 |
 |
 |
Contents Page
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
Dramatis Personae
|
 |
 |
/ Home / Library / Complete Shakespeare / Love's Labour's Lost / Act III Scene I
Printable
version of this page
Love's Labour's Lost: Act 3 Scene 1
Scene I The same.
- [Enter DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO and MOTH]
- DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO
- Warble, child; make passionate my sense of hearing.
- MOTH
- Concolinel.
- [Singing]
- DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO
- Sweet air! Go, tenderness of years; take this key,
- give enlargement to the swain, bring him festinately
- hither: I must employ him in a letter to my love.
- MOTH
- Master, will you win your love with a French brawl?
- DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO
- How meanest thou? brawling in French?
- MOTH
- No, my complete master: but to jig off a tune at
- the tongue's end, canary to it with your feet, humour
- it with turning up your eyelids, sigh a note and
- sing a note, sometime through the throat, as if you
- swallowed love with singing love, sometime through
- the nose, as if you snuffed up love by smelling
- love; with your hat penthouse-like o'er the 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 long in one tune, but a snip and away.
- These are complements, these are humours; these
- betray nice wenches, that would be betrayed without
- these; and make them men of note--do you note
- me?--that most are affected to these.
- DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO
- How hast thou purchased this experience?
- MOTH
- By my penny of observation.
- DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO
- But O,--but O,--
- MOTH
- 'The hobby-horse is forgot.'
- DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO
- 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 love?
- DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO
- Almost I had.
- MOTH
- Negligent student! learn her by heart.
- DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO
- By heart and in heart, boy.
- MOTH
- And out of heart, master: all those three I will prove.
- DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO
- What wilt thou prove?
- MOTH
- A man, if I live; and this, by, in, and without, upon
- the instant: by heart you love her, because your
- heart cannot come by her; in heart you love her,
- because your heart is in love with her; and out of
- heart you love her, being out of heart that you
- cannot enjoy her.
- DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO
- I am all these three.
- MOTH
- And three times as much more, and yet nothing at
- all.
- DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO
- Fetch hither the swain: he must carry me a letter.
- MOTH
- A message well sympathized; a horse to be ambassador
- for an ass.
- DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO
- Ha, ha! what sayest thou?
- MOTH
- Marry, sir, you must send the ass upon the horse,
- for he is very slow-gaited. But I go.
- DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO
- The way is but short: away!
- MOTH
- As swift as lead, sir.
- DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO
- The meaning, pretty ingenious?
- Is not lead a metal heavy, dull, and slow?
- MOTH
- Minime, honest master; or rather, master, no.
- DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO
- I say lead is slow.
- MOTH
- You are too swift, sir, to say so:
- Is that lead slow which is fired from a gun?
- DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO
- Sweet smoke of rhetoric!
- He reputes me a cannon; and the bullet, that's he:
- I shoot thee at the swain.
- MOTH
- Thump then and I flee.
- [Exit]
- DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO
- A most acute juvenal; voluble and free of grace!
- By thy favour, sweet welkin, I must sigh in thy face:
- Most rude melancholy, valour gives thee place.
- My herald is return'd.
- [Re-enter MOTH with COSTARD]
- MOTH
- A wonder, master! here's a costard broken in a shin.
- DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO
- Some enigma, some riddle: come, thy l'envoy; begin.
- COSTARD
- No enigma, no riddle, no l'envoy; no salve in the
- mail, sir: O, sir, plantain, a plain plantain! no
- l'envoy, no l'envoy; no salve, sir, but a plantain!
- DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO
- By virtue, thou enforcest laughter; thy silly
- thought my spleen; the heaving of my lungs provokes
- me to ridiculous smiling. O, pardon me, my stars!
- Doth the inconsiderate take salve for l'envoy, and
- the word l'envoy for a salve?
- MOTH
- Do the wise think them other? is not l'envoy a salve?
- DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO
- No, page: it is an epilogue or discourse, to make plain
- Some obscure precedence that hath tofore been sain.
- I will example it:
- The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee,
- 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.
- DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO
- The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee,
- Were still at odds, being but three.
- MOTH
- DON
- ADRIANO DE ARMADO
- Until the goose came out of door,
- 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,
- Were still at odds, being but three.
-
- 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?
- COSTARD
- 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.
- DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO
- Come hither, come hither. How did this argument begin?
- MOTH
- By saying that a costard was broken in a shin.
- Then call'd you for the l'envoy.
- COSTARD
- 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.
- DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO
- But tell me; how was there a costard broken in a shin?
- MOTH
- I will tell you sensibly.
- COSTARD
- Thou hast no feeling of it, Moth: I will speak that l'envoy:
- I Costard, running out, that was safely within,
- Fell over the threshold and broke my shin.
- DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO
- We will talk no more of this matter.
- COSTARD
- Till there be more matter in the shin.
- DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO
- Sirrah Costard, I will enfranchise thee.
- COSTARD
- O, marry me to one Frances: I smell some l'envoy,
- some goose, in this.
- DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO
- By my sweet soul, I mean setting thee at liberty,
- enfreedoming thy person; thou wert immured,
- restrained, captivated, bound.
- COSTARD
- True, true; and now you will be my purgation and let me loose.
- DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO
- 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:
- there is remuneration; for the best ward of mine
- honour is rewarding my dependents. Moth, follow.
- [Exit]
- MOTH
- Like the sequel, I. Signior Costard, adieu.
- COSTARD
- My sweet ounce of man's flesh! my incony Jew!
- [Exit MOTH]
- Now will I look to his remuneration. Remuneration!
- O, that's the Latin word for three farthings: three
- farthings--remuneration.--'What's the price of this
- inkle?'--'One penny.'--'No, I'll give you a
- remuneration:' why, it carries it. Remuneration!
- why, it is a fairer name than French crown. I will
- never buy and sell out of this word.
- [Enter BIRON]
- BIRON
- O, my good knave Costard! exceedingly well met.
- COSTARD
- Pray you, sir, how much carnation ribbon may a man
- buy for a remuneration?
- BIRON
- What is a remuneration?
- COSTARD
- Marry, sir, halfpenny farthing.
- BIRON
- Why, then, three-farthing worth of silk.
- COSTARD
- I thank your worship: God be wi' you!
- BIRON
- Stay, slave; I must employ thee:
- As thou wilt win my favour, good my knave,
- Do one thing for me that I shall entreat.
- COSTARD
- When would you have it done, sir?
- BIRON
- This afternoon.
- COSTARD
- Well, I will do it, sir: fare you well.
- BIRON
- Thou knowest not what it is.
- COSTARD
- I shall know, sir, when I have done it.
- BIRON
- Why, villain, thou must know first.
- COSTARD
- I will come to your worship to-morrow morning.
- BIRON
- It must be done this afternoon.
- Hark, slave, it is but this:
- The princess comes to hunt here in the park,
- 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
- This seal'd-up counsel. There's thy guerdon; go.
- [Giving him a shilling]
- COSTARD
- Gardon, O sweet gardon! better than remuneration,
- a'leven-pence farthing better: most sweet gardon! I
- will do it sir, in print. Gardon! Remuneration!
- [Exit]
- BIRON
- 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!
- This whimpled, whining, purblind, wayward boy;
- 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,
- Sole imperator and great general
- Of trotting 'paritors:--O my little heart:--
- And I to be a corporal of his field,
- And wear his colours like a tumbler's hoop!
- What, I! 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!
- Nay, to be perjured, which is worst of all;
- And, among three, to love the worst of all;
- 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:
- 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.
- Well, I will love, write, sigh, pray, sue and groan:
- Some men must love my lady and some Joan.
- [Exit]
|
 |
|
 |