Love's Labour's Lost by William Shakespeare (ebook and pdf reader .txt) 📕

me better: I will give you leave.

KING.
We came to visit you, and purpose now
To lead you to our court; vouchsafe it then.

PRINCESS.
This field shall hold me, and so hold your vow:
Nor God, nor I, delights in perjur'd men.

KING.
Rebuke me not for that which you provoke:
The virtue of your eye must break my oath.

PRINCESS.
You nickname virtue: vice you should have spoke;
For virtue's office never breaks men's troth.
Now by my maiden honour, yet as pure
As the unsullied lily, I protest,
A world of torments though I should endure,
I would not yield to be your house's guest;
So much I hate a breaking cause to be
Of heavenly oaths, vowed with integrity.

KING.
O! you have liv'd in desolation here,
Unseen, unvisited, much to our shame.

PRINCESS.
Not so, my lord; it is not so, I swear;
We have had pastimes here, and pleasant game.
A mess of Russians left us but of late.

KING.
How, madam! Russians?

PRINCESS.
Ay, in truth, my lord;
Trim gallants, full of courtship and of state.

ROSALINE.
Madam, speak true. It is not so, my lord:
My lady, to the manner of the days,
In courtesy gives undeserving praise.
We four indeed confronted were with four
In Russian habit: here they stay'd an hour,
And talk'd apace; and in that hour, my lord,
They did not bless us with one happy word.
I dare not call them fools; but this I think,
When they are thirsty, fools would fain have drink.

BEROWNE.
This jest is dry to me. Fair gentle sweet,
Your wit makes wise things foolish:when we greet,
With eyes best seeing, heaven's fiery eye,
By light we lose light: your capacity
Is of that nature that to your huge store
Wise things seem foolish and rich things but poor.

ROSALINE.
This proves you wise and rich, for in my eye-

BEROWNE.
I am a fool, and full of poverty.

ROSALINE.
But that you take what doth to you belong,
It were a fault to snatch words from my tongue.

BEROWNE.
O! am yours, and all that I possess.

ROSALINE.
All the fool mine?

BEROWNE.
I cannot give you less.

ROSALINE.
Which of the visors was it that you wore?

BEROWNE.
Where? when? what visor? why demand you this?

ROSALINE.
There, then, that visor; that superfluous case
That hid the worse,and show'd the better face.

KING.
We are descried: they'll mock us now downright.

DUMAINE.
Let us confess, and turn it to a jest.

PRINCESS.
Amaz'd, my lord? Why looks your Highness sad?

ROSALINE.
Help! hold his brows! he'll swound. Why look you pale?
Sea-sick, I think, coming from Muscovy.

BEROWNE.
Thus pour the stars down plagues for perjury.
Can any face of brass hold longer out?--
Here stand I, lady; dart thy skill at me;
Bruise me with scorn, confound me with a flout;
Thrust thy sharp wit quite through my ignorance;
Cut me to pieces with thy keen conceit;
And I will wish thee never more to dance,
Nor never more in Russian habit wait.
O! never will I trust to speeches penn'd,
Nor to the motion of a school-boy's tongue,
Nor never come in visor to my friend,
Nor woo in rime, like a blind harper's song.
Taffeta phrases, silken terms precise,
Three-pil'd hyperboles, spruce affectation,
Figures pedantical; these summer-flies
Have blown me full of maggot ostentation:
I do forswear them; and I here protest,
By this white glove,--how white the hand, God knows!--
Henceforth my wooing mind shall be express'd
In russet yeas, and honest kersey noes;
And, to begin, wench,--so God help me, la!--
My love to thee is sound, sans crack or flaw.

ROSALINE.
Sans 'sans,' I pray you.

BEROWNE.
Yet I have a trick
Of the old rage: bear with me, I am sick;
I'll leave it by degrees. Soft! let us see:
Write 'Lord have mercy on us' on those three;
They are infected; in their hearts it lies;
They have the plague, and caught it of your eyes:
These lords are visited; you are not free,
For the Lord's tokens on you do I see.

PRINCESS.
No, they are free that gave these tokens to us.

BEROWNE.
Our states are forfeit; seek not to undo us.

ROSALINE.
It is not so. For how can this be true,
That you stand forfeit, being those that sue?

BEROWNE.
Peace! for I will not have to do with you.

ROSALINE.
Nor shall not, if I do as I intend.

BEROWNE.
Speak for yourselves: my wit is at an end.

KING.
Teach us, sweet madam, for our rude transgression
Some fair excuse.

PRINCESS.
The fairest is confession.
Were not you here but even now, disguis'd?

KING.
Madam, I was.

PRINCESS.
And were you well advis'd?

KING.
I was, fair madam.

PRINCESS.
When you then were here,
What did you whisper in your lady's ear?

KING.
That more than all the world I did respect her.

PRINCESS.
When she shall challenge this, you will reject her.

KING.
Upon mine honour, no.

PRINCESS.
Peace! peace! forbear;
Your oath once broke, you force not to forswear.

KING.
Despise me when I break this oath of mine.

PRINCESS.
I will; and therefore keep it. Rosaline,
What did the Russian whisper in your ear?

