 Dramatis Personae of Love's Labour's Lost. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Dramatis Personae. Barone. Read by M.B. Boyette. Read by Mark Penfold. Costard. Read by John D. Muted. Don Adriano De Armato. Read by David Goldfarm. Doll. Read by David Lawrence. Domain. Read by 0123. Ferdinand, King of Navarre. Read by Bruce Peary. First Lord. Read by Vicente. A Forester. Read by Philippa. Hala Furnace. Read by Dennis Sayers. Jack Winata. Read by Chelsea Baker. Gatherin. Read by Natiné Cœur Boulé. Longaville. Read by Rick F. Maria. Read by Avaye. Mercade. Read by Kim Stish. Moth. Read by Karen Savage. The Princess of France. Read by Elizabeth Clatt. Rosaline. Read by Ariel Lipschaw. Sir Nathaniel. Read by Robert Fletcher. The Narrator. Read by Don Krasnowski Malixie. End of Dramatis Personae. End of Love's Labor's Lost by William Shakespeare. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Act I, Scene 1. Enter Ferdinand, King of Navarre. Be wrong, Longaville and domain. Let fame that all hunt after in their lives live registered upon our brazen tombs and then grace us in the disgrace of death in spite of cormorant devouring time the endeavour of this present breath may buy that honour which shall bait 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, Béron, Domaine 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 passed and now subscribe your names that his own hand may strike his honour down that violates the smallest branch herein. If you are armed to do as sworn to do, subscribe to your depots and keep it too. I am resolved. It is but a three years fast. The mind shall banquet though the body pine. Fat punches have lean pates and dainy bits make rich the ribs, but bankrupt quite the wits. My loving lord, Domaine is mortified. The grosser manner of this world's delights he throws upon the gross world's baser slaves. To love, to wealth, to pomp, I pine and die with all this living in philosophy. I can but say their protestation over. So much dear Lige, 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 enrol it there and one day in a week to touch no food but one meal on every day beside the which I hope is not enrol it 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 enrol it there. Oh, these are barren tasks too hard to keep, not to see ladies. Study, fast, not sleep. Your oath is passed to pass away from these. Let me say no, my Lige, and if you please, I only swore to study with your grace and stay here in your court for three years' space. You swore to that, Your Honor, and to the rest? By yay and nay, sir, then I swore in jest. What is the end of study? Let me know. Why, that to know which else we should not know. Things hid and barred, you mean, from common sense? Ah, that is study's godlike recompense. Oh, 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 died 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 truth. If study's gain be thus and this be so, study knows that which yet it does not know. Swear me to this and I will there say no. These be the stops that hinder study quite and train our intellects to vain delight. Why, all the lights are in vain, but that most vain which with pain purchased doth inherit pain, as painfully to pour upon a book to seek the light of truth while truth the wildeth 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 so that I shall be his heed and give him light that it was blinded by. Study is like the heavens glorious sun that will not be deep searched with saucy looks. Small have continual plotters ever one save base authority from others books. These earthly godfathers of heavens lights that give a name to every fixed star have no more profit of their shining nights than those that walk and what not what they are. Too much to know is to know not but fame and every godfather can give a name. How well he's read to reason against reading. Proceeded well to stop all good proceeding. He weeds the corn and still lets grow the weeding. The spring is near when green geese are breeding. How follows that? Fit in his place and time. And reason, nothing. Something then in rhyme. Buran is like an envious, sneaking frost that bites the first born infants of the spring. 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 know more desire arose than wish a snow in May's newfangled mirth. 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. Well, sit you out. Go home, Buran, had you. No, my good lord, I have sworn to stay with you. And though I have for barbarism spoke more than for that angel knowledge you can say, yet confident I'll keep what I have swore and bide the penance of each three years day. Give me the paper, let me read the same, and to the strictest degrees I'll write my name. How well this yielding rescues thee from shame. Read. Item, that no woman shall come within a mile of my court. Have this been proclaimed? Four days ago. Let's see the penalty. Read. On pain of losing her tongue. Who devised this penalty? Mary, that did I. Sweet lord, and why? To fright them hence with that dread penalty. A dangerous law against gentility. Read. Item, if any man be seen to talk with a woman within the term of three years he shall endure such public shame as the rest of the court can possibly devise. This article my lead yourself must break, for well you know here comes in embassy the French king's daughter with yourself to speak, made of grace and complete majesty, about surrender up of aquitaine to her decrepit, sick and bed rid father. Therefore this article is made in vain or vainly comes the admired princess hither. What say you lords, why this was quite forgot? So study ever more is overshot. 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 it is one as towns with fire, so one so lost. We must have forced dispense with this decree. She must lie here on mere necessity. Necessity will make us all for a sworn three thousand times within this three years space for every man with his effects is born not by might mastered but by special grace. And if I break faith this word shall speak for me. I am for sworn 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 attainter of eternal shame. Suggestions are to others as to me but I believe although I seem so low I am the last that will last keep his oath. But is there no quick recreation granted? Aye, that there is. Our court you know is haunted with the refined traveller of Spain a man in all the world's new fashion planted that hath a mint of phrases in his brain one whom the music of his own vain tongue doth ravish like enchanting harmony a man of compliments whom right and wrong have chose as umpire of their mutiny. This child of fancy that Armado height 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. Armado is a most illustrious white a man of fire-new words, fashion's own knight. Custard the Swain and he shall be our sport and so to study three years is but short. Enter dull with a letter and Custard. Which is the Duke's own person? This fellow, what words? I myself reprehend his own person for I hem his graces Sarborough but I would see his own person in flesh and blood. This is he. Signor Arm... Arm commends you. There's villainy abroad. This letter will tell you more. Sir, the contempt thereof are as touching me. A letter from the magnificent Armado. How low so ever the matter I hope in God for high words. A high hope for a low heaven. God grant us patience. To hear or forebear laughing. To hear meekly, sir, and to laugh moderately. Or to forebear both. Well, sir, be it as the style shall give us cause to climb in the merriness. The matter is to me, sir, as concerning Giaconetta. The manner of it is I was taken with the manner. In what manner? In manner and form following, sir. All those three. I was seen with her in the manner-house sitting with her upon the form and taken following her into the park which put together is in manner and form following. And now, sir, for the manner, it is the manner of a man to speak to a woman for the form in some form. For the following, sir? As it shall follow in my correction, and God defend the right. Will you hear this letter with attention? As we would hear an oracle. Such is the simplicity of man to hearken after the flesh. Great deputy, the welcomes vice-regent and soul-dominator