Love's Labour's Lost (version 2) - Free Audiobook

ACT I.

000 Scene I. The king of Navarre’s park

LLL I. 1 Enter Ferdinand, king of Navarre, Biron, Longaville, and Dumain.

King. Let fame, that all hunt after in their lives,

Live register’d upon our brazen tombs,

003 And then grace us in the disgrace of death;

When, spite of cormorant devouring Time,

005 The endeavour of this present breath may buy

That honour which shall bate his scythe’s keen edge,

And make us heirs of all eternity.

Therefore, brave conquerors,—for so you are,

That war against your own affections

010 And the huge army of the world’s desires,—

Our late edict shall strongly stand in force:

Navarre shall be the wonder of the world;

013 Our court shall be a little Academe,

Still and contemplative in living art.

015 You three, Biron, Dumain, and Longaville,

Have sworn for three years’ term to live with me

My fellow-scholars, and to keep those statutes

018 That are recorded in this schedule here:

Your oaths are pass’d; and now subscribe your names,

020 That his own hand may strike his honour down

That violates the smallest branch herein:

If you are arm’d to do as sworn to do,

023 Subscribe to your deep oaths, and keep it too.

Long. I am resolved; ’tis but a three years’ fast:

025 The mind shall banquet, though the body pine:

Fat paunches have lean pates; and dainty bits

027 Make rich the ribs, but bankrupt quite the wits.

Dum. My loving lord, Dumain is mortified:

029 The grosser manner of these world’s delights

030 He throws upon the gross world’s baser slaves:

031 To love, to wealth, to pomp, I pine and die;

With all these living in philosophy.

Biron. I can but say their protestation over;

So much, dear liege, I have already sworn,

035 That is, to live and study here three years.

But there are other strict observances;

As, not to see a woman in that term,

Which I hope well is not enrolled there;

And one day in a week to touch no food,

040 And but one meal on every day beside,

The which I hope is not enrolled there;

And then, to sleep but three hours in the night,

And not be seen to wink of all the day,—

When I was wont to think no harm all night,

045 And make a dark night too of half the day,—

Which I hope well is not enrolled there:

O, these are barren tasks, too hard to keep,

Not to see ladies, study, fast, not sleep!

King. Your oath is pass’d to pass away from these.

050 Biron. Let me say no, my liege, an if you please:

I only swore to study with your grace,

And stay here in your court for three years’ space.

Long. You swore to that, Biron, and to the rest.

Biron. By yea and nay, sir, then I swore in jest.

055 What is the end of study? let me know.

King. Why, that to know, which else we should not know.

Biron. Things hid and barr’d, you mean, from common sense?

King. Ay, that is study’s god-like recompense.

Biron. Come on, then; I will swear to study so,

060 To know the thing I am forbid to know:

As thus,—to study where I well may dine,

062 When I to feast expressly am forbid;

Or study where to meet some mistress fine,

When mistresses from common sense are hid;

065 Or, having sworn too hard a keeping oath,

Study to break it, and not break my troth.

067 If study’s gain be thus, and this be so,

Study knows that which yet it doth not know:

Swear me to this, and I will ne’er say no.

070 King. These be the stops that hinder study quite,

And train our intellects to vain delight.

072 Biron. Why, all delights are vain; but that most vain,

Which, with pain purchased, doth inherit pain:

As, painfully to pore upon a book

075 To seek the light of truth; while truth the while

Doth falsely blind the eyesight of his look:

077 Light, seeking light, doth light of light beguile:

So, ere you find where light in darkness lies,

Your light grows dark by losing of your eyes.

080 Study me how to please the eye indeed,

By fixing it upon a fairer eye;

Who dazzling so, that eye shall be his heed,

083 And give him light that it was blinded by.

Study is like the heaven’s glorious sun,

085 That will not be deep-search’d with saucy looks:

Small have continual plodders ever won,

087 Save base authority from others’ books.

These earthly godfathers of heaven’s lights,

That give a name to every fixed star,

090 Have no more profit of their shining nights

Than those that walk and wot not what they are.

092 Too much to know, is to know nought but fame;

And every godfather can give a name.

King. How well he’s read, to reason against reading!

095 Dum. Proceeded well, to stop all good proceeding!

Long. He weeds the corn, and still lets grow the weeding.

Biron. The spring is near, when green geese are a-breeding.

Dum. How follows that?

Biron.

Fit in his place and time.

Dum. In reason nothing.

Biron.

