Love’s Labour’s Lost

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.

Act IV

Scene I

The same.

	Enter the Princess, and her train, a Forester, Boyet, Rosaline, Maria, and Katharine.
Princess	Was that the king, that spurred his horse so hard Against the steep uprising of the hill?
Boyet	I know not; but I think it was not he.
Princess	Whoe’er a’ was, a’ show’d a mounting mind. Well, lords, to-day we shall have our dispatch: On Saturday we will return to France. Then, forester, my friend, where is the bush That we must stand and play the murderer in?
Forester	Hereby, upon the edge of yonder coppice; A stand where you may make the fairest shoot.
Princess	I thank my beauty, I am fair that shoot, And thereupon thou speak’st the fairest shoot.
Forester	Pardon me, madam, for I meant not so.
Princess	What, what? first praise me and again say no? O short-lived pride! Not fair? alack for woe!
Forester	Yes, madam, fair.
Princess	Nay, never paint me now: Where fair is not, praise cannot mend the brow. Here, good my glass, take this for telling true: Fair payment for foul words is more than due.
Forester	Nothing but fair is that which you inherit.
Princess	See see, my beauty will be saved by merit! O heresy in fair, fit for these days! A giving hand, though foul, shall have fair praise. But come, the bow: now mercy goes to kill, And shooting well is then accounted ill. Thus will I save my credit in the shoot: Not wounding, pity would not let me do’t; If wounding, then it was to show my skill, That more for praise than purpose meant to kill. And out of question so it is sometimes, Glory grows guilty of detested crimes, When, for fame’s sake, for praise, an outward part, We bend to that the working of the heart; As I for praise alone now seek to spill The poor deer’s blood, that my heart means no ill.
Boyet	Do not curst wives hold that self-sovereignty Only for praise sake, when they strive to be Lords o’er their lords?
Princess	Only for praise: and praise we may afford To any lady that subdues a lord.
Boyet	Here comes a member of the commonwealth.
	Enter Costard.
Costard	God dig-you-den all! Pray you, which is the head lady?
Princess	Thou shalt know her, fellow, by the rest that have no heads.
Costard	Which is the greatest lady, the highest?
Princess	The thickest and the tallest.
Costard	The thickest and the tallest! it is so; truth is truth. An your waist, mistress, were as slender as my wit, One o’ these maids’ girdles for your waist should be fit. Are not you the chief woman? you are the thickest here.
Princess	What’s your will, sir? what’s your will?
Costard	I have a letter from Monsieur Biron to one Lady Rosaline.
Princess	O, thy letter, thy letter! he’s a good friend of mine: Stand aside, good bearer. Boyet, you can carve; Break up this capon.
Boyet	I am bound to serve. This letter is mistook, it importeth none here; It is writ to Jaquenetta.
Princess	We will read it, I swear. Break the neck of the wax, and every one give ear.
Boyet	Reads. “By heaven, that thou art fair, is most infallible; true, that thou art beauteous; truth itself, that thou art lovely. More fairer than fair, beautiful than beauteous, truer than truth itself, have commiseration on thy heroical vassal!