of Navarre, my soul's earth's god and body's fostering patron. Not a word of costard yet. So it is. It may be so. But if he say it is so, he is, in telling true, but so. Peace. Be to me and every man that dares not fight. No words. Of other men's secrets I beseech you. Reigns. So it is. Be sieged with sable-coloured melancholy. I did commend the black-opressing humor to the most wholesome physic of thy health-giving air. And as I am a gentleman, betook myself to walk. The time when? About the sixth hour, when beasts most graze birds' best peck, and men sit down to that nourishment which is called supper. So much for the time when? Now for the ground which, which I mean I walked upon. It is eclept thy park. Then for the place where, where I mean I did encounter that obscene and preposterous event that droth from my snow-white pen the ebbon-coloured ink which hear thou viewest, beholdest, surveyest, or seeest. But to the place where, it standeth north-north-east and by-east from the west-corner of thy curious-naughted garden, there did I see that low-spirited swain, that base minnow of thy mirth, me, that unlettered small-knowing soul, me, that shallow vassal, still me, which, as I remember, costard, O me, sorted and consorted contrary to thy established proclaimed edict and continent canon, which with, O with, but with this I passion to say wherewith, with a winch, with a child of our grandmother Eve, a female, or for thy more sweet understanding, a woman. Him I, as my ever esteemed duty pricks me on, have sent to thee to receive the mead of punishment by thy sweet-graces-officer, Anthony Dull, a man of good repute, carriage, bearing, and estimation. Me, ain't shall please you, I am Anthony Dull. For Jacquanetta, so is the weaker vessel called, which I apprehended with the aforesaid swain, I keep her as a vessel of the law's fury, and shall, at the least of thy sweet notice, bring her to trial, thine in all compliments of devoted and heart-burning heat of duty, Don Adriano de Armado. This is not so well as I looked for, but the best that ever I heard. Aye, the best for the worst. But, sir, I would say you to this. Sir, I confess the winch. Did you hear the proclamation? I do confess much of the hearing it, but little of the marking of it. It was proclaimed a year's imprisonment to be taken with a winch. I was taken with none, sir. I was taken with a damsel. Well, it was proclaimed damsel. But this was no damsel, neither, sir. She was a virgin. It is so varied, too, for it was proclaimed virgin. If it were, I deny her virginity. I was taken with a maid. This maid will not serve your turn, sir. This maid will serve my turn, sir. Sir, I will pronounce your sentence. You shall fast a week with brand and water. I had rather pray a month with mutton and porridge. And Don Armado shall be your keeper. My Lord Baron, see him delivered o'er, and go we lords to put in practice that which each two other hath so strongly sworn. Exeunt Ferdinand, Longaville, and Domaine. I'll lay my head to any good man's hat. These oaths and laws will prove an idle scorn. Cira, come on. I suffer for the truth, sir. For true it is. I was taken with Giaconetta. And Giaconetta is a true girl. And therefore welcome the sour cup of prosperity. Affliction may one day smile again. Until then, sit thee down, sorrow. Exeunt. Scene two. Enter Don Adriano Diarmado and Moth. Boy, what sign is it when a man of great spirit grows melancholy? A great sign, sir, that he will look sad. Why, sadness is the one and self same thing, dear imp? No, no. Oh, Lord, sir, no. How can't thou part sadness and melancholy, my tender juvenile? By a familiar demonstration of the working, my tough senior. Why, tough senior? Why, tough senior? Why, tender juvenile? Why, tender juvenile? I spoke it, tender juvenile, as a congruent epithetana pertaining to thy young days, which we may nominate tender. And I, tough senior, as in a pertinent title to your old time, which we may name tough. Pretty and apt. How mean you, sir. I pretty and my saying apt, or I apt and my saying pretty. Thou pretty because little. Little pretty because little. Wherefore apt. And therefore apt, because quick. Speak you this in my praise, master. In thy condine praise. I will praise an eel with the same praise. What, that an eel is ingenious? That an eel is quick. I do say thou art quick at answers, thou heatest my blood. I am answered, sir. I love not to be crossed. Aside. He speaks the mere contrary. Crosses love not him. I have promised to study three years with the duke. You may do it in an hour, sir. Impossible. How many is one, thrice told? I am ill at reckoning. It fitteth the spirit of a tapster. You are a gentleman in a game-ster, sir. I confess both. They are both the varnish of a complete man. Then I am sure you know how much the gross sum of deucese amounts to. It doth amount to one more than two. Which the base vulgar do call three. True. There is this such a piece of study. Now here is three studied, ere you'll thrice wink. And how easy it is to put years to the word three, and study three years and two words, the dancing horse will tell you. A most fine figure. To prove you a cipher. I will hear upon confess I am in love. And as it is base for a soldier to love, so am I in love with a base wench. If drawing my sword against the humour of affection would deliver me from the reprobate thought of it, I would take desire prisoner, and ransom him to any French courtier for a new devised courtesy. I think scorn to sigh. Me thinks I should out swear cupid. Comfort me, boy. What great men have been in love. Hercules, master. Most sweet Hercules. More authority, dear boy. Name more, and sweet my child. Let them be men of good repute and carriage. Samson, master. He was a man of good carriage, great carriage, for he carried the town gates on his back like a porter, and he was in love. Oh, will knit, Samson. Strong jointed, Samson. I do excel thee in my rapier as much as thou didst me in carrying gates. I am in love, too. Who was Samson's love, my dear Moth? A woman, master. Of what complexion? Of all the four. All the three. All the two. All one of the four. Tell me precisely of what complexion? Of the sea-water green, sir. Is that one of the four complexions? As I have read, sir, and the best of them, too. Green indeed is the colour of lovers, but to have a love of that colour me thinks Samson had small reason for it. He surely affected her for her wit. It was so, sir, for she had a green wit. My love is most immaculate white and red. Most immaculate thoughts, master, are masked under such colours. Define! Define well-educated infant! My father's wit and my mother's tongue assist me. Sweet invocation of a child most pretty and pathetical. If she be made of white and red her faults will near be known for blushing cheeks by faults are bred and fears by pale white shone. Then if she fear or be to blame by this you shall not know for still her cheeks possess the same which native she doth owe. A dangerous rhyme, master, against the reason of white and red. Is there not a ballad, boy, of the king and the beggar? The world was very guilty of such a ballad some three ages since, but I think now it is not to be found. Or if it were, it would neither serve for the writing nor the tune. I will have that subject newly rid o'er that I may example my digression by some mighty precedent. Boy, I do love that country girl that I took in the park to find Costard. She deserves well. Aside to be whipped and yet a better love than my master. Sing, boy, my spirit grows heavy in love. And that's great marvel loving a light wench. I say sing! For bear till this company be passed. Enter Dull, Costard and Jacquaneta. Sir, the Duke's pleasure is that you keep Costard safe and you must suffer him to take no delight nor no penance. But I must fast three days a week. For this damsel I must keep her at the park. She is allowed for the day-woman. Fare you well. I do betray myself with blushing. Maid! Man. I will visit thee at the lodge. That's hereby. I know where it is situate. Lord, how wise you are. I will tell thee wonders. With that face. I love thee. So I heard you say. And so farewell. Farewell to thee. Come, Jacquaneta, away. Exceunt Dull and Jacquaneta. Villain, thou