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  • Title: Love's Labor's Lost (Folio 1, 1623)
  • Editor: Timothy Billings

    • Copyright Timothy Billings. This text may be freely used for educational, non-profit purposes; for all other uses contact the Editor.
    Author: William Shakespeare
    Editor: Timothy Billings
    Not Peer Reviewed

    Love's Labor's Lost (Folio 1, 1623)

    Actus Tertius.
    770 Enter Broggart and Boy.
    Song.
    Bra. Warble childe, make passionate my sense of hea-
    ring.
    Boy. Concolinel.
    775Brag. Sweete Ayer, go tendernesse of yeares: take
    this Key, giue enlargement to the swaine, bring him fe-
    stinatly hither: I must imploy him in a letter to my
    Loue.
    Boy. Will you win your loue with a French braule?
    780Bra. How meanest thou, brauling in French?
    Boy. No my compleat master, but to Iigge off a tune
    at the tongues end, canarie to it with the feete, humour
    it with turning vp your eie: sigh a note and sing a note,
    sometime through the throate: if you swallowed loue
    785with singing, loue sometime through: nose as if you
    snuft vp loue by smelling loue with your hat penthouse-
    like ore the shop of your eies, with your armes crost on
    your thinbellie doublet, like a Rabbet on a spit, or your
    hands in your pocket, like a man after the old painting,
    790and keepe not too long in one tune, but a snip and away:
    these are complements, these are humours, these betraie
    nice wenches that would be betraied without these, and
    make them men of note: do you note men that most are
    affected to these?
    795Brag. How hast thou purchased this experience?
    Boy. By my penne of obseruation.
    Brag. But O, but O.
    Boy. The Hobbie-horse is forgot.
    Bra. Cal'st thou my loue Hobbi-horse.
    800Boy. No Master, the Hobbie-horse is but a Colt, and
    and your Loue perhaps, a Hacknie:
    But haue you forgot your Loue?
    Brag. Almost I had.
    Boy. Negligent student, learne her by heart.
    805Brag. By heart, and in heart Boy.
    Boy. And out of heart Master: all those three I will
    proue.
    Brag. What wilt thou proue?
    Boy. A man, if I liue (and this) by, in, and without, vp-
    810on the instant: by heart you loue her, because your heart
    cannot come by her: in heart you loue her, because your
    heart is in loue with her: and out of heart you loue her,
    being out of heart that you cannot enioy her.
    Brag. I am all these three.
    815Boy. And three times as much more, and yet nothing
    at all.
    Brag. Fetch hither the Swaine, he must carrie mee a
    letter.
    Boy. A message well simpathis'd, a Horse to be em-
    820bassadour for an Asse.
    Brag. Ha, ha, What saiest thou?
    Boy. Marrie sir, you must send the Asse vpon the Horse
    for he is verie slow gated: but I goe.
    Brag. The way is but short, away.
    825Boy. As swift as Lead sir.
    Brag. Thy meaning prettie ingenious, is not Lead a
    mettall heauie, dull, and slow?
    Boy. Minnime honest Master, or rather Master no.
    Brad. I say Lead is slow.
    830Boy. You are too swift sir to say so.
    Is that Lead slow which is fir'd from a Gunne?
    Brag. Sweete smoke of Rhetorike,
    He reputes me a Cannon, and the Bullet that's he:
    I shoote thee at the Swaine.
    835Boy. Thump then, and I flee.
    Bra. A most acute Iuuenall, voluble and free of grace,
    By thy fauour sweet Welkin, I must sigh in thy face.
    Most rude melancholie, Valour giues thee place.
    My Herald is return'd.
    840 Enter Page and Clowne.
    Pag.A wonder Master, here's 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. Or sir, Plantan, a plaine 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
    850me to rediculous smyling: O pardon me my stars, doth
    the inconsiderate take salue for lenuoy, and the word len-
    uoy for a salue?
    Pag. Doe the wise thinke them other, is not lenuoy a
    salue?
    855Ar. No Page, it is an epilogue or discourse to make (plaine,
    Some obscure precedence that hath tofore bin faine.
    Now will I begin your morrall, and do you follow with
    my lenuoy.
    The Foxe, the Ape, and the Humble-Bee,
    860 Were 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: would you
    desire more?
    865Clo. The Boy hath sold him a bargaine, a Goose, that's flat
    L4v
    Loues Labour's lost129
    Sir, your penny-worth is good, and your Goose be fat.
    To sell a bargaine well is as cunning as fast and loose:
    Let me see a fat Lenuoy, I that's a fat Goose.
    Ar. Come hither, come hither:
    870How did this argument begin?
