Love's Labour Lost I once did see, a play
Y-cleped so, so called to my paine;
Which I to heare to my small joy did stay,
Giving attendance to my froward dame:
My misgiving mind presaging to me ill,
Yet I was drawn to see it 'gainst my will.

Each actor plaid in cunning wise his part,
But chiefly those entrapt in Cupid's snare;
Yet all was fained, 't was not from the hart,
They seeme to grieve, but yet they felt no care:
'T was I that griefe indeed did beare in brest,
The others did but make a show in jest.

Das I once did see in dem ersten Verse lässt sich nicht wohl so auffassen, als sei Love's Labour's Lost erst kurz vorher zum ersten Mal dargestellt worden; und in der That weisen, in Ermangelung bestimmter Daten, alle innern Gründe des Styls und des Verses, das Vorwalten der Knittelverse und der gereimten Couplets, die leichte Schürzung der Intrigue und die skizzenhafte Charakteristik, deutlich genug auf eine Jugendarbeit Shakspere's hin, deren Abfassung nicht weit von Two Gentlemen of Verona und von Comedy of Errors abliegen kann, wenn auch diese beiden Lustspiele dem Love's Labour's Lost, dem sie in formeller Virtuosität nachstehen, vorangegangen sein mögen. Der Eindruck einer Jugendarbeit, den das Ganze macht, wird auch nicht verwischt durch die etwaigen Verbesserungen und Zuthaten, welche der Dichter, nach der Angabe des Titelblattes der Quarto, seinem Drama später zugewandt haben soll; wie Collier vermuthet, eben zum Behuf jener Aufführung bei Hofe, deren das Titelblatt zugleich Erwähnung thut. Es kämen dann auf Rechnung dieser Aenderungen einige Discrepanzen, die sich in den Text gegen den Schluss des Dramas in den Reden Birons und der Rosaline, nach der Meinung einiger Kritiker auch in einer frühern Rede Birons gegen den Schluss des vierten Aktes bemerklich machen, und die sich daraus erklären liessen, dass aus Versehen zwei Bearbeitungen derselben Stelle, eine frühere und eine spätere, nebeneinander abgedruckt sind. Soviel sich sehen lässt, scheinen im Ganzen und Grossen diese Aenderungen, auf welche sich das Newly corrected and augmented des Titelblattes der Quartausgabe. bezieht, nicht sehr tiefgreifend gewesen zu sein. Vielleicht mag es sich mit dieser Titelangabe auch verhalten, wie bei den spätern Quartoeditionen von Shakspere's King Richard III., welche sich sämmtlich auf dem Titel für Newly augmented ausgeben, obwohl die Zusätze von der Hand des Dichters sich nicht in ihnen finden, sondern erst in der nachfolgenden Folioausgabe von 1623. - Dass sich das Lustspiel längere Zeit auf der Shakspere'schen Bühne erhielt und populär blieb, dafür spricht das Titelblatt einer späteren, aus der Folioausgabe abgedruckten Quarto von 1631, welches so lautet: Loues Labours Lost. A Wittie and Pleasant Comedie, As it was acted by his Maiesties Seruants at the Blacke-Friers and the Globe. Written by William Shakespeare. London by W. S. for John Smethwicke. 1631.

Eine Novelle oder ein Drama, aus welchem Shakspere den Stoff zu seinem Love's Labour's Lost hätte schöpfen können, ist bisher nicht

nachgewiesen worden, und es hat den Anschein, als ob unserm Dichter selbst die Erfindung eines Lustspiels angehöre, bei welchem es ihm offenbar mehr auf Charakteristik und Witz, als auf eine fein angelegte und durchgeführte Intrigue ankommen konnte. Zur Ausstattung der Charaktere mochte er immerhin manche Details aus den Seltsamkeiten und Thorheiten individueller wirklicher Figuren entlehnen, obgleich er auch da eher ganze Kategorieen als einzelne Persönlichkeiten im Auge gehabt haben mag. Dass er aber, wie manche Commentatoren annehmen, bestimmte Zeitgenossen, z. B. den italienischen Sprachmeister John Florio, unter der Maske des Holofernes, förmlich habe porträtiren und persifliren wollen, entspricht so wenig der sonstigen Art unseres Dichters, wie den überlieferten Thatsachen. Shakspere wollte, wie er den Holofernes auch wiederholt in dem Drama als the Pedant schlechthin bezeichnet, und den Armado ebenso als the Braggart, ein Bild von einem Pedanten im Allgemeinen und ebenso von einem Grossprahler in seiner Eigenthümlichkeit aufstellen, ohne dass er dabei zwei bestimmte Figuren aus dem Kreise seiner Bekanntschaft in sein Drama hinüberzunehmen nöthig hatte. Eher lassen sich manche Zeitanspielungen auf gewisse Personen und Dinge ausserhalb der Charakteristik seiner auftretenden Figuren in dem Drama nachweisen.

Die Ballade King Cophetua and the Beggar-maid, welche Shakspere wiederholt in Love's Labour's Lost erwähnt, findet sich in Richard Johnson's Crown Garland of Golden Roses (1612) und lautet nach dem Abdruck derselben in Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry folgendermassen:

I read that once in Affrica
A princely wight did raine,
Who had to name Cophetua,
As poets they did faine:
From natures lawes he did decline,
For sure he was not of my mind,
He cared not for women-kinde,

But did them all disdaine.

But, marke, what hapned on a day,
As he out of his window lay,
He saw a beggar all in gray;

The which did cause his paine,

The blinded boy, that shootes so trim,
From heaven downe did hie;
He drew a dart and shot at him,
In place where he did lye:
Which soone did pierse him to the quicke,
And when he felt the arrow pricke,
Which in his tender heart did sticke
He looketh as he would dye.

