesight of his look.

57

common sense, common

knowledge. Cf. 1. 64.

62 feast. The original has fast, -a manifest misprint, left to be corrected by Theobald.... (w)

72 and.

The quarto reading

but is followed by Cambridge with no apparent gain, and perhaps some poetic loss. (R)

Light, seeking light, doth light of light beguile :
So, ere you find where light in darkness lies,
Your light grows dark by losing of your eyes.
Study me how to please the eye indeed,

By fixing it upon a fairer eye;

Who dazzling so, that eye shall be his heed,
And give him light that it was blinded by.
Study is like the heaven's glorious sun,

That will not be deep-search'd with saucy looks:
Small have continual plodders ever won,
Save base authority from others' books.
These earthly godfathers of heaven's lights,
That give a name to every fixed star,
Have no more profit of their shining nights

Than those that walk, and wot not what they are. Too much to know is to know naught but fame; And every godfather can give a name.

King. How well he's read, to reason against reading!

Dum. Proceeded well, to stop all good proceeding! Long. He weeds the corn, and still lets grow the weeding.

Bir. The Spring is near when green geese are a breeding.

Dum. How follows that?
Bir.

Dum. In reason nothing.

82 dazzling, i. e. being dazzled. heed, guard or guide. Johnson paraphrased, "When he. . . has his eye made weak by fixing his eye upon a fairer eye, that fairer eye shall be his heed, his direction or lodestar, and give him light that was blinded by it." The

Fit in his place and time.

80

90

affectation of diction is partly satirical, but, as it seems, not without a secret pleasure to the youthful dramatist. (R)

95 proceeded, in its academic sense of "graduated" or "promoted." (R)