Love's Labour's Lost E-Book

William Shakespeare

• Herausgeber: Phoemixx Classics Ebooks
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Seitenzahl: 116

Beschreibung

Love's Labour's Lost William Shakespeare - Love's Labour's Lost is one of William Shakespeare's early comedies, believed to have been written in the mid-1590s, and first published in 1598. The play opens with the King of Navarre and three noble companions, Berowne, Dumaine, and Longaville, taking an oath to devote themselves to three years of study, promising not to give in to the company of women — Berowne somewhat more hesitantly than the others.

Leseprobe

William Shakespeare

Love's Labour's Lost

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Dramatis Personae (Persons Represented)

FERDINAND, King of Navarre

BEROWNE, Lord attending on the King

LONGAVILLE, Lord attending on the King

DUMAINE, Lord attending on the King

BOYET, Lord attending on the Princess of France

MARCADE, Lord attending on the Princess of France

DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO, a fantastical Spaniard

SIR NATHANIEL, a Curate

HOLOFERNES, a Schoolmaster

DULL, a Constable

COSTARD, a Clown

MOTH, Page to Armado

A FORESTER

THE PRINCESS OF FRANCE

ROSALINE, Lady attending on the Princess

MARIA, Lady attending on the Princess

KATHARINE, Lady attending on the Princess

JAQUENETTA, a country wench

Officers and Others, Attendants on the King and Princess.

SCENE: Navarre

ACT 1

Scene 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 tombsAnd then grace us in the disgrace of death;When, spite of cormorant devouring Time,The endeavor of this present breath may buyThat honour which shall bate his scythe's keen edgeAnd make us heirs of all eternity.Therefore, brave conquerors,--for so you are,That war against your own affectionsAnd 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 meMy fellow-scholars, and to keep those statutesThat are recorded in this schedule here:Your oaths are pass'd; and now subscribe your names,That his own hand may strike his honour downThat 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:Fat paunches have lean pates, and dainty bitsMake rich the ribs, but bankrupt quite the wits.

DUMAIN

My loving lord, Dumain is mortified:The grosser manner of these world's delightsHe 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 foodAnd 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 nightAnd 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 graceAnd 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 quiteAnd 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 bookTo seek the light of truth; while truth the whileDoth 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 indeedBy fixing it upon a fairer eye,Who dazzling so, that eye shall be his heedAnd give him light that it was blinded by.Study is like the heaven's glorious sunThat will not be deep-search'd with saucy looks:Small have continual plodders ever wonSave base authority from others' booksThese earthly godfathers of heaven's lightsThat give a name to every fixed starHave no more profit of their shining nightsThan 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!

LONGAVILLE

He weeds the corn and still lets grow the weeding.

BIRON

The spring is near when green geese are a-breeding.

DUMAIN

How follows that?

BIRON

Fit in his place and time.

DUMAIN

In reason nothing.

BIRON

Something then in rhyme.

FERDINAND

Biron is like an envious sneaping frost,That bites the first-born infants of the spring.

BIRON

Well, say I am; why should proud summer boastBefore the birds have any cause to sing?Why should I joy in any abortive birth?At Christmas I no more desire a roseThan wish a snow in May's new-fangled mirth;But like of each thing that in season grows.So you, to study now it is too late,Climb o'er the house to unlock the little gate.

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 moreThan for that angel knowledge you can say,Yet confident I'll keep what I have sworeAnd 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 amile 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 womanwithin the term of three years, he shall endure suchpublic shame as the rest of the court can possibly devise.'This article, my liege, yourself must break;For well you know here comes in embassyThe French king's daughter with yourself to speak--A maid of grace and complete majesty--About surrender up of AquitaineTo her decrepit, sick and bedrid father:Therefore this article is made in vain,Or vainly comes the admired princess hither.

FERDINAND

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

BIRON

So study evermore is overshot:While it doth study to have what it wouldIt 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.

FERDINAND

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

BIRON

Necessity will make us all forswornThree thousand times within this three years' space;For every man with his affects is born,Not by might master'd but by special grace: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 degreeStands 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 hauntedWith 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 tongueDoth ravish like enchanting harmony;A man of complements, whom right and wrongHave chose as umpire of their mutiny:This child of fancy, that Armado hight,For interim to our studies shall relateIn high-born words the worth of many a knightFrom 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 lieAnd I will use him for my minstrelsy.

BIRON

Armado is a most illustrious wight,A man of fire-new words, fashion's own knight.

LONGAVILLE

Costard the swain and he shall be our sport;And so to study, three years is but short.

Enter DULL with a letter, and COSTARD

DULL

Which is the duke's own person?