shalt fast for thy offences ere thou be pardoned. Well, sir, I hope when I do it I shall do it on a full stomach. Thou shalt be heavily punished. I am more bound to you than your fellows, for they are but brightly rewarded. Take away this villain. Shut him up. Come, you transgressing slave, away. Let me not be pent up, sir. I will fast, being loose. No, sir, that were fast and loose. Thou shalt to prison. Well, if ever I do see the merry days of desolation that I have seen some shall see. What shall some see? Nay. Nothing, Master Moth, but what they look upon. It is not for prisoners to be too silent in their words, and therefore I will say nothing. I think, God, I have as little patience as another man, and therefore I can be quiet. Exeunt Moth and Costard. I do affect the very ground which is base, where her shoe which is baser guided by her foot which is basest doth tread. I shall be foresworn, which is a great argument of falsehood if I love. And how can that be true love which is falsely attempted? You are familiar. Love is a devil. There is no evil angel but love. Yet was Samson so tempted, and he had an excellent strength, yet was Solomon so seduced, and he had a very good wit. Cupid's butt shaft is too hard for Hercules' club, and therefore too much odds for a Spaniard's rapier. The first and second cause will not serve my turn. The passado he respects not. The duelo he regards not. His disgrace is to be called boy, but his glory is to subdue men. Adieu, Valor! Rust rapier, be still drum! For your manager is in love. Yay, he loveth! Assist me some extemporal god of rhyme, for I am sure I shall turn sonnet. Devise wit! Write pen, for I am for whole volumes in folio. Exit. End of Act 1. Act 2. Of Love's Labors Lost by William Shakespeare. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Act 2, Scene 1. Enter the Princess of France, Rosaline, Mariah, Catherine, Boyette, Lords, and other attendants. Now, madam, summon up your dearest spirits. Consider who the king your father sends, to whom he sends, and what's his empathy. Yourself held precious in the world's esteem to parley with the sole inheritor of all perfections that a man may owe. Matchless Navarre. The plea of no less weight than aquitaine, a dowry for a queen. Be now as prodigal of all dear grace, as nature was in making grace's dear when she did starve the general world beside, and prodigly gave them all to you. Good Lord Boyette, my beauty, though but mean, needs not the painted flourish of your praise. Beauty is bought by judgment of the eye, not uttered by base sale of Chapman's tongues. I am less proud to hear you tell my worth than you much willing to be counted wise in spending your wit in the praise of mine. But now to task the tasker. Good Boyette, you are not ignorant, all telling fame doth noise abroad, Navarre hath made a vow, till painful study shall outwear three years, no woman may approach his silent court. Therefore to seamoth at a needful course, before we enter his forbidden gates, to know his pleasure, and in that behalf, bold of your worthiness, we single you as our best-moving fair solicitor. Tell him, the daughter of the King of France, on serious business, craving quick dispatch, importance personal conference with his grace. Haste signify so much, while we attend like humble-visage suitors his high will. Proud of employment, willingly I go. All pride is willing pride, and yours is so. Exit Boyette. Who are the votaries, my loving lords, that are vow fellows with this virtuous duke? Lord Longaville is one. Know you the man. I know him, madam. At a marriage feast between Lord Perigort and the buttious hair of Jacques Falconbridge, solemnized in Normandy, so I dis Longaville. A man of sovereign parts he is esteemed, well fitted in arts, glorious in arms. Nothing becomes him ill that he would well. The only soil of his fair virtue's gloss, if virtue's gloss will stain with any soil, is a sharp wit matched with too blunt a will, whose edge hath power to cut, whose will still wills it would non-spare that come within his power. Some merry mocking, Lord Belike, is't so? They say so most that most his you must know. Such short-lived wits do wither as they grow. Who are the rest? The young domain, a well-accomplished youth, of all that virtue love for virtue loved, most power to do most harm, least knowing ill. For he hath wit to make an ill-shaped good, and shape to ingress though he hath no wit. I saw him at the Duke-Anne-en-Saint's once, and much too little of that good I saw is my report to his great worthiness. Another of these students at that time was there with him, if I have heard a truth. Barone, they call him, but a merrier man within the limit of becoming mirth I never spent in ours talk with all. His eye begets occasion for his wit, for every object that the one doth catch, the other turns to a mirth-moving jest, which his fair tongue conceits expositor, delivers in such apt and gracious words that aged ears play true into his tails, and younger hearings are quite rubbish-ed, so sweet and valuable is his discourse. God bless my ladies! Are they all in love that every one her own hath garnished with such bedecking ornaments of praise? Here comes Boyet. Re-enter Boyet. Now, what admittance, Lord? Navarre had notice of your fair approach, and he and his competitors in oath were all addressed to meet you, gentle lady, before I came. Mary, thus much I have learnt. He rather means to lodge you in the field, like one that comes here to beseech his court, than seek a dispensation for his oath to let you enter his unpeopled house. Here comes Navarre. Enter Ferdinand, Longaville, Domaine, Biron, and Attendance. Fair Princess, welcome to the court of Navarre. Fair, I give you back again, and welcome I have not yet. The roof of this court is too high to be yours, and welcome to the wide fields too base to be mine. You shall be welcome, madam, to my court. I will be welcome, then. Conduct me thither. Hear me, dear lady, I have sworn an oath. Our lady, help my lord, he'll be foresworn. Not for the world, fair madam, by my will. Why will shall break it? Will and nothing else. Your ladyship is ignorant what it is. Were my lord so, his ignorance were wise, where now his knowledge must prove ignorance. I hear your grace have sworn out housekeeping. It is deadly sin to keep that oath, my lord, and sin to break it. But pardon me, I am too sudden-bold to teach a teacher ill beseemeth me. Thou shalt save to read the purpose of my coming and suddenly resolve me in my suit. Madam, I will if suddenly I may. You will the sooner that I were away, for you'll prove perjured if you make me stay. Did not I dance with you in brabant ones? Did not I dance with you in brabant ones? I know you did. How needless was it, then, to ask the question. You must not be so quick. Tis long of you that spur me with such questions. Your wit's too hot, it speeds too fast to attire. Not till it leaves the rider in the mire. What time of day? The hour that fools should ask. Now, fair befall your mask. Fair fall the face it covers. And send you many lovers. Amen, so you be none. Nay, then I will be gone. Madam, your father here doth intimate the payment of a hundred thousand crowns, being but the one half of an entire sum dispersed by my father in his wars. But say that he or we, as neither have, received that sum, yet there remains unpaid a hundred thousand more, insurity of the which one part of Aquitaine is bound to us, although not valued to the money's worth. If, then, the king your father will restore but that one half which is unsatisfied, we will give up our right in Aquitaine and hold fair friendship with his majesty. But that, it seems, he little purposeth, for here he doth demand to have repaid a hundred thousand crowns and not demand, on payment of a hundred thousand crowns, to have his title live in Aquitaine, which we much rather had depart with all and have the money by our father Lent than Aquitaine so gelded as it is. Dear Princess, we're not his request so far from reasons yielding. Your fair self should make a yielding gainst some reason in my breast and go well satisfied to France again. You do the king my father too much wrong and wrong the reputation of your name in so unseeming to confess receipt