Home
This site uses cookies
log out

Love’s Labour’s Lost: Act IV, Scene 1

Sign in with Google to add your annotations.

Love’s Labour’s Lost
Act IV, Scene 1

Scene 1

The King of Navarre’s park.

  1. Enter the Princess, a Forester, her Ladies (Rosaline, Maria,
  2. Katherine), and her Lords, among them Boyet.

Princess

1 - 2
  1. Was that the King that spurr’d his horse so hard
  2. Against the steep-up rising of the hill?

Forester

3
  1. I know not, but I think it was not he.

Princess

4 - 8
  1. Whoe’er ’a was, ’a show’d a mounting mind.
  2. Well, lords, today we shall have our dispatch;
  3. On Saturday we will return to France.
  4. Then, forester, my friend, where is the bush
  5. That we must stand and play the murderer in?

Forester

9 - 10
  1. Hereby, upon the edge of yonder coppice,
  2. A stand where you may make the fairest shoot.

Princess

11 - 12
  1. I thank my beauty, I am fair that shoot,
  2. And thereupon thou speak’st the fairest shoot.

Forester

13
  1. Pardon me, madam, for I meant not so.

Princess

14 - 15
  1. What, what? First praise me, and again say no?
  2. O short-liv’d pride! Not fair? Alack for woe!

Forester

16
  1. Yes, madam, fair.

Princess

17 - 20
  1.                   Nay, never paint me now;
  2. Where fair is not, praise cannot mend the brow.
  3. Here (good my glass), take this for telling true:
  4. Giving him money.
  5. Fair payment for foul words is more than due.

Forester

21
  1. Nothing but fair is that which you inherit.

Princess

22 - 36
  1. See, see, my beauty will be sav’d by merit.
  2. O heresy in fair, fit for these days!
  3. A giving hand, though foul, shall have fair praise.
  4. But come, the bow: now mercy goes to kill,
  5. And shooting well is then accounted ill.
  6. Thus will I save my credit in the shoot:
  7. Not wounding, pity would not let me do’t;
  8. If wounding, then it was to show my skill,
  9. That more for praise than purpose meant to kill.
  10. And out of question so it is sometimes:
  11. Glory grows guilty of detested crimes,
  12. When for fame’s sake, for praise, an outward part,
  13. We bend to that the working of the heart;
  14. As I for praise alone now seek to spill
  15. The poor deer’s blood, that my heart means no ill.

Boyet

37 - 39
  1. Do not curst wives hold that self-sovereignty
  2. Only for praise’ sake, when they strive to be
  3. Lords o’er their lords?

Princess

40 - 41
  1. Only for praise—and praise we may afford
  2. To any lady that subdues a lord.
  1. Enter Clown Costard.

Boyet

42
  1. Here comes a member of the commonwealth.

Costard

43
  1. God dig-you-den all! Pray you, which is the head lady?

Princess

44
  1. Thou shalt know her, fellow, by the rest that have no heads.

Costard

45
  1. Which is the greatest lady, the highest?

Princess

46
  1. The thickest and the tallest.

Costard

47 - 50
  1. The thickest and the tallest! It is so, truth is truth.
  2. And your waist, mistress, were as slender as my wit,
  3. One a’ these maids’ girdles for your waist should be fit.
  4. Are not you the chief woman? You are the thickest here.

Princess

51
  1. What’s your will, sir? What’s your will?

Costard

52
  1. I have a letter from Monsieur Berowne to one Lady Rosaline.

Princess

53 - 55
  1. O, thy letter, thy letter! He’s a good friend of mine.
  2. Stand aside, good bearer. Boyet, you can carve,
  3. Break up this capon.
Costume for Ada Rehan as Princess of France

Costume for Ada Rehan as Princess of France

From Augustin Daly's production of Love's Labour's Lost

Edward Hamilton Bell, 1891

Boyet

56 - 58
  1.                      I am bound to serve.
  2. This letter is mistook; it importeth none here.
  3. It is writ to Jaquenetta.

Princess

59 - 60
  1.                           We will read it, I swear.
  2. Break the neck of the wax, and every one give ear.

Boyet

61 - 91
  1. Reads.
  2. “By heaven, that thou art fair, is most infallible; true,
  3. that thou art beauteous; truth itself, that thou art lovely.
  4. More fairer than fair, beautiful than beauteous, truer than
  5. truth itself, have commiseration on thy heroical vassal! The
  6. magnanimous and most illustrate King Cophetua set eye upon
  7. the pernicious and indubitate beggar Zenelophon; and he it
  8. was that might rightly say, Veni, vidi, vici; which to
  9. annothanize in the vulgar—O base and obscure
  10. vulgar!—videlicet, He came, saw, and overcame: he came, one;
  11. saw, two; overcame, three. Who came? The king. Why did he
  12. come? To see. Why did he see? To overcome. To whom came he?
  13. To the beggar. What saw he? The beggar. Who overcame he? The
  14. beggar. The conclusion is victory; on whose side? The
  15. king’s. The captive is enrich’d; on whose side? The
  16. beggar’s. The catastrophe is a nuptial; on whose side? The
  17. king’s; no, on both in one, or one in both. I am the king,
  18. for so stands the comparison; thou the beggar, for so
  19. witnesseth thy lowliness. Shall I command thy love? I may.
  20. Shall I enforce thy love? I could. Shall I entreat thy love?
  21. I will. What shalt thou exchange for rags? Robes; for
  22. tittles? Titles; for thyself? Me. Thus expecting thy reply,
  23. I profane my lips on thy foot, my eyes on thy picture, and
  24. my heart on thy every part. Thine, in the dearest design of
  25. industry,
  26. Don Adriano de Armado.
  27. Thus dost thou hear the Nemean lion roar
  28. ’Gainst thee, thou lamb, that standest as his prey;
  29. Submissive fall his princely feet before,
  30. And he from forage will incline to play.
  31. But if thou strive, poor soul, what art thou then?
  32. Food for his rage, repasture for his den.”

