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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    Not Peer Reviewed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)

    Enter the Pedant, the Curat, and Dull.
    1740Pedant. Satis quid sufficit.
    Curat. I prayse God for you sir, your reasons at Dinner
    haue been sharpe & sententious: pleasant without scurillitie,
    wittie without affection, audatious without impudencie,
    learned without opinion, and strange without heresie: I did
    1745conuerse this quondam day with a companion of the kings,
    who is intituled, nominated, or called, Don Adriano de Ar-
    matho.
    Ped. Noui hominum tanquam te, His humour is loftie, his
    discourse peremptorie: his tongue fyled, his eye ambitious,
    1750his gate maiesticall, and his generall behauiour vaine, redicu-
    lous, & thrasonicall. He is too picked, to spruce, too affected,
    to od as it were, too peregrinat as I may call it.
    Curat. A most singuler and choyce Epithat,
    1755Draw-out his Table-booke.
    Peda. He draweth out the thred of his verbositie, finer
    then the staple of his argument. I abhorre such phanatticall
    phantasims, such insociable and poynt deuise companions,
    such rackers of ortagriphie, as to speake dout fine, when he
    1760should say doubt; det, when he shold pronounce debt; d e b t,
    not det: he clepeth a Calfe, Caufe: halfe, haufe: neighbour
    vocatur nebour; neigh abreuiated ne: this is abhominable,
    which he would call abbominable, it insinuateth me of in-
    famie: ne inteligis domine, to make frantique lunatique?
    Curat. Laus deo, bene intelligo.
    Peda. Bome boon for boon prescian, a litle scratcht, twil serue.
    Enter Bragart, Boy.
    1770Curat. Vides ne quis venit?
    Peda. Video, et gaudio.
    Brag. Chirra.
    Peda. Quari Chirra, not Sirra?
    Brag. Men of peace well incontred.
    1775Ped. Most millitarie sir salutation.
    Boy. They haue been at a great feast of Languages, and
    stolne the scraps.
    Clow. O they haue lyud long on the almsbasket of wordes.
    I maruaile thy M. hath not eaten thee for a worde, for thou
    1780art not so long by the head as honorificabilitudinitatibus:
    Thou art easier swallowed then a flapdragon.
    Page. Peace, the peale begins.
    Brag. Mounsier, are you not lettred?
    1785Page. Yes yes, he teaches boyes the Horne-booke: What
    is Ab speld backward with the horne on his head?
    Poda. Ba, puericia with a horne added.
    Pag. Ba most seely Sheepe, with a horne: you heare his (learning.
    1790Peda. Quis quis thou Consonant?
    Pag. The last of the fiue Vowels if You repeate them,
    or the fift if I.
    Peda. I will repeate them: a e I.
    Pag. The Sheepe, the other two concludes it o u.
    1795Brag. Now by the sault wane of the meditaranium, a
    sweete tutch, a quicke venewe of wit, snip snap, quicke and
    home, it reioyceth my intellect, true wit.
    Page. Offerd by a childe to an old man: which is wit-old.
    1800Peda. What is the figure? What is the figure?
    Page. Hornes.
    Peda. Thou disputes like an Infant: goe whip thy Gigg.
    Pag. Lende me your Horne to make one, and I will whip
    1805about your Infamie vnū cita a gigge of a Cuckolds horne.
    Clow. And I had but one peny in the world thou shouldst
    haue it to buy Ginger bread: Holde, there is the verie
    Remuneration I had of thy Maister, thou halfepennie
    1810purse of wit, thou Pidgin-egge of discretion. O and the
    heauens were so pleased, that thou wart but my Ba-
    stard; What a ioyfull father wouldest thou make me?
    Go to, thou hast it ad dungil at the fingers ends, as they say.
    Peda. Oh I smell false Latine, dunghel for vnguem.
    1815Brag. Arts-man preambulat, we will be singuled from the
    barbarous. Do you not educate youth at the Charg-House
    on the top of the Mountaine?
    Peda. Or Mons the hill.
    Brag. At your sweete pleasure, for the Mountaine.
    1820Peda. I do sans question.
    Bra. Sir, it is the Kings most sweete pleasur & affection,
    to congratulate the Princesse at her Pauilion, in the posteriors
    of this day, which the rude multitude call the after-noone.
    1825Peda. The posterior of the day, most generous sir, is liable,
    congruent, and measurable for the after noone: the worde is
    well culd, chose, sweete, & apt I do assure you sir, I do assure.
    Brag. Sir, the King is a noble Gentleman, and my fami-
    1830lier, I do assure ye very good friende: for what is inwarde
    betweene vs, let it passe. I do beseech thee remember thy
    curtesie. I beseech thee apparrell thy head: and among other
    importunt and most serious designes, and of great import in
    deede too: but let that passe for I must tell thee it will
    1835please his Grace (by the worlde) sometime to leane vpon
    my poore shoulder, and with his royall finger thus dallie
    with my excrement, with my mustachie: but sweete hart
    let that passe. By the world I recount no fable, some certaine
    special honours it pleaseth his greatnes to impart to Armado
    1840a Souldier, a man of trauayle, that hath seene the worlde: but
    let that passe; the very all of all is: but sweet hart, I do implore
    secretie, that the King would haue me present the Princesse
    (sweete chuck) with some delightfull ostentation, or show,
    1845or pageant, or antique, or fierworke: Now vnderstanding
    that the Curate and your sweete selfe, are good at such erup-
    tions, and sodaine breaking out of myrth (as it were) I haue
    acquainted you withall, to the ende to craue your assistance.
    1850Peda. Sir, you shall present before her the Nine Worthies,
    Sir Holofernes, as concerning some entertainement of time,
    some show in the posterior of this day, to be rended by our
    assistants the Kinges commaund, and this most gallant il-
    lustrate and learned Gentleman, before the Princesse: I say
    1855none so fit as to present the nine Worthies.
    Curat. Where will you finde men worthie enough to pre-
    sent them?
    Peda. Iosua, your selfe, my selfe, and this gallant Gentle-
    1860man Iudas Machabeus; this Swaine (because of his great lim
    or ioynt) shall passe Pompey the great, the Page Hercules.
    Brag. Pardon sir, error: He is not quantitie enough for
    that worthies thumbe, he is not so big as the end of his Club.
    Peda. Shall I haue audience? He shall present Hercules
    in minoritie: his enter and exit shalbe strangling a Snake;
    and I will haue an Apologie for that purpose.
    Page. An excellent deuice: so if any of the audience hisse,
    1870you may cry, Well done Hercules, now thou crusshest the
    Snake; that is the way to make an offence gracious, though
    few haue the grace to do it.
    Brag. For the rest of the Worthies?
    Peda. I will play three my selfe.
    1875Page. Thrice worthie Gentleman.
    Brag. Shall I tell you a thing?
    Peda. We attende.
    Brag. We will haue, if this fadge not, an Antique. I be-
    seech you follow.
    1880Peda. Via good-man Dull, thou hast spoken no worde all
    this while.
    Dull. Nor vnderstoode none neither sir.
    Ped. Alone, we will employ thee.
    Dull. Ile make one in a daunce, or so: or I will play on
    1885the Taber to the worthies, and let them dance the hey.
    Peda. Most Dull, honest Dull, to our sport: away. Exeunt.
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