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Love's Labor's Lost (Quarto 1, 1598)

Author: William Shakespeare
Not Peer Reviewed

520As our best mouing faire soliciter:
Tell him, the Daughter of the King of France
On serious busines crauing quicke dispatch,
Importuous personall conference with his grace.
Haste, signifie so much while we attende,
525Like humble visage Suters his high will.
Boy. Proud of imployment, willingly I go.
Exit Boy.
Prince. All pride is willing pride, and yours is so:
Who are the Votaries my louing Lordes, that are vowfel-
lowes with this vertuous Duke?
530Lor. Longauill is one.
Princ. Know you the man?
1. Lady. I know him Maddame at a marriage feast,
Betweene L. Perigort and the bewtious heire
Of Iaques Fauconbridge solemnized.
535In Normandie saw I this Longauill,
A man of soueraigne peerelsse he is esteemd:
Well fitted in artes, glorious in armes:
Nothing becoms him ill that he would well.
The onely soyle of his fayre vertues glose,
540If vertues glose will staine with any soyle,
Is a sharpe Wit matcht with too blunt a Will:
Whose edge hath power to cut whose will still wils,
It should none spare, that come within his power.
Prin. Some merrie mocking Lord belike, ist so?
545Lad. They say so most, that most his humors know.
Prin. Such short liued wits do wither as they grow.
Who are the rest?
2. Lad. The young Dumaine, a well accomplisht youth,
Of all that Vertue loue, for Vertue loued.
550Most power to do most harme, least knowing ill:
For he hath wit to make an ill shape good,
And shape to win grace though he had no wit.
I saw him at the Duke Alansoes once,
And much too little of that good I saw,
555Is my report to his great worthines.
3. Lad. An other of these Studentes at that time,
Was there with him, if I haue heard a trueth.
Berowne
called Loues Labor's lost.