Love’s Labour Lost | Act 1.1

The king of Navarre’s park.

[Enter FERDINAND king of Navarre,
BIRON, LONGAVILLE and DUMAIN]

FERDINAND
Let fame, that all hunt after in their lives,
Live register’d upon our brazen tombs
And then grace us in the disgrace of death;
When, spite of cormorant devouring Time,
The endeavor of this present breath may buy
That honour which shall bate his scythe’s keen edge
And make us heirs of all eternity.
Therefore, brave conquerors,–for so you are,
That war against your own affections
And the huge army of the world’s desires,–
Our late edict shall strongly stand in force:
Navarre shall be the wonder of the world;
Our court shall be a little Academe,


Still and contemplative in living art.
You three, Biron, Dumain, and Longaville,
Have sworn for three years’ term to live with me
My fellow-scholars, and to keep those statutes
That are recorded in this schedule here:
Your oaths are pass’d; and now subscribe your names,
That his own hand may strike his honour down
That violates the smallest branch herein:
If you are arm’d to do as sworn to do,
Subscribe to your deep oaths, and keep it too.

LONGAVILLE     I am resolved; ’tis but a three years’ fast:
The mind shall banquet, though the body pine:

DUMAIN      My loving lord, Dumain is mortified:
The grosser manner of these world’s delights
He throws upon the gross world’s baser slaves:
To love, to wealth, to pomp, I pine and die;
With all these living in philosophy.

BIRON      I can but say their protestation over;
So much, dear liege, I have already sworn,
That is, to live and study here three years.
But there are other strict observances;
As, not to see a woman in that term,
Which I hope well is not enrolled there;
And one day in a week to touch no food
And but one meal on every day beside,
The which I hope is not enrolled there;
And then, to sleep but three hours in the night,
And not be seen to wink of all the day–
When I was wont to think no harm all night
And make a dark night too of half the day–
Which I hope well is not enrolled there:
O, these are barren tasks, too hard to keep,
Not to see ladies, study, fast, not sleep!

FERDINAND      Your oath is pass’d to pass away from these.

BIRON      Let me say no, my liege, an if you please:
I only swore to study with your grace
And stay here in your court for three years’ space.

LONGAVILLE      You swore to that, Biron, and to the rest.

BIRON     By yea and nay, sir, then I swore in jest.
What is the end of study? let me know.

FERDINAND
    Why, that to know, which else we should not know.

BIRON
    Things hid and barr’d, you mean, from common sense?

FERDINAND     Ay, that is study’s godlike recompense.

BIRON      Come on, then; I will swear to study so,
To know the thing I am forbid to know:
As thus,–to study where I well may dine,
When I to feast expressly am forbid;
Or study where to meet some mistress fine,
When mistresses from common sense are hid;
Or, having sworn too hard a keeping oath,
Study to break it and not break my troth.
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.

FERDINAND      These be the stops that hinder study quite
And train our intellects to vain delight.

BIRON      Why, all delights are vain; but that most vain,
Which with pain purchased 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:
Light seeking light doth light of light beguile:
So, ere you find where light in darkness lies,
Your light grows dark by losing of your eyes.
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.
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.

FERDINAND      How well he’s read, to reason against reading!

DUMAIN      Proceeded well, to stop all good proceeding!

FERDINAND      Well, sit you out: go home, Biron: adieu.

BIRON      No, my good lord; I have sworn to stay with you:
And though I have for barbarism spoke more
Than for that angel knowledge you can say,
Yet confident I’ll keep what I have swore
And bide the penance of each three years’ day.
Give me the paper; let me read the same;
And to the strict’st decrees I’ll write my name.

FERDINAND
    How well this yielding rescues thee from shame!

BIRON     [Reads] ‘Item, That no woman shall come within a
mile of my court:’ Hath this been proclaimed?

LONGAVILLE     Four days ago.

BIRON     Let’s see the penalty.

[Reads]

‘On pain of losing her tongue.’ Who devised this penalty?

LONGAVILLE     Marry, that did I.

BIRON      Sweet lord, and why?

LONGAVILLE     To fright them hence with that dread penalty.

BIRON      A dangerous law against gentility!

[Reads]

‘Item, If any man be seen to talk with a woman
within the term of three years, he shall endure such
public shame as the rest of the court can possibly devise.’
This article, my liege, yourself must break;
For well you know here comes in embassy
The French king’s daughter with yourself to speak–
A maid of grace and complete majesty–
About surrender up of Aquitaine
To her decrepit, sick and bedrid father:

FERDINAND
      What say you, lords? Why, this was quite forgot.

BIRON     So study evermore is overshot..

FERDINAND      We must of force dispense with this decree;
She must lie here on mere necessity.

BIRON      Necessity will make us all forsworn
Three thousand times within this three years’ space;
If I break faith, this word shall speak for me;
I am forsworn on ‘mere necessity.’
So to the laws at large I write my name:

[Subscribes]

And he that breaks them in the least degree
Stands in attainder of eternal shame:
Suggestions are to other as to me;
But I believe, although I seem so loath,
I am the last that will last keep his oath.
But is there no quick recreation granted?

FERDINAND      Ay, that there is. Our court, you know, is haunted
With a refined traveller of Spain;
A man in all the world’s new fashion planted,
That hath a mint of phrases in his brain;
One whom the music of his own vain tongue
Doth ravish like enchanting harmony;
A man of complements, whom right and wrong
Have chose as umpire of their mutiny:
This child of fancy, that Armado hight,
For interim to our studies shall relate
In high-born words the worth of many a knight
From tawny Spain lost in the world’s debate.
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.

 

Sitemap Scenes | Act 1.2


Playlist Love’s labour Lost | Dramatis Personea | Plays & Info


Updated: May 19, 2021 — 11:49 am