    Boy. By saying that a Costard was broken in a shin.
    Then cal'd you for the Lenuoy.
    Clow. True, and I for a Plantan:
    Thus came your argument in:
    875Then the Boyes fat Lenuoy, the Goose that you bought,
    And he ended the market.
    Ar. But tell me: How was there a Costard broken in
    a shin?
    Pag. I will tell you sencibly.
    880Clow. Thou hast no feeling of it Moth,
    I will speake that Lenuoy.
    I Costard running out, that was safely within,
    Fell ouer the threshold, and broke my shin.
    Arm. We will talke no more of this matter.
    885Clow. Till there be more matter in the shin.
    Arm. Sirra Costard, I will infranchise thee.
    Clow. O, marrie me to one Francis, I smell some Len-
    uoy, some Goose in this.
    Arm. By my sweete soule, I meane, setting thee at li-
    890bertie. Enfreedoming thy person: thou wert emured,
    restrained, captiuated, bound.
    Clow. True, true, and now you will be my purgation,
    and let me loose.
    Arm. I giue thee thy libertie, set thee from durance,
    895and in lieu thereof, impose on thee nothing but this:
    Beare this significant to the countrey Maide Iaquenetta:
    there is remuneration, for the best ward of mine honours
    is rewarding my dependants. Moth, follow.
    Pag. Like the sequell I.
    900Signeur Costard adew. Exit.
    Clow. My sweete ounce of mans flesh, my in-conie
    Iew: Now will I looke to his remuneration.
    Remuneration, O, that's the Latine word for three-far-
    things: Three-farthings remuneration, What's the price
    905of this yncle? i.d. no, Ile giue you a remuneration: Why?
    It carries it remuneration: Why? It is a fairer name then
    a French-Crowne. I will neuer buy and sell out of this
    word.
    Enter Berowne.
    910Ber. O my good knaue Costard, exceedingly well met.
    Clow. Pray you sir, How much Carnation Ribbon
    may a man buy for a remuneration?
    Ber. What is a remuneration?
    Cost. Marrie sir, halfe pennie farthing.
    915Ber. O, Why then three farthings worth of Silke.
    Cost. I thanke your worship, God be wy you.
    Ber. O stay slaue, I must employ thee:
    As thou wilt win my fauour, good my knaue,
    Doe one thing for me that I shall intreate.
    920Clow. When would you haue it done sir?
    Ber. O this after-noone.
    Clo. Well, I will doe it sir: Fare you well.
    Ber. O thou knowest not what it is.
    Clo. I shall know sir, when I haue done it.
    925Ber. Why villaine thou must know first.
    Clo. I wil come to your worship to morrow morning.
    Ber. It must be done this after-noone,
    Harke slaue, it is but this:
    The Princesse comes to hunt here in the Parke,
    930And in her traine there is a gentle Ladie:
    When tongues speak sweetly, then they name her name,
    And Rosaline they call her, aske for her:
    And to her white hand see thou do commend
    This seal'd-vp counsaile. Ther's thy guerdon: goe.
    935Clo. Gardon, O sweete gardon, better then remune-
    ration, a leuenpence-farthing better: most sweete gar-
    don. I will doe it sir in print: gardon, remuneration.
    Exit.
    Ber. O, and I forsooth in loue,
    940I that haue beene loues whip?
    A verie Beadle to a humerous sigh: A Criticke,
    Nay, a night-watch Constable.
    A domineering pedant ore the Boy,
    Then whom no mortall so magnificent,
    945This wimpled, whyning, purblinde waiward Boy,
    This signior Iunios gyant drawfe, don Cupid,
    Regent of Loue-rimes, Lord of folded armes,
    Th'annointed soueraigne of sighes and groanes:
    Liedge of all loyterers and malecontents:
    950Dread Prince of Placcats, King of Codpeeces.
    Sole Emperator and great generall
    Of trotting Parrators (O my little heart.)
    And I to be a Corporall of his field,
    And weare his colours like a Tumblers hoope.
    955What? I loue, I sue, I seeke a wife,
    A woman that is like a Germane Cloake,
    Still a repairing: euer out of frame,
    And neuer going a right, being a Watch:
    But being watcht, that it may still goe right.
    960Nay, to be periurde, which is worst of all:
    And among three, to loue the worst of all,
    A whitly wanton, with a veluet brow.
    With two pitch bals stucke in her face for eyes.
    I, and by heauen, one that will doe the deede,
    965Though Argus were her Eunuch and her garde.
    And I to sigh for her, to watch for her,
    To pray for her, go to: it is a plague
    That Cupid will impose for my neglect,
    Of his almighty dreadfull little might.
    970Well, I will loue, write, sigh, pray, shue, grone,
    Some men must loue my Lady, and some Ione.
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