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  • William Shakespeare: Love’s Labor’s Lost, Act III

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Act IIIScene IThe sameEnter Don Adriano de Armado and MothDon Adriano de ArmadoWarble, child; make passionate my sense of hearing.MothConcolinel.SingingDon Adriano de ArmadoSweet air! Go, tenderness of years; take this key, give enlargement to the swain, bring him festinately hither: I must employ him in a letter to my love.MothMaster, will you win your love with a French brawl?Don Adriano de ArmadoHow meanest thou? brawling in French?MothNo, my complete master: but to jig off a tune at the tongue’s end, canary to it with your feet, humour it with turning up your eyelids, sigh a note and sing a note, sometime through the throat, as if you swallowed love with singing love, sometime through the nose, as if you snuffed up love by smelling love; with your hat penthouse-like o’er the shop of your eyes; with your arms crossed on your thin-belly doublet like a rabbit on a spit; or your hands in your pocket like a man after the old painting; and keep not too long in one tune, but a snip and away. These are complements, these are humours; these betray nice wenches, that would be betrayed without these; and make them men of note—do you note me?—that most are affected to these.Don Adriano de ArmadoHow hast thou purchased this experience?MothBy my penny of observation.Don Adriano de ArmadoBut O,—but O,—Moth’The hobby-horse is forgot.‘Don Adriano de ArmadoCallest thou my love ‘hobby-horse’?MothNo, master; the hobby-horse is but a colt, and your love perhaps a hackney. But have you forgot your love?Don Adriano de ArmadoAlmost I had.MothNegligent student! learn her by heart.Don Adriano de ArmadoBy heart and in heart, boy.MothAnd out of heart, master: all those three I will prove.Don Adriano de ArmadoWhat wilt thou prove?MothA man, if I live; and this, by, in, and without, upon the instant: by heart you love her, because your heart cannot come by her; in heart you love her, because your heart is in love with her; and out of heart you love her, being out of heart that you cannot enjoy her.Don Adriano de ArmadoI am all these three.MothAnd three times as much more, and yet nothing at all.Don Adriano de ArmadoFetch hither the swain: he must carry me a letter.MothA message well sympathized; a horse to be ambassador for an ass.Don Adriano de ArmadoHa, ha! what sayest thou?MothMarry, sir, you must send the ass upon the horse, for he is very slow-gaited. But I go.Don Adriano de ArmadoThe way is but short: away!MothAs swift as lead, sir.Don Adriano de ArmadoThe meaning, pretty ingenious? Is not lead a metal heavy, dull, and slow?MothMinime, honest master; or rather, master, no.Don Adriano de ArmadoI say lead is slow.MothYou are too swift, sir, to say so: Is that lead slow which is fired from a gun?Don Adriano de ArmadoSweet smoke of rhetoric! He reputes me a cannon; and the bullet, that’s he: I shoot thee at the swain.MothThump then and I flee.ExitDon Adriano de ArmadoA most acute juvenal; voluble and free of grace! By thy favour, sweet welkin, I must sigh in thy face: Most rude melancholy, valour gives thee place. My herald is return’d.Re-enter Moth with CostardMothA wonder, master! here’s a costard broken in a shin.Don Adriano de ArmadoSome enigma, some riddle: come, thy l’envoy; begin.CostardNo enigma, no riddle, no l’envoy; no salve in the mail, sir: O, sir, plantain, a plain plantain! no l’envoy, no l’envoy; no salve, sir, but a plantain!Don Adriano de ArmadoBy virtue, thou enforcest laughter; thy silly thought my spleen; the heaving of my lungs provokes me to ridiculous smiling. O, pardon me, my stars! Doth the inconsiderate take salve for l’envoy, and the word l’envoy for a salve?MothDo the wise think them other? is not l’envoy a salve?Don Adriano de ArmadoNo, page: it is an epilogue or discourse, to make plain Some obscure precedence that hath tofore been sain. I will example it: The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee, Were still at odds, being but three. There’s the moral. Now the l’envoy.MothI will add the l’envoy. Say the moral again.Don Adriano de ArmadoThe fox, the ape, and the humble-bee, Were still at odds, being but three.MothUntil the goose came out of door, And stay’d the odds by adding four. Now will I begin your moral, and do you follow with my l’envoy. The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee, Were still at odds, being but three.Don Adriano de ArmadoUntil the goose came out of door, Staying the odds by adding four.MothA good l’envoy, ending in the goose: would you desire more?CostardThe boy hath sold him a bargain, a goose, that’s flat. Sir, your pennyworth is good, an your goose be fat. To sell a bargain well is as cunning as fast and loose: Let me see; a fat l’envoy; ay, that’s a fat goose.Don Adriano de ArmadoCome hither, come