Love's Labour's Lost (version 2) - Kostenloses Hörbuch

ACT III.

000 Scene I. The same.

LLL III. 1 Enter Armado and Moth.

Arm. Warble, child; make passionate my sense of hearing.

Moth. Concolinel. [Singing.

Arm. Sweet air! Go, tenderness of years; take this 005 key, give enlargement to the swain, bring him festinately hither: I must employ him in a letter to my love.

007 Moth. Master, will you win your love with a French brawl?

Arm. How meanest thou? brawling in French?

010 Moth. No, my complete master: but to jig off a tune at 011 the tongue’s end, canary to it with your feet, humour it with 012 turning up your eyelids, sigh a note and sing a note, sometime 013 through the throat, as if you swallowed love with singing 014 love, sometime through the nose, as if you snuffed up 015 love by smelling love; with your hat penthouse-like o’er the 016 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 019 long in one tune, but a snip and away. These are complements, 020 these are humours; these betray nice wenches, that 021 would be betrayed without these; and make them men of note—do you note me?—that most are affected to these.

Arm. How hast thou purchased this experience?

024 Moth. By my penny of observation.

025 Arm. But O,—but O,—

Moth. ‘The hobby-horse is forgot.’

Arm. Callest thou my love ‘hobby-horse’?

Moth. No, master; the hobby-horse is but a colt, and your love perhaps a hackney. But have you forgot your 030 love?

Arm. Almost I had.

Moth. Negligent student! learn her by heart.

Arm. By heart and in heart, boy.

Moth. And out of heart, master: all those three I will 035 prove.

Arm. What wilt thou prove?

037 Moth. A man, if I live; and this, by, in, and without, 038 upon the instant: by heart you love her, because your heart cannot come by her; in heart you love her, because your 040 heart is in love with her; and out of heart you love her, being out of heart that you cannot enjoy her.

Arm. I am all these three.

Moth. And three times as much more, and yet nothing at all.

045 Arm. Fetch hither the swain: he must carry me a letter.

046 Moth. A message well sympathized; a horse to be ambassador for an ass.

Arm. Ha, ha! what sayest thou?

Moth. Marry, sir, you must send the ass upon the 050 horse, for he is very slow-gaited. But I go.

Arm. The way is but short: away!

Moth. As swift as lead, sir.

053 Arm. The meaning, pretty ingenious?

Is not lead a metal heavy, dull, and slow?

055 Moth. Minimè, honest master; or rather, master, no.

Arm. I say lead is slow.

Moth.

057 You are too swift, sir, to say so:

Is that lead slow which is fired from a gun?

Arm. Sweet smoke of rhetoric!

He reputes me a cannon; and the bullet, that’s he:

I shoot thee at the swain.

Moth.

060 Thump, then, and I flee. [Exit.

061 Arm. A most acute juvenal; volable and free of grace!

By thy favour, sweet welkin, I must sigh in thy face:

063 Most rude melancholy, valour gives thee place.

My herald is return’d.

Re-enter Moth with Costard.

065 Moth. A wonder, master! here’s a Costard broken in a shin.

066 Arm. Some enigma, some riddle: come, thy l’envoy; begin.

067 Cost. No egma, no riddle, no l’envoy; no salve in the 068 mail, sir: O, sir, plantain, a plain plantain! no l’envoy, no 069 l’envoy; no salve, sir, but a plantain!

070 Arm. By virtue, thou enforcest laughter; thy silly 071 thought my spleen; the heaving of my lungs provokes me to ridiculous smiling. O, pardon me, my stars! Doth the 073 inconsiderate take salve for l’envoy, and the word l’envoy for a salve?

075 Moth. Do the wise think them other? is not l’envoy a salve?

076 Arm. No, page: it is an epilogue or discourse, to make plain

077 Some obscure precedence that hath tofore been sain.

078 I will example it:

The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee,

080 Were still at odds, being but three.

There’s the moral. Now the l’envoy.

Moth. I will add the l’envoy. Say the moral again.