BIRON

This, fellow: what wouldst?

DULL

I myself reprehend his own person, for I am hisgrace's tharborough: but I would see his own personin flesh and blood.

BIRON

This is he.

DULL

Signior Arme--Arme--commends you. There's villanyabroad: this letter will tell you more.

COSTARD

Sir, the contempts thereof are as touching me.

FERDINAND

A letter from the magnificent Armado.

BIRON

How low soever the matter, I hope in God for high words.

LONGAVILLE

A high hope for a low heaven: God grant us patience!

BIRON

To hear? or forbear laughing?

LONGAVILLE

To hear meekly, sir, and to laugh moderately; or toforbear both.

BIRON

Well, sir, be it as the style shall give us cause toclimb in the merriness.

COSTARD

The matter is to me, sir, as concerning Jaquenetta.The manner of it is, I was taken with the manner.

BIRON

In what manner?

COSTARD

In manner and form following, sir; all those three:I was seen with her in the manor-house, sitting withher upon the form, and taken following her into thepark; which, put together, is in manner and formfollowing. Now, sir, for the manner,--it is themanner of a man to speak to a woman: for the form,--in some form.

BIRON

For the following, sir?

COSTARD

As it shall follow in my correction: and God defendthe right!

FERDINAND

Will you hear this letter with attention?

BIRON

As we would hear an oracle.

COSTARD

Such is the simplicity of man to hearken after the flesh.

FERDINAND

[Reads] 'Great deputy, the welkin's vicegerent andsole dominator of Navarre, my soul's earth's god,and body's fostering patron.'

COSTARD

Not a word of Costard yet.

FERDINAND

[Reads] 'So it is,'--

COSTARD

It may be so: but if he say it is so, he is, intelling true, but so.

FERDINAND

Peace!

COSTARD

Be to me and every man that dares not fight!

FERDINAND

No words!

COSTARD

Of other men's secrets, I beseech you.

FERDINAND

[Reads] 'So it is, besieged with sable-colouredmelancholy, I did commend the black-oppressing humourto the most wholesome physic of thy health-givingair; and, as I am a gentleman, betook myself towalk. The time when. About the sixth hour; whenbeasts most graze, birds best peck, and men sit downto that nourishment which is called supper: so muchfor the time when. Now for the ground which; which,I mean, I walked upon: it is y-cleped thy park. Thenfor the place where; where, I mean, I did encounterthat obscene and preposterous event, that drawethfrom my snow-white pen the ebon-coloured ink, whichhere thou viewest, beholdest, surveyest, or seest;but to the place where; it standeth north-north-eastand by east from the west corner of thy curious-knotted garden: there did I see that low-spiritedswain, that base minnow of thy mirth,'--

COSTARD

Me?

FERDINAND

[Reads] 'that unlettered small-knowing soul,'--

COSTARD

Me?

FERDINAND

[Reads] 'that shallow vassal,'--

COSTARD

Still me?

FERDINAND

[Reads] 'which, as I remember, hight Costard,'--

COSTARD

O, me!

FERDINAND

[Reads] 'sorted and consorted, contrary to thyestablished proclaimed edict and continent canon,which with,--O, with--but with this I passion to saywherewith,--

COSTARD

With a wench.

FERDINAND

[Reads] 'with a child of our grandmother Eve, afemale; or, for thy more sweet understanding, awoman. Him I, as my ever-esteemed duty pricks me on,have sent to thee, to receive the meed ofpunishment, by thy sweet grace's officer, AnthonyDull; a man of good repute, carriage, bearing, andestimation.'

DULL

'Me, an't shall please you; I am Anthony Dull.

FERDINAND

[Reads] 'For Jaquenetta,--so is the weaker vesselcalled which I apprehended with the aforesaidswain,--I keep her as a vessel of the law's fury;and shall, at the least of thy sweet notice, bringher to trial. Thine, in all compliments of devotedand heart-burning heat of duty.DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO.'

BIRON

This is not so well as I looked for, but the bestthat ever I heard.

FERDINAND

Ay, the best for the worst. But, sirrah, what sayyou to this?

COSTARD

Sir, I confess the wench.

FERDINAND

Did you hear the proclamation?

COSTARD

I do confess much of the hearing it but little ofthe marking of it.

FERDINAND

It was proclaimed a year's imprisonment, to be takenwith a wench.

COSTARD

I was taken with none, sir: I was taken with a damsel.

FERDINAND

Well, it was proclaimed 'damsel.'

COSTARD

This was no damsel, neither, sir; she was a virgin.

FERDINAND