hither. How did this argument begin?MothBy saying that a costard was broken in a shin. Then call’d you for the l’envoy.CostardTrue, and I for a plantain: thus came your argument in; Then the boy’s fat l’envoy, the goose that you bought; And he ended the market.Don Adriano de ArmadoBut tell me; how was there a costard broken in a shin?MothI will tell you sensibly.CostardThou hast no feeling of it, Moth: I will speak that l’envoy: I Costard, running out, that was safely within, Fell over the threshold and broke my shin.Don Adriano de ArmadoWe will talk no more of this matter.CostardTill there be more matter in the shin.Don Adriano de ArmadoSirrah Costard, I will enfranchise thee.CostardO, marry me to one Frances: I smell some l’envoy, some goose, in this.Don Adriano de ArmadoBy my sweet soul, I mean setting thee at liberty, enfreedoming thy person; thou wert immured, restrained, captivated, bound.CostardTrue, true; and now you will be my purgation and let me loose.Don Adriano de ArmadoI give thee thy liberty, set thee from durance; and, in lieu thereof, impose on thee nothing but this: bear this significantGiving a letterto the country maid Jaquenetta: there is remuneration; for the best ward of mine honour is rewarding my dependents. Moth, follow.ExitMothLike the sequel, I. Signior Costard, adieu.CostardMy sweet ounce of man’s flesh! my incony Jew!Exit MothNow will I look to his remuneration. Remuneration! O, that’s the Latin word for three farthings: three farthings—remuneration.—‘What’s the price of this inkle?’—‘One penny.’—‘No, I’ll give you a remuneration:’ why, it carries it. Remuneration! why, it is a fairer name than French crown. I will never buy and sell out of this word.Enter BironBironO, my good knave Costard! exceedingly well met.CostardPray you, sir, how much carnation ribbon may a man buy for a remuneration?BironWhat is a remuneration?CostardMarry, sir, halfpenny farthing.BironWhy, then, three-farthing worth of silk.CostardI thank your worship: God be wi’ you!BironStay, slave; I must employ thee: As thou wilt win my favour, good my knave, Do one thing for me that I shall entreat.CostardWhen would you have it done, sir?BironThis afternoon.CostardWell, I will do it, sir: fare you well.BironThou knowest not what it is.CostardI shall know, sir, when I have done it.BironWhy, villain, thou must know first.CostardI will come to your worship to-morrow morning.BironIt must be done this afternoon. Hark, slave, it is but this: The princess comes to hunt here in the park, And in her train there is a gentle lady; When tongues speak sweetly, then they name her name, And Rosaline they call her: ask for her; And to her white hand see thou do commend This seal’d-up counsel. There’s thy guerdon; go.Giving him a shillingCostardGardon, O sweet gardon! better than remuneration, a’leven-pence farthing better: most sweet gardon! I will do it sir, in print. Gardon! Remuneration!ExitBironAnd I, forsooth, in love! I, that have been love’s whip; A very beadle to a humorous sigh; A critic, nay, a night-watch constable; A domineering pedant o’er the boy; Than whom no mortal so magnificent! This whimpled, whining, purblind, wayward boy; This senior-junior, giant-dwarf, Dan Cupid; Regent of love-rhymes, lord of folded arms, The anointed sovereign of sighs and groans, Liege of all loiterers and malcontents, Dread prince of plackets, king of codpieces, Sole imperator and great general Of trotting ‘paritors:—O my little heart:— And I to be a corporal of his field, And wear his colours like a tumbler’s hoop! What, I! I love! I sue! I seek a wife! A woman, that is like a German clock, Still a-repairing, ever out of frame, And never going aright, being a watch, But being watch’d that it may still go right! Nay, to be perjured, which is worst of all; And, among three, to love the worst of all; A wightly wanton with a velvet brow, With two pitch-balls stuck in her face for eyes; Ay, and by heaven, one that will do the deed Though Argus were her eunuch and her guard: 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 dreadful little might. Well, I will love, write, sigh, pray, sue and groan: Some men must love my lady and some Joan.Exit

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William Shakespeare: Love’s Labor’s Lost, Act V, Scene II

  • William Shakespeare: Love’s Labor’s Lost, Act V, Scene II

TrendingHere are the facts and trivia that people are buzzing about.

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TrendingHere are the facts and trivia that people are buzzing about.

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Andersen’s Fairy Tales: Contents

The Celtic Twilight: A Teller of Tales

  • Did Birds Evolve from Dinosaurs?
  • The Twelve Dancing Princesses
  • Current Events This Week: January 2023
  • African Americans by the Numbers
  • Andersen’s Fairy Tales: Contents
  • The Celtic Twilight: A Teller of Tales