of that which has so faithfully been paid. I do protest I never heard of it and if you prove it I'll repay it back or yield up Aquitaine. We arrest your word. Boyet, you can produce acquaintances for such a sum from special officers of Charles his father. Satisfy me so. So please, your grace, the packet is not come where that and other specialties are bound. Tomorrow you shall have a sight of them. It shall suffice me, at which interview all liberal reason I will yield unto. Meantime, receive such welcome at my hand as honour without breach of honour may make tender of to thy true worthiness. You may not come fair princess in my gates but here without you shall be so received as you shall deem yourself lodged in my heart though so denied fair harbour in my house. Your own good thoughts excuse me and farewell, tomorrow shall we visit you again. Sweet health and fair desires can sort your grace. Thy own wish wish I thee in every place. Exit. Lady, I will commend you to my own heart. Pray you do my commendations, I would be glad to see it. I would you heard it groan. Is the fool sick? Sick at the heart. A lack let it blood. Would that do it good? My physics says I. Will you pricked with your eye? No point with my knife. Now God save thy life. And yours from long living. I cannot stay thanksgiving. Retiring. Sir, I pray you. A word. What lady is that same? The heir of Al-Anson, Catherine her name. A gallant lady. Mossy, very well. Exit. I beseech you a word. What is she in the white? A woman sometimes and you saw her in the light. Perchance light in the light? I desire her name. She hath but one for herself. To desire that were a shame. Pray you, sir, whose daughter? Her mother's I have heard. God's blessing on your beard. Good sir, be not offended. She is an heir of Falcon Bridge. Nay, my caller is ended. She is a most sweet lady. Not unlike sir that may be. Exit Longaville. What's her name in the cap? Rosaline by good hap. Is she wedded or no? To her will sir, or so. You are welcome sir, adieu. Farewell to me sir, and welcome to you. Exit Biron. That last is Biron, the merry mad cap lord. Not a word with him but a jest. And every jest but a word. It was well done of you to take him at his word. I was as willing to grapple as he was to board. To hot sheeps, merry. And wherefore not ships? No sheep, sweet lamb, unless we feed on your lips. You sheep and I pasture, shall that finish the jest? So you grant pasture for me. Offering to kiss her. Not so, gentle beast. My lips are no common, though several they be. Belonging to whom? To my fortunes and me. Good wits will be jangling, but gentles agree. This civil war of wits were much better used on Navarre and his bookmen, for here it is abused. If my observation, which very seldom lies, by the heart's still rhetoric disclosed with eyes deceive me not now, Navarre is infected. With what? With that which we lovers and title affected. Your reason? Why, all his behaviors did make their retire to the court of his eye, peeping thorough desire. His heart like an agate with your print impressed, proud with his form in his eye pride expressed. His tongue all patient to speak and not see, did stumble with haste in his eyesight to be. All senses to that sense did make their repair to feel only looking on fairest affair. Me thought all his senses were locked in his eye, as jewels in crystal for some prince to buy. Who, tendering their own worth from where they were glassed, did point you to buy them along as you passed. His face's own margin did quote such amazes that all eyes saw his eyes enchanted with gazes. I'll give you aquitaine and awe that is his, and you give him for my sake but one loving kiss. Come to our pavilion, boyet is disposed. But to speak that in words which is I hath disclosed, I only have made a mouth of his eye by adding a tongue which I know will not lie. Thou art an old love monger and speakest skillfully. He scupid's grandfather and learns noose of him. Then was Venus like her mother for her father is but grim. Do you hear my mad wenches? No. What then do you see? I, our way to be gone. You are too hard for me. Act three, scene one. Enter Don Adriano Diarmato and Mark. Warble child, make passionate my sense of hearing. Concolinelle. Singing. 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, humor 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 or the shop of your eyes, with your arms crossed on your thin belly doublet like a rabbit on a spit, 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 compliments, these are humours, these betray nice wenches that would be betrayed without these, and make them men of note. Do you note me that are most affected to these? How hast thou purchased this experience? By my penny of observation. But, oh, but, oh! The hobby horses forgot. Callest 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. Vetch hither the swain, he must carry me a letter. A message well sympathised. A horse to be ambassador for an ass. Ha! Ha! What sayest thou? Say, sir, you must send the ass upon the horse, for he is very slow gated. 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? Many may 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 fired 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 juvenile, voluble and free of grace. By thy favour a sweet welcome I must sigh in thy face. Most rude melancholy, valor gives thee place. My herald is returned. Re-enter moth with costard. A wonder, master. He is accosted, broken in a shin. Some enigma, some riddle. Come, thy l'envoi, begin. No enigma, no riddle, no l'envoi. No sav in the mel, sir. Oh, sir, plantain, a plain plantain. No l'envoi, no l'envoi, no sav, 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. Duffy and considerate take sal for l'envoi. And the word l'envoi for a salve. Do the wise think them other? Is not l'envoi a salve? No page. It is an epilogue or discourse to make plain some obscure precedence that have to fore been sane. 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'envoi. I will add the l'envoi. 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 stayed the odds by adding four. Now will I begin your moral, and do you follow with my l'envoi? 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'envoi, ending in the goose. Would you desire more? The boy had sold him a bargain. A goose that's flat. Sir, your penny-worth is good, and your goose be fat. To sell a bargain well is as cunning as fast and loose. Let me see. A fat l'envoi. Aye, that's a fat goose. Come hither. Come hither. How did this argument begin? By saying that a custard was broken in a shin. Then called you for the l'envoi. True. And I for a plantain. Thus came your argument in. Then the boy's fat l'envoi, the goose that you bought, and he ended the market. But tell me, how was there a custard broken in a shin? I will tell you sensibly. Thou hast no feeling of it, Moth. I will speak that l'envoi. I, costard, running out that was safely but then fell over the threshold and broke my shin. We will talk no more of this matter. Till there be more matter in the shin. Sir Acustard, I will enfranchise thee. Oh, marry me to one Francis. I smell some l'envoi, some goose in this. By my sweet soul, I mean setting thee at liberty and free-dimming 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 Durran's, and in lieu thereof impose on thee nothing but this. Bear this significant to the country-made Jackonetta. Giving a letter. There is remuneration, for the best ward of mine honour is rewarding my dependence. Moth, follow. Exit. Like the sequel I. Sir Acustard, adieu. My sweet ounce of man's flesh, my iconic Jew. Exit, Moth. Now I will look to this remuneration. Remuneration. Oh, that's the Latin word for three farthings. Three farthings? Remuneration. What's the price of the single, one pinning? No, I'll give you a remuneration. By a carry's it. Remuneration. For it is a fairer name than French crown. I will never buy and sell out of this word. Enter Biron. Oh, my good-naved costard, exceedingly well, Matt. Per you, sir. How much carnation ribbon may a man buy for a remuneration? What is a remuneration? Mary, sir, half pinning farthing. Why, then, three farthing worth of silk? I thank you, worship. God be with you. Stay, slave, I