Princess

92 - 93
  1. What plume of feathers is he that indited this letter?
  2. What vane? What weathercock? Did you ever hear better?

Boyet

94
  1. I am much deceived but I remember the style.

Princess

95
  1. Else your memory is bad, going o’er it ere-while.

Boyet

96 - 98
  1. This Armado is a Spaniard that keeps here in court,
  2. A phantasime, a Monarcho, and one that makes sport
  3. To the Prince and his book-mates.

Princess

99 - 100
  1.                                   Thou fellow, a word.
  2. Who gave thee this letter?

Costard

101
  1.                            I told you: my lord.

Princess

102
  1. To whom shouldst thou give it?

Costard

103
  1.                                From my lord to my lady.

Princess

104
  1. From which lord to which lady?

Costard

105 - 106
  1. From my Lord Berowne, a good master of mine,
  2. To a lady of France that he call’d Rosaline.

Princess

107 - 108
  1. Thou hast mistaken his letter. Come, lords, away.
  2. To Rosaline.
  3. Here, sweet, put up this—’twill be thine another day.
  1. Exeunt Princess, Forester and Train.
Frontispiece for Love's Labour's Lost

Frontispiece for Love's Labour's Lost

Isobel Lilian Gloag, 1907

Boyet

109
  1. Who is the shooter? Who is the shooter?

Rosaline

110
  1. Shall I teach you to know?

Boyet

111
  1. Ay, my continent of beauty.

Rosaline

112 - 113
  1.                             Why, she that bears the bow.
  2. Finely put off!

Boyet

114 - 116
  1. My lady goes to kill horns, but if thou marry,
  2. Hang me by the neck if horns that year miscarry.
  3. Finely put on!

Rosaline

117
  1. Well then I am the shooter.

Boyet

118
  1.                             And who is your deer?

Rosaline

119 - 120
  1. If we choose by the horns, yourself come not near.
  2. Finely put on indeed!

Maria

121
  1. You still wrangle with her, Boyet, and she strikes at the brow.

Boyet

122
  1. But she herself is hit lower. Have I hit her now?

Rosaline

123
  1. Shall I come upon thee with an old saying, that was a man when King Pippen of France was a little boy, as touching the hit it?

Boyet

124
  1. So I may answer thee with one as old, that was a woman when Queen Guinover of Britain was a little wench, as touching the hit it.

Rosaline

125 - 126
  1. Sings.
  2. Thou canst not hit it, hit it, hit it,
  3. Thou canst not hit it, my good man.

Boyet

127 - 128
  1. Sings.
  2. And I cannot, cannot, cannot,
  3. And I cannot, another can.
  1. Exeunt Rosaline and Katherine.

Costard

129
  1. By my troth, most pleasant. How both did fit it!

Maria

130
  1. A mark marvelous well shot, for they both did hit it.

Boyet

131 - 132
  1. A mark! O, mark but that mark! A mark, says my lady!
  2. Let the mark have a prick in’t, to mete at, if it may be.

Maria

133
  1. Wide a’ the bow-hand! I’ faith, your hand is out.

Costard

134
  1. Indeed ’a must shoot nearer, or he’ll ne’er hit the clout.

Boyet

135
  1. And if my hand be out, then belike your hand is in.

Costard

136
  1. Then will she get the upshoot by cleaving the pin.

Maria

137
  1. Come, come, you talk greasily, your lips grow foul.

Costard

138
  1. She’s too hard for you at pricks, sir, challenge her to bowl.

Boyet

139
  1. I fear too much rubbing. Good night, my good owl.
  1. Exeunt Boyet and Maria.

Costard

140 - 149
  1. By my soul, a swain, a most simple clown!
  2. Lord, Lord, how the ladies and I have put him down!
  3. O’ my troth, most sweet jests, most incony vulgar wit!
  4. When it comes so smoothly off, so obscenely as it were, so fit.
  5. Armado a’ th’ one side—O, a most dainty man!
  6. To see him walk before a lady and to bear her fan!
  7. To see him kiss his hand! And how most sweetly ’a will swear!
  8. And his page a’ t’ other side, that handful of wit!
  9. Ah, heavens, it is a most pathetical nit!
  10. Shout within.
  11. Sola, sola!
  1. Exit.
Princess of France

Princess of France

1836

© 2021 Unotate.com • contact • privacy policy • Creative Commons text from PlayShakespeare.com • All illustrations are public domain or Creative Commons • Header illustration by Byam Shaw