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INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

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This play was one of those published in Shakspere's commonwealth of King Ferdinand of Navarre we lifetime. The first edition appeared in 1598. In the first collected edition, the folio of 1623, the text differs little from the original quarto.

From the title of the first edition of Love's Labour's Lost,' we learn that, when it was presented before Queen Elizabeth, at the Christmas of 1597, it had been "newly corrected and augmented." As no edition of the comedy, before it was corrected and augmented, is known to exist, we have no proof that the few allusions to temporary circumstances, which are supposed in some degree to fix the date of the play, may not apply to the augmented copy only. In the extrinsic evidence, therefore, which this comedy supplies, there is nothing whatever to disprove the belief which we entertain that, before it had been "corrected and augmented," 'Love's Labour's Lost' was one of the plays produced by Shakspere about 1589, when, being only twenty-five years of age, he was a joint-proprietor in the Blackfriars theatre. The intrinsic evidence appears to us entirely to support this opinion.

There is no historical foundation for any portion of the action of this comedy. There was no Ferdinand King of Navarre. We have no evidence of a difference between France and Navarre as to possessions in Aqui

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"All men idle, all; And women too."

But still all this idleness is too energetic to warrant us in calling this the Comedy of Leisure. Let us try again. Is it not the Comedy of Affectations?

Molière, in his Précieuses Ridicules, has admirably hit off one affectation that had found its way into the private life of his own times. In Love's Labour's Lost' Shakspere presents us almost every variety of affectation that is founded upon a misdirection of intellectual activity. We have here many of the forms in which cleverness is exhibited as opposed to wisdom, and false refinement as opposed to simplicity. The affected characters, even the most fantastical, are not fools; but, at the same time, the natural characters, who, in this play, are chiefly the women, have their intellectual foibles. All the modes of affectation are developed in one continued stream of fun and drollery; every one is laughing at the folly of the other, and the laugh grows louder and louder as the more natural characters, one by one, trip up the heels of the more affected. The most affected at last join in the laugh with the most natural; and the whole comes down to plain kersey yea and nay,"-from the syntax of Holofernes, and the "fire-new words" of Armado, to " greasy Joan" and "roasted crabs."

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LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST.

PERSONS REPRESENTED.

FERDINAND, King of Navarre.

Appeas, Act I. so. 1. Act II. sc. 1. Act IV. sc. 3. Act V. sc. 2.
BIRON, a lord attending on the King.
Appears, Act I. sc. 1. Act II. sc. 1. Act III. sc. 1. Act IV. sc. 3.
Act V. sc. 2.

LONGAVILLE, a lord attending on the King. Appears, Act I. sc. 1. Act II. sc. 1. Act IV. sc. 3. Aet V. sc. 2.

DUMAIN, a lord attending on the King. Appears, Act I. sc. 1. Act II. st. 1. Act IV. sc. 3. Aet V. sc. 2. BOVET, a lord attending on the Princess of France. Appears, Act II. se. 1. Act IV. sc. 1. Act V. sc. 2. MERCADE, a lord attending on the Princess of France. Appears, Act V. sc. 2.

DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO, a fantastical Spaniard. Appears, Act I. sc. 2. Act III. sc. 1. Act V. sc. 1; sc. 2. SIR NATHANIEL, a curate.

Appears, Act IV. sc. 2. Act V. sc. 1; sc. 2.

HOLOFERNES, a schoolmaster.
Appears, Act IV. sc. 2. Act V. sc. 1; sc. 2.

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Appears, Act II. sc. 1. Act IV. sc. 1. Act V. sc. 2. ROSALINE, a lady attending on the Princess of France Appears, Act II. sc. 1. Act IV. sc. 1. Act V. sc. 2. MARIA, a lady attending on the Princess of France. Appears, Act II. sc. 2. Act IV. sc. 1. Act V. sc. 2. KATHARINE, a lady attending on the Princess of France, Appears, Act II. sc. 1. Act IV. sc. 1. Act V. sc. 2. JAQUENETTA, a country wench. Appears, Act I. sc. 2. Act IV. sc. 2.

SCENE,-NAVARRE.

ACT I.