Arm. The fox, the ape, the humble-bee,

Were still at odds, being but three.

085 Moth. Until the goose came out of door,

086 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,

090 Were still at odds, being but three.

091 Arm. Until the goose came out of door,

Staying the odds by adding four.

Moth. A good l’envoy, ending in the goose: would you desire more?

095 Cost. The 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.

Arm. Come hither, come hither. How did this argument begin?

100 Moth. By saying that a Costard was broken in a shin.

101 Then call’d you for the l’envoy.

Cost. True, 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.

105 Arm. But tell me; how was there a Costard broken in

a shin?

Moth. I will tell you sensibly.

Cost. Thou hast no feeling of it, Moth: I will speak

that l’envoy:

110 I Costard, running out, that was safely within,

Fell over the threshold, and broke my shin.

Arm. We will talk no more of this matter.

Cost. Till there be more matter in the shin.

114 Arm. Sirrah Costard, I will enfranchise thee.

115 Cost. O, marry me to one Frances: I smell some l’envoy, some goose, in this.

Arm. By my sweet soul, I mean setting thee at liberty, enfreedoming thy person: thou wert immured, restrained, 118 captivated, bound.

120 Cost. True, true; and now you will be my purgation, 121 and let me loose.

122 Arm. I give thee thy liberty, set thee from durance; and, in lieu thereof, impose on thee nothing but this: bear this significant [giving a letter] to the country maid Jaquenetta: 125 there is remuneration; for the best ward of mine 126 honour is rewarding my dependents. Moth, follow. [Exit.

Moth. Like the sequel, I. Signior Costard, adieu.

128 Cost. My sweet ounce of man’s flesh! my incony Jew! [Exit Moth.

Now will I look to his remuneration. Remuneration! O, 130 that’s the Latin word for three farthings: three farthings— 131 remuneration.—‘What’s the price of this inkle?’—‘One 132 penny.’—‘No, I’ll give you a remuneration:’ why, it carries 133 it. Remuneration! why, it is a fairer name than French crown. I will never buy and sell out of this word.

Enter Biron.

135 Biron. O, my good knave Costard! exceedingly well met.

Cost. Pray you, sir, how much carnation ribbon may a man buy for a remuneration?

138 Biron. What is a remuneration?

Cost. Marry, sir, halfpenny farthing.

140 Biron. Why, then, three-farthing worth of silk.

Cost. I thank your worship: God be wi’ you!

Biron. Stay, slave; I must employ thee:

143 As thou wilt win my favour, good my knave,

Do one thing for me that I shall entreat.

145 Cost. When would you have it done, sir?

Biron. This afternoon.

Cost. Well, I will do it, sir: fare you well.

Biron. Thou knowest not what it is.

Cost. I shall know, sir, when I have done it.

150 Biron. Why, villain, thou must know first.

Cost. I will come to your worship to-morrow morning.

Biron. It must be done this afternoon. Hark, slave, it is but this:

154 The princess comes to hunt here in the park,

155 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

159 This seal’d-up counsel. There’s thy guerdon; go. [Giving him a shilling.

160 Cost. Gardon, O sweet gardon! better than remuneration, 161 a ’leven-pence farthing better: most sweet gardon! I 162 will do it, sir, in print. Gardon! Remuneration! [Exit.

163 Biron. And I, forsooth, in love! I, that have been love’s whip;

165 A very beadle to a humorous sigh;

A critic, nay, a night-watch constable;

A domineering pedant o’er the boy;

168 Than whom no mortal so magnificent!

169 This wimpled, whining, purblind, wayward boy;

170 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,

175 Sole imperator and great general

Of trotting ’paritors:—O my little heart!—

177 And I to be a corporal of his field,

And wear his colours like a tumbler’s hoop!

179 What! I love! I sue! I seek a wife!

180 A woman, that is like a German clock,

Still a-repairing, ever out of frame,

182 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;

185 And, among three, to love the worst of all;

186 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:

190 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.

194 Well, I will love, write, sigh, pray, sue and groan:

195 Some men must love my lady, and some Joan. [Exit.