Prescanned Shakespeare.com
presented by Acoustic Learning


Love's Labours Lost

Act III, Scene 1

The same.
 
[Enter ARMADO and MOTH]
 
ARMADO
Warble child, make passionate my sense of hearing.
 
MOTH
Concolinel.
 
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
Will you win your love with a French brawl?
 
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, humor it with turning up your eye: 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 ore 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 humors, these betray nice wenches, that would be betrayed without these, and make them men of note: do you note men that most are affected to these?
 
ARMADO
How hast thou purchased this experience?
 
MOTH
By my penny of observation.
 
ARMADO
But O, but O.
 
MOTH
The hobby-horse is forgot.
 
ARMADO
Callst 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?
 
ARMADO
Almost I had.
 
MOTH
Negligent student, learn her by heart.
 
ARMADO
By heart, and in heart boy.
 
MOTH
And out of heart master: all those three I will prove.
 
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.
 
ARMADO
I am all these three.
 
MOTH
And three times as much more, and yet nothing at all.
 
ARMADO
Fetch hither the swain, he must carry me a letter.
 
MOTH
A message well sympathized, a horse to be ambassador for an ass.
 
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.
 
ARMADO
The way is but short, away.
 
MOTH
As swift as lead sir.
 
ARMADO
The meaning pretty ingenious,
       ,         ,       ,       ,        ,          __
      Is not | lead a | metal | heavy,| dull, and | slow?
 
MOTH
       ,  2     ,        ,           ,       ,       ,
      Minime | honest | master,| or rath|er mast|er no.
 
ARMADO
      ,         ,        __    oo
      I say | lead is | slow.|
 
MOTH
         x            ,          ,       __
      You are too*| swift sir | to say | so.
Is that lead slow which is fired from a gun?
 
ARMADO
Sweet smoke of rhetoric,
             ,           ,          2     ,              ,
      He reputes | me a can|non, and the bul|let that's he:
                ,             ,
      I shoot^thee | at the swain.
 
MOTH
                                     D     D            ,
                                   Thump then,| and I flee.
 
[Exit]
 
ARMADO
          ,      ,     ,    ,     ,    ,          ,        ___
      A most | acu|te juv|enal,| volu|ble and | free of | grace,
       ,        ,       ___     ,       ,         __     ,        __
      By thy | favor | sweet | welkin,| I must | sigh | in thy | face:
       __     __     ,     ,      __ ___     ,           ___
      Most | rude | melan|choly,| val|or | gives thee | place.
My herald is returned.
 
[Enter MOTH with COSTARD]
 
MOTH
A wonder master, here's a costard broken in a shin.
 
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.
 
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?
 
ARMADO
No page, it is an epilogue or discourse to make
Some obscure precedence that hath tofore been sain.
Now I will begin your moral, and do you follow with my l'envoy.
           ,         ,       2     ,       ,
      The fox,| the ape,| and the hum|ble-bee,
             ,          ,     ,            ,
      Were still | at odds,| being | but three.
 
MOTH
         ,          ,           ,         ,
      Until | the goose | came^out | of door,
             ,           ,        ,        ,
      And stayed | the odds | by ad|ding four.
 
MOTH
A good l'envoy, ending in the goose: would you desire more?
 
COSTARD
           ,           ,       2   ,    ,         T       T     T    oo
      The boy | hath sold | him a bar|gain, a | goose, that's flat.|         ??
       ,           ,      ,         __     ,           ,        ___   oo
      Sir, your | penny|worth is | good,| and your | goose be | fat.|
           ,       ,         ,     ,       ,     2       ,         ___    oo
      To sell | a bar|gain well | is as | cunning as | fast and | loose:|
       ,        ,       T    T  T    ___      T   .  T    T     oo
      Let me | see a | fat l'envoy,| Aye | that's a fat goose.|       ??
 
ARMADO
             ,        ,     ,       oo
      Come^hith|er, come | hither:|
           ,          ,     ,       ,
      How did | this arg|ument | begin?
 
MOTH
          ,        ,       ,    ,         ,        ,      __    oo
      By say|ing that | a Cos|tard was | broken | in a | shin.|      (oct with prev two)
Then called you for the l'envoy.
 
COSTARD
        ,         ,    2      ,
      True, and | I for a | plantain:
             ,          ,         ,
      Thus came | your arg|ument in:  (tri with prev)
        ,        ,    ,       ,         ,               ,
      Then the boy's fat l'envoy, the goose that you bought,  ????
              ,         ,
      And he ended the market.  ??
 
ARMADO
But tell me; how was there a costard broken in a shin?
 
MOTH
I will tell you sensibly.
 
COSTARD
             ,         ,       ,        ,
      Thou hast | no feel|ing of | it Moth,
      ,          ,            ,       oo
      I will | speak that | l'envoy.|
         ,        ,        ,    oo         ,        ,        ,
      I Cos|tard run|ning out,|    | that was | safely | within,
        ,     ,          __    __     .    T    T   T
      Fell ov|er the | thresh|hold,| and broke my shin.
 
ARMADO
We will talk no more of this matter.
 
COSTARD
Till there be more matter in the shin.
 
ARMADO
Sirrah Costard, I will enfranchise thee.
 
COSTARD
O, marry me to one Frances, I smell some l'envoy, some goose in this.
 
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.
 
ARMADO
I give thee thy liberty, set thee from durance, and in lieu thereof, impose on thee nothing but this: bear this significant to the country maid Jaquenetta: there is remuneration, for the best ward of mine honor, 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: 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 a French crown. I will never buy and sell out of this word.
 
