Love’s Labour’s Lost

A jest’s prosperity lies in the ear Of him that hears it, never in the tongue Of him that makes it; then if sickly ears, Deaf’d with the clamors of their own dear groans, Will hear your idle scorns, continue then,

A man of sovereign parts, peerless esteem’d, Well fitted in arts, glorious in arms; Nothing becomes him ill that he would well.

A wither’d hermit, fivescore winters worn, Might shake off fifty, looking in her eye: Beauty doth varnish age, as if new born, And gives the crutch the cradle’s infancy. O, ’tis the sun that maketh all things shine!

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.

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 schoolboy’s tongue, Nor never come in vizard to my friend, Nor woo in rhyme, like a blind harper’s song!

And leap for joy, though they are lame with blows: Therefore change favors, and when they repair, Blow like sweet roses in this summer air.

And when Love speaks, the voice of all the gods Make heaven drowsy with the harmony.

And will they so? The gallants shall be task’d: For, ladies, we will every one be mask’d, And not a man of them shall have the grace, Despite of suit, to see a lady’s face.

BER. You must not be so quick. ROS. ’Tis long of you that spur me with such questions. BER. Your wit’s too hot, it speeds too fast, ’twill tire. ROS. Not till it leave the rider in the mire.

Be now as prodigal of all dear grace As Nature was in making graces dear, When she did starve the general world beside And prodigally gave them all to you.

But omne bene, say I, being of an old father’s mind: Many can brook the weather that love not the wind.

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

But to speak that in words which his eye hath disclos’d. I only have made a mouth of his eye, By adding a tongue which I know will not lie.

By heaven, that thou art fair, is most infallible; true, that thou art beauteous; truth itself, that thou art lovely. More fairer than fair, beautiful than beauteous, truer than truth itself, have commiseration on thy heroical vassal!

Dear Princess, were not his requests so far From reason’s yielding, your fair self should make A yielding ’gainst some reason in my breast, And go well satisfied to France again.

Delivers in such apt and gracious words That aged ears play truant at his tales, And younger hearings are quite ravished, So sweet and voluble is his discourse.

Did not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye, ’Gainst whom the world cannot hold argument, Persuade my heart to this false perjury? Vows for thee broke deserve not punishment.

Folly in fools bears not so strong a note As fool’ry in the wise, when wit doth dote, Since all the power thereof it doth apply To prove, by wit, worth in simplicity.

For mine own part, I breathe free breath. I have seen the day of wrong through the little hole of discretion, and I will right myself like a soldier.

For your fair sakes have we neglected time, Play’d foul play with our oaths. Your beauty, ladies, Hath much deformed us, fashioning our humors Even to the opposed end of our intents;

From women’s eyes this doctrine I derive: They sparkle still the right Promethean fire; They are the books, the arts, the academes, That show, contain, and nourish all the world, Else none at all in aught proves excellent.

Gone to her tent. Please it your Majesty Command me any service to her thither?

Good Lord Boyet, my beauty, though but mean, Needs not the painted flourish of your praise: Beauty is bought by judgment of the eye, Not utt’red by base sale of chapmen’s tongues.

HOL. This is not generous, not gentle, not humble. BOYET. A light for Monsieur Judas! It grows dark, he may stumble.

He made her melancholy, sad, and heavy, And so she died. Had she been light, like you, Of such a merry, nimble, stirring spirit, She might ’a’ been a grandam ere she died. And so may you; for a light heart lives long.

He rather means to lodge you in the field, Like one that comes here to besiege his court, Than seek a dispensation for his oath, To let you enter his unpeopled house.

Henceforth my wooing mind shall be express’d In russet yeas and honest kersey noes. And to begin, wench, so God help me law! My love to thee is sound, sans crack or flaw

Here comes Boyet, and mirth is in his face. BOYET. O, I am stabb’d with laughter! Where’s her Grace?

His tongue, all impatient to speak and not see, Did stumble with haste in his eyesight to be; All senses to that sense did make their repair, To feel only looking on fairest of fair:

How I would make him fawn, and beg, and seek, And wait the season, and observe the times, And spend his prodigal wits in bootless rhymes, And shape his service wholly to my device, And make him proud to make me proud that jests! So pair-taunt-like would I o’ersway his state That he should be my fool and I his fate.

How many weary steps Of many weary miles you have o’ergone Are numb’red in the travel of one mile?

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.

I am less proud to hear you tell my worth Than you much willing to be counted wise In spending your wit in the praise of mine.

I am resolved, ’tis but a three years’ fast: The mind shall banquet, though the body pine; Fat paunches have lean pates; and dainty bits Make rich the ribs, but bankrout quite the wits.

I dare not call them fools; but this I think, When they are thirsty, fools would fain have drink.

I profane my lips on thy foot, my eyes on thy picture, and my heart on thy every part.

I saw him at the Duke Alanson’s once, And much too little of that good I saw Is my report to his great worthiness.