must employ thee. As thou wilt win my favour, good-mine-ave, 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. But 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 tomorrow morning. It must be done this afternoon. Hark, slave, it is for this. The princess comes to hunt here in the park, and in her train there is a gentle lady, when tongue speaks sweetly, then they name her name, and Rosaline, they call her, ask for her, and to her white hand, see thou do command this sealed-up council. There's thy garden. Go. Giving him a shilling. Oh, sweet garden, better than remuneration. I'll have him henceforthing better. Most sweet garden. I will do it, sir, in print. Garden, remuneration. Exit. And I, forsooth in love, I, that have been love's whip, a very beetle to a humorous sigh, a critic, nay, a night watch constable, a domineering pentore, the boy, then 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, the anointed sovereign of sighs and groans, liege of all loiterers and malcontents, dread prince of placquets, king of cod pieces, soul and parrot are in great general of trotting parrots, oh, my little heart, and I to be a corporal of his field and wear his colors like a tumbler's hoop. What, I? I love, I sue, I seek a wife, a woman that is like a German clock still or a pairing, ever out of frame and never going awright being a watch, but being watched that it may still go right. Nay, to be purgered, 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, high 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? Ah, 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. End of Act 3. Act 4 of Love's Labors Lost by William Shakespeare. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Act 4. Scene 1. Enter the Princess and her train, a forester, Boyette, Rosaline, Moriah and Catherine. Was that the king that spurred his horse so hard against the steep uprising of the hill? I know not, but I think it was not he. Hu'era was assured a mounting mind. Well, lords, today we shall have our dispatch. On Saturday we will return to France. Then forester, my friend, where is the bush that we must stand and play the murderer in? Hereby, upon the edge of Yonder Coppice, a stand where you may make the fairest chute. I thank my beauty. I am fair that chute, and there upon thou speaks the fairest chute. Pardon me, madam, for I meant not so. What? What? First praise me, and again say no. Oh, short-lived pride! Not fair! A lack for woe. Yes, madam, fair. Today never paint me now. Where fair is not, praise cannot mend the brow. Here, good my glass, take this for telling true. Fair payment for foul words is more than due. Nothing but fair is that which you inherit. Oh, see, see, my beauty will be saved by merit. Oh, heresy and fair fit for these days. A giving hand, though foul, shall have fair praise. But come, the bow. Now mercy goes to kill, and shooting well is then accounted ill. Thus will I save my credit into the chute, not wounding pity would not let me do it. If wounding, then it was to show my skill, that more for praise than purpose meant to kill. Get out of question, so it is sometimes. Glory grows guilty of detested crimes. When, for fame's sake, for praise an outward part, we bend to that the working of the heart. As I, for praise alone, now seek to spill the poor deer's blood, that my heart means no ill. Do not cursed wives hold that self-sovereignty only for praise's sake, when they strive to be lords or their lords? Only for praise, and praise we may afford to any lady that subdues a lord. Here comes a member of the Commonwealth. Enter Custard. God dig you then all. Pray you, which is the headlady? Thou shalt know her, fellow, by the rest that have no heads. Which is the greatest lady, the highest? The thickest and the tallest. The thickest and the tallest? It is so, truth is truth. And your waist, mistress, where slender is my wit, one of these maids girdles for your waist should be fit. Are not you the chief woman? You are the thickest here. What's your will, sir? What's your will? I have a letter from Messia Daron. To one lady Rother. Oh, thy letter, thy letter! He's a good friend of mine. Stand aside, good bear. Boyet, you can carve. Break up this capon. I am bound to serve. This letter is mistook. It importeth none here. It is rid to Giacquanetta. We will read it, I swear. Break the neck of the wax, and every one give ear. Reads. By heaven that thou art fair is most infallible. True that thou art beauteous. Truth itself that thou art lovely. More fairer than fair, beautiful than beauteous, truer than truth itself have commiseration on thy heroical vassal. The magnanimous and most illustriate King Cofetua set eye upon the pernicious and indubitate beggars and effelon. And he it was that might rightly say, Then thee, Vidi Vici, which to anathenize in the vulgar, O base an obscure vulgar, The dilliset he came, saw, and overcame. He came, one, saw, two, overcame, three. Who came, the king? Why did he come, to see? Why did he see, to overcome? To whom came he, to the beggar? What saw he, the beggar? Who overcame he, the beggar? The conclusion is victory. On whose side, the king's. The captive is enriched. On whose side, the beggars. The catastrophe is a nuptial. On whose side, the king's. No, on both in one, or one in both. I am the king, for so stands the comparison. Thou the beggar, for so witnesses thy lowliness. Shall I command thy love? I may. Shall I enforce thy love? I could. Shall I entreat thy love? I will. What shall thou exchange for rags? Robes. For titles? Titles. For thyself? Me. Thus, expecting thy reply, I profane my lips on thy foot, my eyes on thy picture, and my heart on thy every part. Thine in the dearest design of industry. Don Adriano de Armado. Thus dost thou hear the neemian lion roar against thee, thou lamb, that standest as his prey. Submissive fall his princely feet before, and he from forage will incline to play. But if thou strive, poor soul, what art thou then? Food for his rage, ripasture for his den. What plume of feathers is he that indicted this letter? What vein? What weathercock? Did you ever hear better? I am much deceived, but I remember the style. Else your memory is bad going o'er at ere while. This Armado is a Spaniard that keeps here in court, a Phantasm, a Monarcho, and one that makes spork to the prince and his bookmates. Thou, fellow, a word. Who gave thee this letter? I told you, my lord. To whom shouldst thou give it? From my lord to my lady. From which lord to which lady? From my lord Biron, the good master of mine, to a lady of France that he called Rosaline. Thou hast mistaken his letter. Come, lords, away. To Rosaline. Here, sweet, put up this. It will be thine another day. Exeunt Princess Entrain. Who is the suitor? Who is the suitor? Shall I teach you to know? I, my continent of beauty. Why she that bears the bow, finally put off? My lady goes to kill horns, but, if thou marry, hang me by the neck if horns that year miscarry, finally put on. Well, then, I am the suitor. And who is your dear? If we choose by the horns, yourself come not near, finally put on indeed. You still wrangle with her, boy, yet, and she strikes at the brow. But she herself is hit lower. Have I hit her now? Shall I come upon thee with an old saying, that was a man when King Pepin of France was a little boy, as touching the hit-it? So I may answer thee with one as old. That was a woman when Queen Guinevere of Britain was a little wench, as touching the hit-it. Thou canst not hit it, hit it, hit it. Thou canst not hit it, my good man. And I cannot, cannot, cannot, and I cannot another can. Exeunt Rosaline and Catherine. By my trot. Most pleasant. How both did hit it. A mark marvellous well shot, for they both did hit it. A mark? Oh, mark but that mark. A mark, says my lady. Let the mark have a pricant to meet at, if it may be. Wide o' the bow-hand. I faith your hand is out. Indeed, I must shoot nearer. For he'll never hit the cloud. And if my hand be out, then be like your hand is in. Then will she get the up-shoot by cleaving the pen. Come, come. If you talk greasily, your lips grow foul. She's too hard for you at pricks, sir. Challenge her to bow. I fear too much rubbing. Good night, my good owl. Exeunt Boyet and Mariah. By my soul, the