What sudden chance is this, quoth he,
That I to love must subject be,
Which never thereto would agree,
But still did it defie?

Then from the window he did come,
And laid him on his bed,

A thousand heapes of care did runne
Within his troubled head;

For now he meanes to crave her love,
And now he seekes which way to proove
How he his fancie might remoove,
And not this beggar wed.
But Cupid had him so in snare,
That this poor beggar must prepare
A salve to cure him of his care,
Or els he would be dead.

And, as he musing thus did lye,
He thought for to devise
How he might have her companye,
That so did 'maze his eyes.

Auf den phantastischen Narren, den man Monarcho nannte, und den Shakspere in A. 4, Sc. 1 namhaft macht, findet sich in einer Sammlung poetischer Grabschriften von Thomas Churchyard (1580) folgende

The Phantastioal Monarch's Epitaph.

Though Dant be dead, and Maro lies in grave,|Most bent to words on high and solemn days,
And Petrarch's sprite be mounted past our view, Of diet fine, and dainty divers ways:
Yet do some live, that poets' humours have, And well dispos'd, if Prince did pleasure take
At any mirth that he, poor man, could make.

To keep old course with veins of verses new
Whose pens are prest to paint our people plain,
That else asleep in silence should remain:
Come, poor old man that bare the monarch's

name,

On gallant robes his greatest glory stood,
Yet garments bare could. never daunt his
mind;
nor car'd for worldly
good,

Te fear'd no state,

Thine Epitaph shall here set forth thy fame.
Thy climbing mind aspir'd beyond the stars; Teld each thing light as feathers in the wind.
Thy lofty style no earthly title bore;
And still he said: the strong thrusts weak to
Thy wils would seem to see through peace and

wars,

Thy taunting tongue was pleasant, sharp and sore,

And though thy pride and pomp was somewhat vain,

wall;

When sword bore sway, the Monarch should have all;

The man of might at length shall Monarch be, Ind greatest strength shall make the feeble flee. When strangers came in presence anywhere, The Monarch had a deep-discoursing brain: Strange was the talk the Monarch utter'd then; Alone with friend he could of wonders treat, He had a voice could thunder through the ear, In public place pronounce his sentence great. And speak much like a merry Christmas man, No match for fools, if wisemen were in place, But, sure, small mirth his matter harped on. No mate at meal to sit with common sort: His form of life who lists to look upon, Both grave of looks and father-like of face, Did shew some wit, though folly fed his will: Of judgment quick, of comely form and port;\ The man is dead, yet Monarchs liveth still. Die Anekdote, aus welcher Shakspere nach Steevens' irriger Ansicht in A. 3, Sc. 1, den Witz Costard's über guerdon und remuneration geschöpft haben soll, lautet in dem 1598 zuerst gedruckten Pamphlet A Health to the gentlemanly Profession of Serving-men by J. M. folgendermassen: There was, sayth he, a man (but of what estate, degree or calling, I will not name, least thereby I might incur displeasure of any) that comming to his friend's house, who was a gentleman of good reckoning, and being there kindly entertayned and well used, as well of his friend, the gentleman, as of his servants; one of the said servants, doing him some extraordinary pleasure during his abode there, at his departure he comes unto the said servant, and saith unto him: Hold thee, here is a remuneration for thy pains, which the servant receiving gave him utterly for it, besides his pains, thanks, for it was but a three-farthings-piece; and I hold thanks for the same a small price, howsoever the market goes. Now, another coming to the said gentleman's house, it was the fore-said servant's good hap to be near him at his going away, who, calling the servant unto him said: Hold thee, here is a guerdon for thy deserts. Now the servant paid no dearer for the guerdon than for the remuneration, though the guerdon was XI. d farthing better, for it was a shilling, and the other but a three-farthings.

Ueber das dancing horse, von dem in A. 1, Sc. 2 Moth spricht, mögen hier noch einige zeitgenössische Notizen und Citate zusammengestellt werden. In einer Epigrammensammlung von Thomas Bastard (1598) findet sich u. A. folgendes, betitelt Of Bankes's Horse

Bankes hath a horse of wondrous qualitie,

For he can fight, and pisse, and dance, and lie,
And finde your purse and tell what coyne ye have:
But Bankes who taught your horse to smell a knave.

Bischof Morton erzählt: Which bringeth me into my remembrance a storie which Banks told me at Frankeford, from his own experience in France among the Capuchins by whom he was brought into suspition of magicke, because of the strange feats which his horse Morocco plaied (as I take it) at Orleance; where he to redeem his credit, promised to manifest to the world that his horse was nothing lesse than a divell. To this end he commanded his horse to seek out one in the preasse of the people, who had a crucifixe on his hat; which done, he bad him kneele down unto it; and not this only, but also to rise up againe and to kisse it. And now, gentlemen, quoth he, I think my horse hath acquitted both me and himself; and so his adversaries rested satisfied: conceiving as it might seeme that the divell had no power to come to the crosse. Ferner in Sir Walter Raleigh's History of the World: If Banks had lived in older times, he would have shamed all the inchanters in the world; for whosoever was most famous among them, could never master, or instruct any beast as he did his horse. Auf die Sage, dass Banks sammt seinem Pferde am Ende in Rom als Zauberer verbrannt worden sei, deutet Ben Jonson in seinem Epigramm On the famous voyage hin:

But 'mongst the Tiberts, who do you think there was?

Old Banks, the juggler, our Pythagoras,

Grave tutor to the learned horse, both which,

Being, beyond sea, both burned for one witch,

Their spirits transmigrated to a cat.