ROSALINE.
Madam, he swore that he did hold me dear
As precious eyesight, and did value me
Above this world; adding thereto, moreover,
That he would wed me, or else die my lover.

PRINCESS.
God give thee joy of him! The noble lord
Most honourably doth uphold his word.

KING.
What mean you, madam? by my life, my troth,
I never swore this lady such an oath.

ROSALINE.
By heaven, you did; and, to confirm it plain,
You gave me this: but take it, sir, again.

KING.
My faith and this the princess I did give;
I knew her by this jewel on her sleeve.

PRINCESS.
Pardon me, sir, this jewel did she wear;
And Lord Berowne, I thank him, is my dear.
What, will you have me, or your pearl again?

BEROWNE.
Neither of either; I remit both twain.
I see the trick on't: here was a consent,
Knowing aforehand of our merriment,
To dash it like a Christmas comedy.
Some carry-tale, some please-man, some slight zany,
Some mumble-news, some trencher-knight, some Dick,
That smiles his cheek in years, and knows the trick
To make my lady laugh when she's dispos'd,
Told our intents before; which once disclos'd,
The ladies did change favours, and then we,
Following the signs, woo'd but the sign of she.
Now, to our perjury to add more terror,
We are again forsworn, in will and error.
Much upon this it is: [To BOYET.] and might not you
Forestall our sport, to make us thus untrue?
Do not you know my lady's foot by the squire,
And laugh upon the apple of her eye?
And stand between her back, sir, and the fire,
Holding a trencher, jesting merrily?
You put our page out: go, you are allow'd;
Die when you will, a smock shall be your shroud.
You leer upon me, do you? There's an eye
Wounds like a leaden sword.

BOYET.
Full merrily
Hath this brave manage, this career, been run.

BEROWNE.
Lo! he is tilting straight! Peace! I have done.

[Enter COSTARD

Welcome, pure wit! thou part'st a fair fray.

COSTARD.
O Lord, sir, they would know
Whether the three Worthies shall come in or no?

BEROWNE. What, are there but three?

COSTARD.
No, sir; but it is vara fine,
For every one pursents three.

BEROWNE.
And three times thrice is nine.

COSTARD.
Not so, sir; under correction, sir,
I hope it is not so.
You cannot beg us, sir, I can assure you, sir; we know what we
know:
I hope, sir, three times thrice, sir,--

BEROWNE.
Is not nine.

COSTARD.
Under correction, sir, we know whereuntil it doth amount.

BEROWNE.
By Jove, I always took three threes for nine.

COSTARD.
O Lord, sir! it were pity you should get your living by
reckoning, sir.

BEROWNE.
How much is it?

COSTARD.
O Lord, sir, the parties themselves, the actors, sir, will
show whereuntil it doth amount: for mine own part, I am, as they
say, but to parfect one man in one poor man, Pompion the Great,
sir.

BEROWNE.
Art thou one of the Worthies?

COSTARD.
It pleased them to think me worthy of Pompion the Great;
for mine own part, I know not the degree of the Worthy; but I am
to stand for him.

BEROWNE.
Go, bid them prepare.

COSTARD.
We will turn it finely off, sir; we will take some care.

[Exit COSTARD.]

KING.
Berowne, they will shame us; let them not approach.

BEROWNE.
We are shame-proof, my lord, and 'tis some policy
To have one show worse than the king's and his company.

KING.
I say they shall not come.

PRINCESS.
Nay, my good lord, let me o'errule you now.
That sport best pleases that doth least know how;
Where zeal strives to content, and the contents
Die in the zeal of those which it presents;
Their form confounded makes most form in mirth,
When great things labouring perish in their birth.

BEROWNE.
A right description of our sport, my lord.

[Enter ARMADO.]

ARMADO.
Anointed, I implore so much expense of thy royal sweet
breath as will utter a brace of words.

[Converses apart with the KING, and delivers a paper to him.]

PRINCESS.
Doth this man serve God?

BEROWNE.
Why ask you?

PRINCESS.
He speaks not like a man of God his making.

ARMADO.
That is all one, my fair, sweet, honey monarch; for, I
protest, the schoolmaster is exceeding fantastical; too-too vain,
too-too vain: but we will put it, as they say, to fortuna de la
guerra. I wish you the peace of mind, most royal couplement!

[Exit.]

KING.
Here is like to be a good presence of Worthies. He presents
Hector of Troy; the swain, Pompey the Great; the parish curate,
Alexander; Armado's page, Hercules; the pedant, Judas
Maccabaeus:
And if these four Worthies in their first show thrive,
These four will change habits and present the other five.

BEROWNE.
There is five in the first show.

KING.
You are deceived, 'tis not so.

BEROWNE.
The pedant, the braggart, the hedge-priest, the fool, and
the boy:--
Abate throw at novum, and the whole world again
Cannot pick out five such, take each one in his vein.

KING.
The ship is under sail, and here she comes amain.

[Enter COSTARD, armed for POMPEY.]

COSTARD.
'I Pompey am'--

BEROWNE.
You lie, you are not he.

COSTARD.
'I Pompey am'--

BOYET.
With libbard's head on knee.

BEROWNE.
Well said, old mocker: I must needs be friends with thee.