sway. The most simple plan. Lord, how the ladies and I have put them down. Oh, my trot. Most sweet chests. I can't even vulgar wit. When it comes so smoothly off, so singly as it were so fit. A model for the one side. Oh, a most stainty head. To see him walk before a lady and to bear her band. To see him kiss his hand. And how most sweetly I'll swear. And his page on the other side. That hand full of wit. Ah, have it. It is the most pathetic omit. Sola. Sola. Shout within. Exit Custard, running. Scene two. Enter Hala Furness, Sir Nathaniel and Dull. Very reverent sport, truly. And done in the testimony of a good conscience. The deer was, as you know, sanguice in blood. Ripe as the palm of water. Who now hangeth like a jewel in the ear of Caello. The sky. The welcome. The heaven. And a non-fatherth like a crab on the face of Terra. The soil. The land. The earth. Truly, Master Hala Furness, the epithets are sweetly varied. Like a scholar at the least. But, sir, I assure ye, it was a buck of the first head. Sir Nathaniel, how'd Crado? It was not a hard Crado. It was a pricket. Most barbarous intimation. Yet a kind of insinuation, as it were, in via, in way, of explication, facere, as it were, replication, or rather ostentare, to show, as it were, his inclination, after his undressed, unpolished, uneducated, unpruned, untrained, rather unlettered, or, rather rest, unconfirmed fashion to insert again my how'd Crado for a deer. I said the deer was not a hard Crado. It was a pricket. Twice sawed simplicity his cultus. Oh, the monster ignorance. How deforme'd dost thou look? Sir, he hath never fed of the dainties that are bred in a book. He hath not eat paper as it were. He hath not drunk ink. His intellect is not replenished. He is only an animal, only sensible in the duller parts. And such barren plants are set before us that we thankful should be, which we of taste and feeling are. For those parts that do fructify in us more than he, for as it would ill become me to be vain, indiscreet, or a fool, so were there a patch set on learning, to see him in a school, but omnibene se I, being of an old father's mind, many can brook the weather that love not the wind. You two are bookmen. Can you tell me, by your wit, what was a month old at Cain's birth? That's not five weeks old as yet. Dictina, good man dull. Dictina, good man dull. What is Dictnia? A title to Phoebe, to Luna, to the moon. The moon was a month old when Adam was no more, and wrought not to five weeks when he came to five score. The illusion holds in the exchange. Tis true indeed, the collusion holds in the exchange. Cut, comfort thy capacity. I say the illusion holds in the exchange. And I say the collusion holds in the exchange. For the moon is never but a month old, and I say beside that was a prigate that the princess killed. Sir Nathaniel, will you hear an extemporal epitaph on the death of the deer, and, to humour the ignorant, call I, the deer, the princess killed a prigate? Per gay, good master, hello, finesse. Per gay, so it shall please you to abrogate scurrility. I will something affect the letter, for it argues facility. The prayerful princess pierced and pricked a pretty pleasing prigate. Some say a sore, but not a sore, till now made sore with shooting. The dogs did yell, put L to sore, then sorrel jumps from thicket, or prigate sore, or else sorrel. The people fall a hooting. If sore be sore, then L to sore makes fifty sores, one sorrel. Of one sore I and hundred make by adding but one more L. Oh rare talent! Aside. If a talent be a claw, look how he claws him with a talent. This is a gift that I have, simple, simple. A foolish, extravagant spirit full of forms, figures, shapes, objects, ideas, apprehensions, motions, revolutions. These are begot in the ventricle of memory, nourished in the womb of Pia Mater, and delivered upon the mellowing of occasion. But the gift is good in those in whom it is acute, and I am thankful for it. Sir, I praise the Lord for you, and so may my parishioners, for their sons are well tutored by you, and their daughters profit very greatly. Under you you are a good member of the commonwealth. May it clay. If their sons be ingenuous, they shall want no instruction. If their daughters be capable, I will put it to them. But, veered sappy to keep hauka loki torl, a soul feminine salutathas. Enter Jaquaneta and Custard. God give you good morrow, Master Parson. Master Parson? Quasi pederson, and if one should be pierced, which is the one? Marry, Master Scormaster. He that is likeest to a hog's head. Piercing a hog's head? A good luster of conceit in a tuft of earth. Fire enough for a flint. Pearl enough for a swine. It is pretty. It is well. Good Master Parson, be so good as read me this letter. It was given me by Custard and sent me from Don Armada. I beseech you. Read it. Faust, precogelli da quando pecus, omne subumbra ruminat. En so forth. Ah, good old Mantuan, I may speak of thee as the traveller Doth of Venice. Venetcia, venetcia, ce non ti vede, non ti precia. Old Mantuan, old Mantuan, who understand thee not, loves thee not. Ut re so la mi fa. Under pardon, sir, what are the contents, or rather as Horus says in his what, my soul, verses? Aye, sir, and very learned. Let me hear a staff, astanze, a verse. Legge domine. If love make me foresworn, how shall I swear to love? Ah, never faith could hold, if not to beauty vowed. Though to myself foresworn to thee our faithful prove, those thoughts to me were oaks. To thee, like Osiers bowed, study his bias leaves and make his book thine eyes, where all those pleasures live that art would comprehend. If knowledge be the mark, though thee shall suffice, well learned is that tongue that well can thee commend all ignorant that soul that sees thee without wonder. Which is to me some praise that I thy parts admire, thy eye, Joe's lightning bears, thy voice his dreadful thunder, which not to anger bent is music and sweet fire. Celestial as thy art, O pardon, love this wrong, that sings heaven's praise in earthly tongue. You find not the apostrophus, and so miss the accent. Let me supervise the casonet. Here are only numbers ratified, but for the elegancy, facility, and golden cadence of poesy, got it. Olvidius nasso was the man, and why indeed nasso, but for smelling out the odoriferous flowers of fancy, the jerks of invention. In mitare is nothing, so doth the hound his master, the ape his keeper, the tired horse his rider. But Damocella, virgin, was this directed to you? Aye, sir. From one mancher, Baron, one of the strange queens lords. I will overglance the superscript to the snow-white hand of the most beautyous lady, Rosaline. I will look again on the intellect of the letter for the nomination of the party writing to the person written unto. Your ladyships in all desired employment. Biron, sir Nathaniel, this Biron is one of the votaries with the king, and here he hath framed a letter to a sequent of the stranger queens, which accidentally, or by the way of progression, hath miscarried. Trip and go, my sweet, deliver this paper into the royal hand of the king. It may concern much. Biron, stay not, thy compliment. I forgive thy duty. Adieu. Good custard, go with me. Sir, God save your life. Have with thee, my girl. Exeunt Custard and Jacquanetta. Sir, you have done this in the fear of God very religiously, and as a certain father saith, sir, tell me not of the father. I do fear colorable colors. To return to the verses, did they please you, sir Nathaniel? Marvelous well for the pen. I do dine today at the fathers of a certain pupil of mine, where, if before repest, it shall please you to gratify the table with a grace. I will, on my privilege I have with the parents of the foresaid child or pupil, undertake your benvenuto, where I will prove those verses to be very unlearned, neither savoring of poetry, wit nor invention. I beseech your society. And thank you too for society, saith the text, is the happiness of life. And celtes, the text most infallibly concludes it. Sir, I do invite you too. You shall not say me nay, pauca verba. Away, the gentles are at their game, and we will to our recreation. Exiant. Scene three. Enter Biron with the paper. The king, he is hunting the deer. I am coursing myself. They have pitched a toil. I