If drawing my sword against the humor of affection would deliver me from the reprobate thought of it, I would take Desire prisoner, and ransom him to any French courtier for a new devis’d cur’sy.

If overboldly we have borne ourselves In the converse of breath—your gentleness Was guilty of it. Farewell, worthy lord! A heavy heart bears not a humble tongue. Excuse me so, coming too short of thanks For my great suit so easily obtain’d.

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.

If this austere insociable life Change not your offer made in heat of blood; If frosts and fasts, hard lodging and thin weeds Nip not the gaudy blossoms of your love But that it bear this trial, and last love;

If this thou do deny, let our hands part, Neither intitled in the other’s heart.

If you are arm’d to do, as sworn to do, Subscribe to your deep oaths, and keep it too.

Ill, to example ill, Would from my forehead wipe a perjur’d note: For none offend where all alike do dote.

It is not so. Ask them how many inches Is in one mile: if they have measured many, The measure then of one is eas’ly told.

I’ll give you Aquitaine and all that is his, And you give him for my sake but one loving kiss.

I’ll lay my head to any good man’s hat, These oaths and laws will prove an idle scorn.

I’ll make one in a dance, or so; or I will play On the tabor to the Worthies, and let them dance the hay.

I’ll prove her fair, or talk till doomsday here.

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

LONG. He weeds the corn and still lets grow the weeding. BER. The spring is near when green geese are a-breeding.

MAR. This, and these pearls, to me sent Longaville. The letter is too long by half a mile. PRIN. I think no less. Dost thou not wish in heart The chain were longer and the letter short?

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.

Mean time receive such welcome at my hand As honor (without breach of honor) may Make tender of to thy true worthiness.

Muster your wits, stand in your own defense, Or hide your heads like cowards, and fly hence.

My eyes are then no eyes, nor I Berowne. O, but for my love, day would turn to night!

My lips are no common, though several they be.

Necessity will make us all forsworn Three thousand times within this three years’ space; For every man with his affects is born, Not by might mast’red, but by special grace.

Never durst poet touch a pen to write Until his ink were temp’red with Love’s sighs: O then his lines would ravish savage ears And plant in tyrants mild humility.

Not so, my lord, a twelvemonth and a day I’ll mark no words that smooth-fac’d wooers say.

Nothing but this? Yes, as much love in rhyme As would be cramm’d up in a sheet of paper, Writ a’ both sides the leaf, margent and all, That he was fain to seal on Cupid’s name.

O queen of queens, how far dost thou excel No thought can think, nor tongue of mortal tell.

O, and 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!

O, some authority how to proceed; Some tricks, some quillets, how to cheat the devil.

Of all complexions the cull’d sovereignty Do meet as at a fair in her fair cheek, Where several worthies make one dignity, Where nothing wants that want itself doth seek.

or rather ostentare, to show, as it were, his inclination, after his undressed, unpolished, uneducated, unpruned, untrained, or rather unlettered, or ratherest unconfirmed fashion, to insert again my haud credo for a deer.

O’ my troth, most sweet jests, most incony vulgar wit! When it comes so smoothly off, so obscenely as it were, so fit.

PRIN. It was well done of you to take him at his word. BOYET. I was as willing to grapple as he was to board.

PRIN. Sweet health and fair desires consort your Grace! KING. Thy own wish wish I thee in every place.

PRIN. 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.

ROS. Well, better wits have worn plain statute-caps. But will you hear? The King is my love sworn. PRIN. And quick Berowne hath plighted faith to me. KATH. And Longaville was for my service born. MAR. Dumaine is mine, as sure as bark on tree.

Sir, I do invite you too, you shall not say me nay: pauca verba. Away, the gentles are at their game, and we will to our recreation.

So it is, besieged with sable-colored melancholy, I did commend the black oppressing humor to the most wholesome physic of thy health-giving air;

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.

So sweet a kiss the golden sun gives not To those fresh morning drops upon the rose, As thy eye-beams, when their fresh rays have smote The night of dew that on my cheeks down flows;

Studies my lady? Mistress, look on me, Behold the window of my heart, mine eye, What humble suit attends thy answer there. Impose some service on me for thy love.

Study me how to please the eye indeed By fixing it upon a fairer eye, Who dazzling so, that eye shall be his heed, And give him light that it was blinded by.

Sweet hearts, we shall be rich ere we depart, If fairings come thus plentifully in. A lady wall’d about with diamonds! Look you what I have from the loving King.

Tell him, the daughter of the King of France, On serious business craving quick dispatch, Importunes personal conference with his Grace.

That sport best pleases that doth least know how: Where zeal strives to content, and the contents Dies in the zeal of that which it presents.

The King he is hunting the deer: I am coursing myself. They have pitch’d a toil: I am toiling in a pitch—pitch that defiles—defile!

The extreme parts of time extremely forms All causes to the purpose of his speed, And often, at his very loose, decides That which long process could not arbitrate.