SCENE L-Navarre. A Park, with a Palace in it.
Enter the KING, BIRON, LONGAVILLE, and DUMAIN.
King. Let farne, 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, Biron, Dumain, 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 nameз;
That his own hand may strike his honour down,
That violates the smallest branch herein :
If you are arm'd to do, as sworn to do,
Subscribe to your deep oath, and keep it too.
Long. 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.
Dum. My loving lord, Dumain 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."

Biron. 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,
Biron. 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, Biron, and to the rest.
Biron. By yea and nay, sir, then I swore in jest.
What is the end of tudy? let me know.

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

. With all these. To love, to wealth, to pomp, Dumain is dead; but philosophy, in which he lives, includes them all.

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

King. Ay, that is study's godlike recompense.
Biron. 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 fast expressly am forbid ;a
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.

King. These be the stops that hinder study quite,
And train our intellects to vain delight.

Biron. 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:

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

that So,

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 sancy looks;
Small have continual plodders ever won,
Save base authority from other's 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 nought 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.

Biron. The spring is near, when green geese are a
breeding.
Dum. How follows that?
Biron.

Fit in his place and time.

Dum. In reason nothing.
Biron.
Something then in rhyme.
King. Biron is like an envious sneaping frost,
That bites the first-born infants of the spring.
Biron. Well, say I am; why should proud summer
boast,

Before the birds have any cause to sing?

Why should I joy in any abortive birth?
At Christmas I no more desire a rose,
Than wish a snow in May's new-fangled shows;
But like of each thing that in season grows.
So you, to study now it is too late,

Climb o'er the house to unlock the little gate.

King. Well, sit you out; go home, Biron; adieu! Biron. No, my good lord; I have sworn to stay with

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Forbid was a very ancient mode of making bid more emphatical. Biron will study to know what he is forbid to know; he uses here forbid in its common acceptation. But he is expressly for bid to fast-expressly bid to fast; and he will receive the word as if he were forbidden--bid from fasting.

King. How well this yielding rescues thee from shame!

Biron. [Reads.]

Item, That no woman shall come within a mile of my courtHath this been proclaim'd?

Long. Four days ago.

Biron. Let's see the penalty. [Reads.]

-On pain of losing her tongue.

Who devis'd this penalty?
Long. Marry, that did I.
Biron. Sweet lord, and why

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Long. To fright them hence with that dread per
Biron. A dangerous law against gentility. [R

Item, If any man be seen to talk with a woman wit term of three years, he shall endure such public shame rest of the court shall possibly devise.

This article, my liege, yourself must break;

For, well you know, here comes in embassy The French king's daughter, with yourself to speak,— A maid of grace, and complete majesty,About surrender-up of Aquitain

To her decrepit, sick, and bed-rid father: Therefore this article is made in vain,

Or vainly comes th' admired princess hither.

King. What say you, lords? why, this was quite forgot.

Biron. So study evermore is over-shot; While it doth study to have what it would, It doth forget to do the thing it should: And when it hath the thing it hunteth most, "T is won, as towns with fire; so won, so lost. King. We must, of force, dispense with this decree; She must lie here on mere necessity.

Biron. Necessity will make us all forsworn

Three thousand times within this three years' space:

For every man with his affects is born;

Not by might master'd, but by special grace.

If I break faith, this word shall speak for me,
I am forsworn on mere necessity.—

So to the laws at large I write my name: [Subscribes.
And he that breaks them in the least degree
Stands in attainder of eternal shame:

Suggestions are to others, as to me;
But, I believe, although I seem so loth,
I am the last that will last keep his oath.
But is there no quick recreation granted?

King. Ay, that there is: our court, you know, is
haunted

With a refined traveller of Spain;

A man in all the world's new fashion planted,
That hath a mint of phrases in his brain:
One who the music of his own vain tongue

Doth ravish, like enchanting harmony;
A man of complements, whom right and wrong
Have chose as umpire of their mutiny:
This child of fancy, that Armado hight,

For interim to our studies, shall relate,

In high-born words, the worth of many a knight
From tawny Spain, lost in the world's debate.
How you delight, my lords, I know not, I;
But, I protest, I love to hear him lie,
And I will use him for my minstrelsy.

Biron. Armado is a most illustrious wight,
A man of fire-newd words, fashion's own knight.
Long. Costard the swain, and he, shall be our sport;
And, so to study, three years is but short.

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