Something, then, in rhyme.

100 King. Biron is like an envious sneaping frost,

That bites the first-born infants of the spring.

Biron. Well, say I am; why should proud summer boast,

103 Before the birds have any cause to sing?

Why should I joy in any abortive birth?

105 At Christmas I no more desire a rose

106 Than wish a snow in May’s new-fangled shows;

But like of each thing that in season grows.

108 So you, to study now it is too late,

109 Climb o’er the house to unlock the little gate.

110 King. Well, sit you out: go home, Biron: adieu.

Biron. No, my good lord; I have sworn to stay with you:

And though I have for barbarism spoke more

Than for that angel knowledge you can say,

114 Yet confident I’ll keep what I have swore,

115 And bide the penance of each three years’ day.

Give me the paper; let me read the same;

117 And to the strict’st decrees I’ll write my name.

King. How well this yielding rescues thee from shame!

Biron [reads]. ‘Item, That no woman shall come within a 120 mile of my court,’—Hath this been proclaimed?

Long. Four days ago.

123 Biron. Let’s see the penalty. [Reads] ‘on pain of losing her tongue.’ Who devised this penalty?

Long. Marry, that did I.

125 Biron. Sweet lord, and why?

Long. To fright them hence with that dread penalty.

127 Biron. A dangerous law against gentility!

[Reads] ‘Item, If any man be seen to talk with a woman within the term of three years, he shall endure such public shame as the rest 130 of the court can possibly devise.’

This article, my liege, yourself must break;

For well you know here comes in embassy

The French king’s daughter with yourself to speak,—

A maid of grace and complete majesty,—

135 About surrender up of Aquitaine

136 To her decrepit, sick, and bedrid father:

Therefore this article is made in vain,

138 Or vainly comes the admired princess hither.

King. What say you, lords? why, this was quite forgot.

140 Biron. So study evermore is overshot:

While it doth study to have what it would,

It doth forget to do the thing it should;

And when it hath the thing it hunteth most,

’Tis won as towns with fire, so won, so lost.

145 King. We must of force dispense with this decree;

146 She must lie here on mere necessity.

147 Biron. Necessity will make us all forsworn

Three thousand times within this three years’ space;

For every man with his affects is born,

150 Not by might master’d, but by special grace:

151 If I break faith, this word shall speak for me,

I am forsworn on ‘mere necessity.’

153 So to the laws at large I write my name: [Subscribes

And he that breaks them in the least degree

155 Stands in attainder of eternal shame:

156 Suggestions are to other as to me;

But I believe, although I seem so loth,

158 I am the last that will last keep his oath.

But is there no quick recreation granted?

160 King. Ay, that there is. Our court, you know, is haunted

161 With a refined traveller of Spain;

162 A man in all the world’s new fashion planted,

That hath a mint of phrases in his brain;

164 One whom the music of his own vain tongue

165 Doth ravish like enchanting harmony;

A man of complements, whom right and wrong

Have chose as umpire of their mutiny:

This child of fancy, that Armado hight,

For interim to our studies, shall relate.

170 In high-born words, the worth of many a knight

From tawny Spain, lost in the world’s debate.

How you delight, my lords, I know not, I;

But, I protest, I love to hear him lie,

And I will use him for my minstrelsy.

175 Biron. Armado is a most illustrious wight.

176 A man of fire-new words, fashion’s own knight.

Long. Costard the swain and he shall be our sport;

178 And, so to study, three years is but short.

Enter Dull with a letter, and Costard.

179 Dull. Which is the Duke’s own person?

180 Biron. This, fellow: what wouldst?

Dull. I myself reprehend his own person, for I am his 182 Grace’s tharborough: but I would see his own person in flesh and blood.

Biron. This is he.

185 Dull. Signior Arme—Arme—commends you. There’s villany abroad: this letter will tell you more.

Cost. Sir, the contempts thereof are as touching me.

King. A letter from the magnificent Armado.

Biron. How low soever the matter, I hope in God for 190 high words.

191 Long. A high hope for a low heaven: God grant us patience!

193 Biron. To hear? or forbear laughing?

194 Long. 195 To hear meekly, sir, and to laugh moderately; or to forbear both.

Biron. Well, sir, be it as the style shall give us cause 197 to climb in the merriness.

Cost. The matter is to me, sir, as concerning Jaquenetta. 199 The manner of it is, I was taken with the manner.