am toiling in a pitch. Pitch that defiles. Defile. A foul word. Well, set thee down sorrow, for so they say the fool said, and so say I. And I, the fool, well proved wit. By the Lord, this love is as mad as Ajax. It kills sheep. It kills me. I, a sheep, well proved together by sight. I will not love. If I do, hang me. If faith, I will not. Oh, but her eye. By this light, but for her eye, I would not love her. Yes, for her two eyes. Well, I do nothing in the world but lie, and lie in my throat. By heaven, I do love. And it has taught me to rhyme and to be melancholy, and here is part of my rhyme, and here my melancholy. Well, she hath one of my sonets already. The clown bore it, the fool sent it, and the lady hath it. Sweet clown, sweeter fool, sweetest lady. By the world I would not care a pin if the other three were in. Here comes one with a paper. God give him grace to groan. Stands aside. Enter Ferdinand with the paper. I me. Aside. Oh, shot by heaven. Proceed, sweet Cupid. Thou hast thumbt him with thy bird-bolt under the left pap. In faith, secrets. Reads. So sweet a kiss the golden sun gives not to those fresh morning drops upon the rose as thy eye beams when their fresh rays have smote the night of dew that on my cheeks downflows. Nor shines the silver moon one half so bright through the transparent bosom of the deep as doth thy face through tears of mine give light. Thou shinest in every tear that I do weep. No drop but as a coach doth carry thee, so rightest thou triumphing in my woe. Do but behold the tears that swell in me, and they thy glory through my grief will show. But do not love thyself, then thou wilt keep my tears for glasses and still make me weep. Oh, queen of queens, how far dost thou excel? No thought can think nor tongue of mortal tell. How shall she know my griefs? I'll drop the paper. Sweet leaves, shade folly. Who is he comes here? Steps aside. What? Longaville? And reading? Listen, ear. Now, in thy likeness, one more fool appear. Enter Longaville with the paper. I, me. I am for swarm. Why, he comes in like a perjure, wearing papers. In love, I hope. Sweet fellowship in shame. One drunkard loves another of the name. Am I the first that have been perjured so? I could put thee in comfort, not by two that I know. Thou makeest the triumvirary, the corner cap of society, the shape of love's tie-burn that hangs up simplicity. I fear thee stubborn lines like the power to move. O sweet Mariah, empress of my love, these numbers I will tear and write in prose. O rhymes of gods on wanton cupid's hose, disfigure not his slop. The same shall go. Reads. Did not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye, against whom the world cannot hold argument, persuade my heart to this false perjury? Vows for thee broke, deserve not punishment. A woman I for swarm, but I will prove, of being a goddess, I for swore not thee. My vow was earthly, thou a heavenly love. Thy grace being gained cures all disgrace in me. Vows are but breath, and breath of vapor is. Then thou, fair sun, which on my earth thus shine, exhaleest this vapor vow, in thee it is. If broken then, it is no fault of mine. If by me broke, what fool is not so wise to lose an oath to win a paradise. This is the liver vein, which makes flesh a deity, a green goose, a goddess, pure, pure idolatry. God amends us, God amends, we are much out of the way. By whom shall I send this? Company, stay. Steps aside. All hid, all hid, an old infant play. Like a demigod, here sit I in the sky, and wretched fools secrets heedfully o'er I. More sacks to the mill. Oh heavens, I have my wish. Enter Domaine with the paper. Domaine transformed four woodcocks in a dish. Almost divan caddy. Almost profane coxcomb. By heaven d'awanda in a mortal eye. By earth she is not, corporal, there you lie. Her amber hair for foul had amber coated. An amber-colored raven was well noted. As upright as the seated. Stoop, I say, her shoulder is with child. As fair as day. Aye, as some days, but then no sun must shine. Oh, that I had my wish. And I had mine. And I mine too, good lord. Ah, men, so I had mine. It's not that a good word. I would forget her. But a fever she, rains in my blood, and will remember be. A fever in your blood? Why, then, incision would let her out in saucers. Sweet misprision. Once more, I'll read the odd that I have written. Once more, I'll mark how love can vary wit. Reads. On a day, a lack the day, love whose month is ever made. Spite a blossom-passing pair, playing in the wanton air. Through the velvet leaves the wind. All aunts and can-passers find. All the lovers seek to death, wish himself to have it spread. Air, god he, thy chicks may blow. Air, o that my triumph so. But a lack my hand this one, neighbor to pluck thee from thy tongue. Vow, a lack, for you done meet. You'd so apt to pluck a sweet. Do not call it seen in me. That I have forezoned for thee. Thou for whom jav would swear. Do no but an idiot beware. And then I himself for jove, turning mortal for thy love. This will I send, and something else more plain. That's I'll express my true love's fasting pain. O, would the king be wrong and long a veal, where lovers do. Ill, to example, ill. O, from my forehead, why, before you'd note. For none often, where all I like to do it. Advancing. Domain, thy love is far from charity. You may look pale, but I should blush. I know, to be art-hard, and taken napping so. Advancing. Come, sir, you blush, as his your case is such. You chided him, offending twice as much. You do not love Mariah? Longaville did never sonnet for her sake compile, nor never lay his wreath at arms a thwart his loving bosom to keep down his heart. I have been closely shrouded in this bush, and marked you both, and for you both did blush. I heard your guilty rhymes observed your fashion, saw sighs reek from you, noted well your passion. I, me, says one, O, Jove, the other cries. One, her hairs were gold, crystal the other's eyes. To Longaville. You would for paradise break faith and truth. To Domain. And Jove, for your love, would infringe an oath. What will Baranse when that he shall hear faith so infringed which such zeal did swear? How will he scorn? How will he spend his wit? How will he triumph, leap, and laugh at it? For all the wealth that ever I did see I would not have him know so much by me. Now step I forth to whip hypocrisy. Advancing. Ah, good my liege, I pray you, pardon me. Good heart, what grace hast thou thus to reprove these worms for loving that art most in love? Your eyes do make no coaches. In your tears there is no certain princess that appears. You'll not be perjured is a hateful thing. Tush, none but minstrels like a sonneting. But are you not ashamed? Nay, are you not, all three of you, to be thus much or shot? You found his moat, the king your moat did see, but I a beam do find in each of three. Oh, what a scene of foolery have I seen of sighs of groans of sorrow and of teen. Oh, me, with what strict patience have I sat to see a king transform it to a gnat, to see great Hercules whipping a gig and profound Solomon to tune a jig, and Nestor play it pushpin' with the boys and critic time and laugh at idle toys. Where lies thy grief, oh, tell me, good domain, and gentle Longaville where lies thy pain, and where my liege is? All about the breast. A coddle, ho! Too bitter is thy jest. Are we betrayed thus to thy overview? Not you to me, but I betrayed by you. I that am honest, I that hold it sin to break the vow I am engaged in. I am betrayed by keeping company with men like men of inconstancy. When should you see me write a thing in rhyme or groan for love or spend a minute's time in pruning me? When shall you hear that I will praise a hand, a foot, a face, an eye, a gait, a state, a brow, a breast, a waist, a like, a limb? Soft, wither away so fast, a true man or a thief that gallops so. I post from love, good lover, let me go. Enter Jacquanetta and Costard. God bless the king. What present hast thou there? Some certain treason. What makes treason here? Nay, it makes nothing so. If it mar nothing neither, the treason and you go in peace away together. I beseech your grace, let this letter be read. Our parson mistouts it to his treason, he said. Veron, read it over. Giving him the paper. Where hath thou