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  • Title: Love's Labor's Lost (Quarto 1, 1598)
  • 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    Not Peer Reviewed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 (Quarto 1, 1598)

    770Enter Braggart and his Boy.
    Bra. Warble child, make passionate my sense of hearing.
    Boy. Concolinel.
    775Brag. Sweete Ayer, go tendernes of yeeres, take this Key,
    giue enlargement to the Swaine, bring him festinatly hither,
    I must imploy him in a letter to my loue.
    Boy. Maister, will you win your loue with a french braule?
    780Brag. How meanest thou? brawling in French.
    Boy. No my complet Maister, but to Iigge off a tune at
    the tongues ende, canarie to it with your feete, humour it
    with turning vp your eylids, sigh a note and sing a note som-
    time through the throate, if you swallowed loue with sing-
    785ing loue sometime through: nose as if you snufft vp loue by
    smelling loue with your hat penthouse like ore the shop of
    your eyes, with your armes crost on your thinbellies doblet
    like a Rabbet on a spit, or your handes in your pocket like a
    man after the olde painting, and keepe not too long in one
    790tune, but a snip and away: these are complementes, these
    are humours, these betraie nice wenches that would be be-
    traied 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.
    Brag.Calst thou my loue Hobbi-horse.
    800Boy. No Maister, the Hobbi-horse is but a colt, and your
    loue perhaps, a hacknie: But haue you forgot your Loue?
    Brag. Almost I had.
    Boy. Necligent student, learne her by hart.
    805Brag. By hart, and in hart boy.
    Boy. And out of hart Maister: all those three I will
    proue.
    Brag. What wilt thou proue?
    Boy. A man, if I liue (and this) by, in, and without, vpon the
    810instant: by hart you loue her, because your hart cannot come
    by her: in hart you loue her, because your hart is in loue
    with her: and out of hart you loue her, being out of hart
    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 me a letter.
    Boy. A message well simpathisd, a Horse to be embassa-
    820doure 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 go.
    Brag. The way is but short, away.
    825Boy. As swift as Lead sir.
    Brag. The meaning prettie ingenius, is not Lead a mettal
    heauie, dull, and slow?
    Boy. Minnime honest Maister, or rather Maister no.
    Brag. I say Lead is slow.
    830Boy. You are too swift sir to say so.
    Is that Lead slow which is fierd from a Gunne?
    Brag. Sweete smoke of Rhetorike,
    He reputes me a Cannon, and the Bullet thats hee:
    I shoote thee at the Swaine.
    835Boy. Thump then, and I flee.
    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 me see a fat Lenuoy, I thats a fat Goose.
    Ar. Come hither, come hither: How did this argument (begin?
    Boy. By saying that a Costard was broken in a shin.
    Then cald 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 tel 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 Lenuoy,
    some Goose in this.
    Arm. By my sweete soule, I meane, setting thee at libertie.
    890Enfreedoming thy person: thou wert emured, restrained,
    captiuated, bound.
    Clown. True, true, and now you wilbe my purgation,
    and let me loose.
    Arm. I giue thee thy libertie, set thee from durance, and in
    895lewe thereof, impose on thee nothing but this: Beare this
    significant to the countrey Maide Iaquenetta: there is remu-
    neration, for the best ward of mine honour, is rewarding
    my dependants. Moth, follow.
    Pag. Like the sequell I. Signeur Costard adew. Exit.
    Clow. My sweete ouce of mans flesh, my in-conie Iew:
    Now will I looke to his remuneration.
    Remuneration, O that's the latine word for three-farthings:
    Three-farthings remuration, What's the price of this yncle?
    905i.d. no, Ile giue you a remuneration: Why? it carries it re-
    muneration: Why? it is a fayrer name then 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. O what is a remuneration?
    Cost. Marie sir, halfepennie farthing.
    915Ber. O, why then threefarthing 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,
    Do one thing for me that I shall intreate.
    920Clow. When would you haue it done sir?
    Ber. O this after-noone.
    Clow. Well, I will do it sir: Fare you well.
    Ber. O thou knowest not what it is.
    Clow. I shall know sir when I haue done it.
    925Ber. Why villaine, thou must know first.
    Clow. I will 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 speake sweetely, then they name her name,
    And Rosaline they call her, aske for her:
    And to her white hand see thou do commend
    This seald-vp counsaile. Ther's thy guerdon: goe.
    935Clow. Gardon, O sweete gardon, better then remuneratiõ.
    a leuenpence-farthing better: most sweete gardon. I will
    do it sir in print: gardon remuneration.
    Exit.
    Ber. O and I forsoth in loue, I that haue been loues whip?
    A verie Bedell to a humerous sigh, a Crietick, nay a night-
    watch Constable,
    A domineering pedant ore the Boy, then whom no mor-
    tall so magnificent.
    945This wimpled whyning purblind wayward Boy,
    This signior Iunios gyant dwarffe, dan Cupid,
    Regent of Loue-rimes, Lord of folded armes,
    Th'annoynted soueraigne of sighes and groones:
    Liedge of all loyterers and malecontents:
    950Dread Prince of Placcats, King of Codpeeces.
    Sole Emperator and great generall
    Of trotting Parrators (O my litle hart.)
    And I to be a Corporall of his fielde,
    And weare his coloures like a Tumblers hoope.
    955What? I loue, I sue, I seeke a wife,
    A woman that is like a Iermane Cloake,
    Still a repairing: euer out of frame,
    And neuer going a right, being a Watch:
    But being watcht, that it may still go 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 balles stucke in her face for eyes.
    I and by heauen, one that will do 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 almightie dreadfull little might.
    970Well, I will loue, write, sigh, pray, shue, grone,
    Some men must loue my Ladie, and some Ione.
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