Internet Shakespeare Editions

Author: William Shakespeare
Editor: Timothy Billings
Not Peer Reviewed

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

called Loues Labor's lost.

Brag. A most acute Iuuenall, volable and free of grace,
By thy fauour sweete Welkin, I must sigh in thy face:
Most rude melancholie, Valour giues thee place.
My Herald is returnd.

840Enter Page and Clowne.
Pag. A wonder Maister, Heers a Costard broken in a shin.
Ar. Some enigma, some riddle, come, thy Lenuoy begin.
845Clo. No egma, no riddle, no lenuoy, no salue, in thee male sir.
O sir, Plantan, a pline Plantan: no lenuoy, no lenuoy, no Salue
sir, but a Plantan.
Ar. By vertue thou inforcest laughter, thy sillie thought,
my spleene, the heauing of my lunges prouokes me to radi-
850culous smyling: O pardone me my starres, doth the incon-
siderate take salue for lenuoy, and the word lenuoy for a salue?
Pag. Do the wise thinke them other, is not lenuoy a salue?
855A. No Page, it is an epilogue or discourse to make plaine,
Some obscure presedence that hath tofore bin saine.
856.1I will example it.
The Fox, the Ape, and the Humble-Bee,
Were still at oddes being but three.
Ther's the morrall: Now the lenuoy.
856.5Pag. I will adde the lenuoy, say the morrall againe.
Ar. The Foxe, the Ape, and the Humble-Bee,
Were still at oddes, being but three.
Pag. Vntill the Goose came out of doore,
And staied the oddes by adding foure.
856.10Now will I begin your morrall, and do you follow with
my lenuoy.
The Foxe, the Ape, and the Humble-Bee,
860Were still at oddes, being but three.
Arm. Vntill the Goose came out of doore,
Staying the oddes by adding foure.
Pag. A good Lenuoy, ending in the Goose: woulde you
desire more?
865Clo. The Boy hath sold him a bargaine, a Goose, that's flat.
Sir, your penny-worth is good, and your Goose be fat.
To sell a bargaine well is as cunning as fast and loose:
Let