The fourth turn’d on the toe, and down he fell. With that they all did tumble on the ground, With such a zealous laughter, so profound, That in this spleen ridiculous appears, To check their folly, passion’s solemn tears.

The liker you; few taller are so young.

The moon was a month old when Adam was no more, And raught not to five weeks when he came to five-score. Th’ allusion holds in the exchange.

The naked truth of it is, I have no shirt; I go woolward for penance. BOYET. True, and it was enjoin’d him in Rome for want of linen; since when, I’ll be sworn he wore none but a dishclout of Jaquenetta’s, and that ’a wears next his heart for a favor.

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

The sweet war-man is dead and rotten, sweet chucks, beat not the bones of the buried. When he breathed, he was a man. But I will forward with my device.

the time When? About the sixt hour, when beasts most graze, birds best peck, and men sit down to that nourishment which is called supper: so much for the time When.

The tongues of mocking wenches are as keen As is the razor’s edge invisible, Cutting a smaller hair than may be seen; Above the sense of sense, so sensible Seemeth their conference, their conceits have wings Fleeter than arrows, bullets, wind, thought, swifter things.

The world was very guilty of such a ballet some three ages since, but I think now ’tis not to be found; or if it were, it would neither serve for the writing nor the tune.

Their form confounded makes most form in mirth, When great things laboring perish in their birth.

Their purpose is to parley, to court, and dance, And every one his love-feat will advance Unto his several mistress, which they’ll know By favors several which they did bestow.

Their several counsels they unbosom shall To loves mistook, and so be mock’d withal Upon the next occasion that we meet, With visages display’d, to talk and greet.

Then homeward every man attach the hand Of his fair mistress. In the afternoon We will with some strange pastime solace them, Such as the shortness of the time can shape, For revels, dances, masks, and merry hours Forerun fair Love, strewing her way with flowers.

Therefore if you my favor mean to get, A twelvemonth shall you spend, and never rest, But seek the weary beds of people sick.

These are begot in the ventricle of memory, nourish’d in the womb of pia mater, and delivered upon the mellowing of occasion. But the gift is good in those in whom it is acute, and I am thankful for it.

These earthly godfathers of heaven’s lights, That give a name to every fixed star, Have no more profit of their shining nights Than those that walk and wot not what they are. Too much to know is to know nought but fame; And every godfather can give a name.

This fellow pecks up wit as pigeons pease, And utters it again when God doth please. He is wit’s pedlar, and retails his wares At wakes and wassails, meetings, markets, fairs: And we that sell by gross, the Lord doth know, Have not the grace to grace it with such show.

This is the ape of form, monsieur the nice, That when he plays at tables chides the dice In honorable terms; nay, he can sing A mean most meanly, and in ushering Mend him who can. The ladies call him sweet; The stairs as he treads on them kiss his feet.

This is the flow’r that smiles on every one, To show his teeth as white as whale’s bone; And consciences that will not die in debt Pay him the due of honey-tongued Boyet.

This will I send and something else more plain That shall express my true love’s fasting pain.

Thus will I save my credit in the shoot: Not wounding, pity would not let me do’t; If wounding, then it was to show my skill, That more for praise than purpose meant to kill.

Thy eye Jove’s lightning bears, thy voice his dreadful thunder, Which, not to anger bent, is music and sweet fire. Celestial as thou art, O, pardon love this wrong, That sings heaven’s praise with such an earthly tongue.

Very reverent sport truly, and done in the testimony of a good conscience.

Well, she hath one a’ my sonnets already: the clown bore it, the fool sent it, and the lady hath it: sweet clown, sweeter fool, sweetest lady! By the world, I would not care a pin, if the other three were in. Here comes one with a paper, God give him grace to groan!

What peremptory eagle-sighted eye Dares look upon the heaven of her brow, That is not blinded by her majesty?

What plume of feathers is he that indited this letter? What vane? What weathercock? Did you ever hear better?

What! 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!

When spite of cormorant devouring Time, Th’ endeavor of this present breath may buy That honor which shall bate his scythe’s keen edge, And make us heirs of all eternity.

Why, universal plodding poisons up The nimble spirits in the arteries, As motion and long-during action tires The sinowy vigor of the traveller.

Why? All delights are vain, but that most vain Which, with pain purchas’d, doth inherit pain: As, painfully to pore upon a book To seek the light of truth, while truth the while Doth falsely blind the eyesight of his look.

Yet since love’s argument was first on foot, Let not the cloud of sorrow justle it From what it purpos’d; since to wail friends lost Is not by much so wholesome-profitable As to rejoice at friends but newly found.

You will the sooner, that I were away, For you’ll prove perjur’d if you make me stay.

Your own good thoughts excuse me, and farewell. Tomorrow shall we visit you again.

Your reasons at dinner have been sharp and sententious: pleasant without scurrility, witty without affection, audacious without impudency, learned without opinion, and strange without heresy.

Your wits 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.