200 Biron. In what manner?

Cost. In manner and form following, sir; all those three: I was seen with her in the manor-house, sitting with her upon the form, and taken following her into the park; which, put together, is in manner and form following. Now, 205 sir, for the manner,—it is the manner of a man to speak to a woman: for the form,—in some form.

Biron. For the following, sir?

Cost. As it shall follow in my correction: and God defend the right!

210 King. Will you hear this letter with attention?

Biron. As we would hear an oracle.

Cost. Such is the simplicity of man to hearken after the flesh.

King. [reads]. ‘Great deputy, the welkin’s vicegerent, and sole 215 dominator of Navarre, my soul’s earth’s god, and body’s fostering patron.’—

Cost. Not a word of Costard yet.

King. [reads]. ‘So it is,’—

Cost. It may be so: but if he say it is so, he is, in telling 220 true, but so.

King. Peace!

Cost. Be to me, and every man that dares not fight!

King. No words!

Cost. Of other men’s secrets, I beseech you.

King. [reads]. 225 ‘So it is, besieged with sable-coloured melancholy, I did commend the black-oppressing humour to the most wholesome physic of thy health-giving air; and, as I am a gentleman, betook myself to walk. The time when. About the sixth hour; when beasts most graze, birds best peck, and men sit down to that nourishment 230 which is called supper: so much for the time when. Now for the ground which; which, I mean, I walked upon: it is ycleped thy park. Then for the place where; where, I mean, I did encounter that obscene and most preposterous event, that draweth from my snow-white pen the ebon-coloured ink, which here thou viewest, beholdest, 235 surveyest, or seest: but to the place where,—it standeth north-north- east and by east from the west corner of thy curious-knotted garden: 237 there did I see that low-spirited swain, that base minnow of thy mirth,’—

239 Cost. Me?

King. [reads]. 240 ‘that unlettered small-knowing soul,’—

Cost. Me?

King. [reads]. 242 ‘that shallow vassal,’—

Cost. Still me?

King. [reads]. ‘which, as I remember, hight Costard,’

245 Cost. O, me!

King. [reads]. ‘sorted and consorted, contrary to thy established 247 proclaimed edict and continent canon, which with,—O, with— but with this I passion to say wherewith,’—

Cost. With a wench.

King. [reads] 250 ‘with a child of our grandmother Eve, a female; 251 or, for thy more sweet understanding, a woman. Him I, as my everesteemed 252 duty pricks me on, have sent to thee, to receive the meed 253 of punishment, by thy sweet Grace’s officer, Anthony Dull; a man of good repute, carriage, bearing, and estimation.’

255 Dull. Me, an’t shall please you; I am Anthony Dull.

King. [reads]. ‘For Jaquenetta,—so is the weaker vessel called 257 which I apprehended with the aforesaid swain,—I keep her as a vessel of thy law’s fury; and shall, at the least of thy sweet notice, bring her to trial. Thine, in all compliments of devoted and heart-burning heat 260 of duty. Don Adriano de Armado.’

Biron. This is not so well as I looked for, but the best that ever I heard.

King. Ay, the best for the worst. But, sirrah, what say you to this?

265 Cost. Sir, I confess the wench.

King. Did you hear the proclamation?

Cost. I do confess much of the hearing it, but little of the marking of it.

King. It was proclaimed a year’s imprisonment, to be 270 taken with a wench.

271 Cost. I was taken with none, sir: I was taken with a 272 damsel.

King. Well, it was proclaimed damsel.

Cost. This was no damsel neither, sir; she was a virgin.

275 King. It is so varied too; for it was proclaimed virgin.

Cost. If it were, I deny her virginity: I was taken with a maid.

King. This maid will not serve your turn, sir.

Cost. This maid will serve my turn, sir.

280 King. Sir, I will pronounce your sentence: you shall fast a week with bran and water.

Cost. I had rather pray a month with mutton and porridge.

King. And Don Armado shall be your keeper.

285 My Lord Biron, see him deliver’d o’er:

And go we, lords, to put in practice that

287 Which each to other hath so strongly sworn. [Exeunt King, Longaville, and Dumain.

288 Biron. I’ll lay my head to any good man’s hat,

These oaths and laws will prove an idle scorn.

290 Sirrah, come on.

Cost. I suffer for the truth, sir; for true it is, I was taken with Jaquenetta, and Jaquenetta is a true girl; and, 293 therefore, welcome the sour cup of prosperity! Affliction 294 may one day smile again; and till then, sit thee down, 295 sorrow! [Exeunt.