it? Of Costard. Where hath thou it? Of Don Adramario. Don Adramario. Veron tears the letter. How now? What is in you? Why dost thou tear it? A toy, my leisure toy, your grace needs not fear it. It did move into passion, and therefore let's hear it. It is Beron's writing, and here is his name. Gathering up the pieces to Costard. Ah, you horse and loggerhead, you were born to do me shame. Ah, guilty my lord, guilty I confess, I confess. What? That you three fools lacked me fool to make up the mess. He, he, and you, and you, my leisure, and I are pick-persons in love, and we deserve to die. Oh, dismiss this audience, and I shall tell you more. Now, the number is even. True, true, we are four. Will these turtles be gone? Hence, sirs, away. Walk aside the true folk, and let the traitors stay. Exiont, Costard, and Jacquanetta. Sweet lords, sweet lovers, oh, let us embrace, as true we are as flesh and blood can be. The sea will ebb and flow, heaven show his face. Young blood doth not obey an old decree. We cannot cross the cause why we were born, therefore of all hands must we be foresworn. What, did these rent lines show some love of vine? Did they, quote you? Who sees the heavenly Rosaline, that, like a rude and savage man of ind, at the first opening of the gorgeous east, boughs not his vassal head, and, struck and blind, kisses the base ground with obedient breast? What, peremptory, eagle-sighted eye, dares look upon the heaven of her brow that is not blinded by her majesty? What zeal, what fury hath inspired thee now? Love, her mistress, is a gracious moon, she an attending star, scarce seen alight. My eyes are then no eyes, nor I barone. Oh, but for my love they would turn to night, of all complexions the cold sovereignty do meet, as at a fair in her fair cheek, where several worthy's make one dignity, where nothing wants that want itself to seek, lend me the flourish of all gentle tongues. Fie, painted rhetoric, oh, she needs it not, to things of sale a seller's praise belongs, she passes praise. Then, praise too short, doth blot, a weathered hermit, five score winter's worn, might shake off fifty looking in her eye. Beauty doth varnish age as if new-born, and gives the crutch the cradle's infancy. Oh, it is the sun that maketh all things shine. By heaven thy love is black as ebony. Is ebony like her? Oh, wood divine, a wife of such wood were felicity. Oh, who can give an oath? Where is a book that I may swear, beauty doth beauty lack, if that she learn not of her eye to look? No face is fair that is not full so black. Oh, paradox, black is the badge of hell, the hue of dungeons and the suit of night, and beauty's crest becomes the heavens well. Devils soonest tempt, resembling spirits of light. Oh, if in black my ladies' brows be decked, it mourns that painting and usurping hair should ravish daughters with a false aspect, and therefore is she born to make black fair. Her favour turns the fashion of the days, for native blood is counted painting now, and therefore red that would avoid dispraise paints itself black to imitate her brow. To look like her are as chimney-sweepers black, and since her time are colliers counted bright, and ethiopes of their sweet complexion crack. Dark needs no candles now, for dark is light. Your mistresses dare never come in rain, for fear their colours should be washed away. For good yours did, for sir, to tell you plain, I'll find a fairer face not washed today. I'll prove her fairer or talk till doomsday here. No devil will fright thee then so much as she. An even new man hold a vile stuff so dear. Look, here's thy love, my foot and her face see. Oh, if the streets were pavied with thine eyes, her feet were much too dainty for such tread. Oh, vile, then as she goes, what upward lies? The streets should see as she walked over here. But what of this? Are we not all in love? Nothing so sure, and thereby all foresworn. Then leave this chat, and Good Biran now prove our loving lawful and our faith not torn. I marry there some flattery for this even. Oh, some authority how to proceed, some tricks, some quilts, how to cheat the dumb, some sale for perjury. It is more than you need. Have at you then, affections men at arms. Consider what you first did swear on to, to fast, to study and to see no woman. Flat treason gains the kingly state of youth. Say, can you fast? Your stomachs are too young, and abstinence in gender's maladies. And whether you avowed to study, lords, in that each of you have foresworn his book, can you still dream and pour and thereon look? For when would you, my lord, or you or you, have found the ground of study's excellence without the beauty of a woman's face? From women's eyes this doctrine I derive. They are the ground, the books, the academes. From Wednesday spring the true Promethean fire. Why, universal plodding poisons up the nimble spirits in the arteries as motion and long-during action tires the sinewy vigor of the traveler. Now, for not looking on a woman's face, you have in that foresworn the use of eyes. And study, too, the causer of your vow. For is there any author in the world who teaches such beauty as a woman's eye? Learning is but an adjunct to our self, and where we are, our learning likewise is. Then when ourselves we see in ladies' eyes, do we not likewise see our learning there? Oh, we have made a vow to study, lords, and in that vow we have foresworn our books. For when would you, my liege, or you or you in leaden contemplation have found out such fiery numbers as the prompting eyes of beauty's tutors have enriched you with? Other slow arts entirely keep the brain, and therefore finding barren practicers scarce show a harvest of their heavy toil. But love, first learned in a lady's eyes, lives not alone in murid in the brain, but with the motion of all elements, courses as swift as thought in every power, and gives to every power a double power, above their functions and their offices. It adds a precious seeing to the eye. A lover's eyes will gaze an eagle blind. A lover's ear will hear the lowest sound as a suspicious head of theft is stopped. Love's feeling is more soft and sensible than are the tender horns of cockled snails. Love's tongue proves dainty backers gross in taste, for valor is not love a hercules, still climbing trees in the hisperities. Subtle as sphinx, as sweet and musical, as bright Apollo's lute strung with his hair. And when love speaks, the voice of all the gods makes heaven drowsy with the harmony. Never-dursed poet touch a pen to write until his ink were tempered with love's sighs. Oh, then his lines would ravish savage ears and plant in tyrants mild humility. From women's eyes this doctrine I derive. They sparkle still the right Promethean fire. They are the books, the arts, the accadems that show, contain, and nourish all the world. Else not at all in art proves excellent. Then fools you were these women to forswear, or keeping what is sworn you will prove fools. For wisdom's sake a word that all men love or for love's sake a word that loves all men, or for men's sake the authors of these women, or women's sake by whom we men are men. Let us once lose our oaths to find ourselves, or else we lose ourselves to keep our oaths. It is religion to be thus force-worn, for charity itself fulfills the law, and who can sever love from charity? Saint Cupid, then, and soldiers to the field. Advance your standards and upon them, lords. Belmel, down with them. But be first advised in conflict that you get the son of them. Now, to plain dealing, lay these glosses by. Shall we resolve to woo these girls of France? And win them, too. Therefore let us devise some entertainment for them in their tents. First from the park let us conduct them, dither. Then, homeward, every man attach the hand of his fair mistress. In the afternoon we will with some strange pastime solace them, such as the shortness of the time can shape. For revels, dances, masks, and merry hours for run fair love, screwing her way with flowers. Away, away! No time shall be omitted that will be time, and may by us be fitted. Allong, allong! Soad cockle reaps no corn, and justice always whirls in equal measure. Life wenches may prove plagues to men foresworn. If so, our copper buys no better treasure. Exeunt. End of Act Four.