LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST. LITERARY AND HISTORICAL NOTICE. SHAKSPEARE'S first draught of this trifling play, (which all the editors have concurred in censuring, and som have rejected as unworthy of its author) was written in or before 1594, and some additions were probably made it between that year and 1597, when it was exhibited before Queen Elizabeth. Like the Taming of the Shrew, it was undoubtedly one of his earliest essays to dramatic writing; as the frequent rhymes, the imperfect versification, the artless and desultory dialogue, and the irregularity of the composition, sufficiently prove. The fable does not seem to be a work entirely of invention; and perhaps owes its birth to some novel which has yet to be discovered. The character of Armado bears some resemblance to Don Quixotte, but the play is older than the work of Cervantes; of Holofernes, another singular character, there are some traces in a masque of Sir Philip Sidney, presented before Queen Elizabeth at Wansted. Dr. Johnson says, that in this play "there are many passages mean, childish, and vulgar; and some which ought not to have been exhibited, as we are told they were, to a maiden Queen. But there are scattered through the whole many sparks of genius; nor is there any play that has more evident marks of the hand of Shakspeare." SCENE 1.-Navarre.-A Park, with a Palace That his own hand may strike his honour down, in it. Enter the KING, BIRON, LONGAVILLE, and DUMAIN. King. Let fame, that all hunt after in their Live register'd upon our brazen tombs, And make us heirs of all eternity. My fellow-scholars, and to keep those statutes That violates the smallest branch berein: fast; The mind shall banquet, though the body pine: wits. Dum. My loving lord, Dumain is mortified; Biron. I can but say their protestation over, (When I was wont to think no harm all night, King. 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, rest Biron. By yea and nay, Sir, then I swore in jest. What is the end of study? let me know. King. Why, that to know, which else we should not know. Biron. Things hid and barr'd, you mean, from common sense? King. Ay, that is study's god-like 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 diue, 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 bard-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. King. 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 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: Light, seeking light, doth light of light beguile : So, ere you find where light in darkness lies, By fixing it upon a fairer eye; That will not be deep-search'd with saucy looks; Small have continual plodders ever won, are. Too much to know, is, to know nought but fame; And every godfather can give a name. King. How well he's read, to reason against reading! Dum. Proceeded well, to stop all good proceeding! Long. He weeds the corn, and still lets grow the weeding. Biron. The spring is near when green geese are a breeding. Dum. How follows that? Biron. Fit in his place and time. That bites the first-born infants of the spring. Biron. Well, say I am; why should proud summer boast, Before the birds bave any cause to sing? • Dishonestly, treacherously. Nipping. Why should I joy in an abortive birth? But like of each thing, that in season grows. 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. King. How well this yielding rescues thee from shame! Biron. [Reads.] Item, That no woman shall come within a mile of my court.And hath this been proclaim'd? Long. Four days ago. Biron. Let's see the penalty. [Reads.]-On pain of losing her tongue.Who devis'd this? Long. Marry, that did 1. Biron. Sweet lord, and why? Long. 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 res. 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 Aquitain To her decrepit, sick, and bed-rid father; Therefore this article is made in vain, Or vainly comes the admired princess hither. King, What say you, lords? why, this was quite forgot. Biron. 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. King. 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 : For every man with his affects is born; Not by might master'd, but by special If I break faith, this word shall speak for me, [Subscribes. And he, that breaks them in the least degree, Stands in attainder of eternal shame : Suggestions are to others, 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? King. Ay, that there is our court, you know, is baunted With a refined traveller of Spain; A man in all the world's new fashion planted, In high-born words, the worth of many a knight | curious-knotted garden: There did I see From tawny Spain, lost in the world's de- that low spirited swain, that base minnow of bate. How you delight, my lords, I know not, I; Biron. Armado is a most illustrious wight, Dull. Signior Arme-Arme-commends you. There's villany abroad; this letter will tell you more. thy mirth. Cost. Me. King. -with a child of our grandmother Eve, a female; or, for thy more sweet understanding, a woman. Him I (as my eversteemed duty pricks me on) have sent to thee, to receive the meed of punishment, by thy Cost. Sir, the contempts thereof are as touch-sweet grace's officer, Antony Dull; a man of ing me. good repute, carriage, bearing, and estimation. Dull. Me, an't shall please you; I am Antony Dull. King. A letter from the magnificent Armado. Biron. How low soever the matter, I hope in God for high words. Long. A high hope for a low having: God grant us patience! Biron. To hear? or forbear bearing? Long. To hear meekly, Sir, and to laugh moderately; or to forbear both. Biron. Well, Sir, be it as the style shall give us cause to climb to the merriness. Cost. The matter is to me, Sir, as concerning Jaquenetta. The manner of it is, I was taken with the manner.t Biron. In what manner? King. For Jaquenetta, (so is the weaker vessel culled, which I apprehend with the aforesaid swain.) I keep her as a vessel of thy law's fury: and shall at the least of thy sweet notice bring her to trial. Thine, in all compliments of devoted and heart-burning heat of duty. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO. Biron. This is not so well as I looked for, but the best that ever I heard. King. Ay, the best for the worst. But, sirrab, what say you to this? Cost. In manner and form following, Sir; all Cost. Sir, I confess the wench. Biron. For the following, Sir; King. Will you hear this letter with attention? King. [Reads.] Great deputy, the welkin's vicegerent, and sole dominator of Navarre, my soul's earth's God, and body's fostering patron, Cost. Not a word of Costard yet. Cost. It may be so: but if he say it is so, he is, in telling true, but so, so. King. Peace. Cost. -be to me, and every man that dares not fight! King. No words. King. It was proclaimed a year's imprisonment, to be taken with a wench. Cost. I was taken with none, Sir, I was taken with a damosel. King. Well it was proclaimed damosel. Cost. This was no damosel neither, Sir; she was a virgin. King. It is so varied too; for it was proclaimed, virgin. Cost. If it were, I deny her virginity; 1 was taken with a maid. King. This maid will not serve your turn, Sir. King. And Don Armado shall be your keeper. Which each to other hath so strongly Sworn. [Exeunt KING, LONGAVILLE, and DUMAIN. Biron. I'll lay my head to any good man's bat, [scorn. These oaths and laws will prove au idle Sirrah, come on. Cost. I suffer for the truth, Sir: for true it is, I was taken with Jaquenetta, and Jaquenetta is a true girl; and therefore, Welcome the sour cup of prosperity! Affliction may one day smile again, and till then, Sit thee down, sorrow! [Exeunt. Cost.-of other men's secrets, I beseech you. King. So it is, besieged with sable-coloured melancholy, I did commend the black-oppressing humour to the most wholesome physic of thy health-giving air; and, as I am a gentleman, betook myself to walk. The time when? About the sixth 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: Now for the ground which; which, I mean, I walked upon: it is ycleped thy park. Then SCENE II.-Another part of the same.—Arfor the place where; where, I mean, I did encounter that obscene and most preposterous event, that draweth from my snow white pen the ebon-coloured ink, which here thou viewest, beholdest, surveyest, or seest: But, to the place where,-It standeth north-north-east and by east from the west corner of thy I. e. Third-Borough, a peace-officer. t In the fact. MADO'S House. Enter ARMADO and MOTH. Arm. Boy what sign is it, when a man of great spirit grows melancholy? Moth. A great sign, Sir, that he will look sad. Arm. Why, sadness is one and the self-same thing, dear imp. Moth. No, no; O lord, Sir, no. |