[Enter BEROWNE]
 
BEROWNE
O my good knave Costard, exceedingly well met.
 
COSTARD
Pray you sir, how much carnation ribbon may a man buy for a remuneration?
 
BEROWNE
What is a remuneration?
 
COSTARD
Marry sir, halfpenny farthing.
 
BEROWNE
O, why then three-farthing worth of silk.
 
COSTARD
I thank your worship, God be with you.
 
BEROWNE
O stay slave, I must employ thee:
           ,          ,        ,        ,         ,
      As thou | wilt win | my fav|or, good | my knave,
          ,      ,          ,        ,             ,
      Do one | thing for | me that | I shall | entreat.
 
COSTARD
When would you have it done sir?
 
BEROWNE
O this afternoon.
 
COSTARD
Well, I will do it sir: fare you well.
 
BEROWNE
O thou knowest not what it is.
 
COSTARD
I shall know sir, when I have done it.
 
BEROWNE
Why villain thou must know first.
 
COSTARD
I will come to your worship tomorrow morning.
 
BEROWNE
           ,         ,          ,      ,
      It must | be done | this aft|ernoon.
       __     ___        ,         ,
      Hark | slave,| it is | but this:  (tetra with prev)
            ,         ,          ,      ,             ,
      The prin|cess comes | to hunt | here in | the park,
           ,         ,       ,     2     ,        ,
      And in | her train | there is a | gentle | lady:
              ,        ,     ,                     ,          ,
      When tongues | speak sweet/ly, then | they name | her name,
           ,     ,           ,          ,         ,
      And Ros|aline | they call | her, ask | for her:
       ,    2        T     T   T          ,        ,
      And to her | white hand see | thou do | commend
              ,         ,          ,            ,        ,
      This sealed-|up couns|el. There's | thy guer|don: go.
 
[Giving him a shilling]
 
COSTARD
Gardon, O sweet gardon, better than remuneration, eleven-pence farthing better: most sweet gardon. I will do it sir in print: gardon, remuneration.
 
[Exit]
 
BEROWNE
      ,        ,       ,         __
      O, and | I for|sooth in | love,
      ,     2         T     T     T    oo
      I that have | been love's whip?|
         ,     ,       ,      ,   2      ,        ,      ->
      A ve|ry bea|dle to | a hum|orous sigh:|| a cri|tic,
       ,    .   T     T    T      ,
      Nay,| a night-watch con|stable.
         ,    ,        ,       ,         ,
      A do|minee|ring pe|dant ore | the boy,
             ,        ,       ,       ,     ,
      Than whom | no mort|al so | magnif|icent.
             ,         ,        ,          ,        ,
      This wimp|led, whin|ing, pur|blind,^way|ward boy,
            ,        ,        x      T     T   T     ->
      This sign|ior jun|ior giant^|dwarf, Don Cu||pid,
       ,     2     ,     T      T    .   T        ,
      Re|gent of love-|rhymes, lord of fold|ed arms,
         2   ,       ,     ,          ,            ,
      The anoin|ted sov|ereign | of sighs | and groans:
        ,             ,      ,         ,       ,
      Liege of | all^loi|terers | and mal|contents:
        T      T    .   T          ,        ,   ,
      Dread prince of plack|ets, king | of cod|pieces,
        ,        ,             ,    ,    ,
      Sole im|pera|tor and / great gen|eral
           ,         ,   2     ,       ,        ,
      Of trot|ting 'par|itors (O | my lit|tle heart)
          ,       ,      ,    2         ,    ,
      And I | to be | a cor|poral of / his field,
            ,         ,        ,       ,           ,
      And wear | his col|ors like | a tum|bler's hoop.
        T   T   T       ,        ,        ,
      What? I love,| I sue,| I seek | a wife,
         ,       ,         ,       ,        ,
      A wom|an that | is like | a Ger|man clock,
        ,         ,        ,      ,         ,
      Still a-|repai|ring: ev|er out | of frame,
           ,      ,    2   ,      ,          ,
      And nev|er go|ing aright,| being | a watch:
           ,        ,            ,         ,          ,
      But be|ing watched,| that it | may still | go right.
       ,             ,    ,                ,         ,
      Nay, to | be perj|ured, which | is worst | of all:
              ,    ,          ,          ,         ,
      And a/mong three,| to love | the worst | of all,
          ,        ,        ,        ,       ,
      A wight|ly want|on, with | a velv|et brow,
            ,      T     T     T       2      ,          ,
      With two | pitch-balls stuck | in her face | for eyes.
       ,               x           ,          ,         ,
      Aye, and | by heaven,| one^that | will do | the deed,
              ,       ,         ,       ,          ,
      Though Arg|us were | her eu|nuch and | her guard.
          ,        ,         ,         ,          ,
      And I | to sigh | for her,| to watch | for her,
           ,         ,        ,       ,        ,
      To pray | for her,| go to:| it is | a plague
            ,       ,        ,         ,       ,
      That Cup|id will | impose | for my | neglect
          ,        ,       ,        ,        ,
      Of his | almigh|ty dread|ful lit|tle might.
        ,    2         T     T      T      T    T     T
      Well, I will | love, write, sigh,| pray, sue, groan,
            ,           ,        ,             ,    ,
      Some^men | must love | my lad|y, and / some Joan.
 
[Exit]

← Previous Scene | Next Scene →


Home