SCENE I. The same. Loves Labours Lost  Shakespeare homepage  |  Love's Labour's Lost  | Act 3, Scene 1 

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 Enter DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO and MOTH  DON 

 ADRIANO DE ARMADO  Warble, child; make passionate my sense of hearing. 

 MOTH  Concolinel. 



 Singing  DON 

 ADRIANO DE 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  Master, will you win your love with a French brawl? 

 DON 

 ADRIANO DE 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, humour 

 it with turning up your eyelids, 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 o'er 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 humours; these 

 betray nice wenches, that would be betrayed without 

 these; and make them men of note--do you note 

 me?--that most are affected to these. 

 DON 

 ADRIANO DE ARMADO  How hast thou purchased this experience? 

 MOTH  By my penny of observation. 

 DON 

 ADRIANO DE ARMADO  But O,--but O,-- 

 MOTH  'The hobby-horse is forgot.' 

 DON 

 ADRIANO DE ARMADO  Callest 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? 

 DON 

 ADRIANO DE ARMADO  Almost I had. 

 MOTH  Negligent student! learn her by heart. 

 DON 

 ADRIANO DE ARMADO  By heart and in heart, boy. 

 MOTH  And out of heart, master: all those three I will prove. 

 DON 

 ADRIANO DE 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. 

 DON 

 ADRIANO DE ARMADO  I am all these three. 

 MOTH  And three times as much more, and yet nothing at 

 all. 

 DON 

 ADRIANO DE ARMADO  Fetch hither the swain: he must carry me a letter. 

 MOTH  A message well sympathized; a horse to be ambassador 

 for an ass. 

 DON 

 ADRIANO DE 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. 

 DON 

 ADRIANO DE ARMADO  The way is but short: away! 

 MOTH  As swift as lead, sir. 

 DON 

 ADRIANO DE ARMADO  The meaning, pretty ingenious? 

 Is not lead a metal heavy, dull, and slow? 

 MOTH  Minime, honest master; or rather, master, no. 

 DON 

 ADRIANO DE ARMADO  I say lead is slow. 

 MOTH  You are too swift, sir, to say so: 

 Is that lead slow which is fired from a gun? 

 DON 

 ADRIANO DE ARMADO  Sweet smoke of rhetoric! 

 He reputes me a cannon; and the bullet, that's he: 

 I shoot thee at the swain. 

 MOTH  Thump then and I flee. 



 Exit  DON 

 ADRIANO DE ARMADO  A most acute juvenal; voluble and free of grace! 

 By thy favour, sweet welkin, I must sigh in thy face: 

 Most rude melancholy, valour gives thee place. 

 My herald is return'd. 



 Re-enter MOTH with COSTARD  MOTH  A wonder, master! here's a costard broken in a shin. 

 DON 

 ADRIANO DE 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! 

 DON 

 ADRIANO DE 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? 

 DON 

 ADRIANO DE ARMADO  No, page: it is an epilogue or discourse, to make plain 

 Some obscure precedence that hath tofore been sain. 

 I will example it: 

 The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee, 

 Were still at odds, being but three. 

 There's the moral. Now the l'envoy. 

 MOTH  I will add the l'envoy. Say the moral again. 

 DON 

 ADRIANO DE ARMADO  The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee, 

 Were still at odds, being but three. 

 MOTH  Until the goose came out of door, 

 And stay'd the odds by adding four. 

 Now will I begin your moral, and do you follow with 

 my l'envoy. 

 The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee, 

 Were still at odds, being but three. 

 DON 

 ADRIANO DE ARMADO  Until the goose came out of door, 

 Staying the odds by adding four. 

 MOTH  A good l'envoy, ending in the goose: would you 

 desire more? 

 COSTARD  The boy hath sold him a bargain, a goose, that's flat. 

 Sir, your pennyworth is good, an your goose be fat. 

 To sell a bargain well is as cunning as fast and loose: 

 Let me see; a fat l'envoy; ay, that's a fat goose. 

 DON 

 ADRIANO DE ARMADO  Come hither, come hither. How did this argument begin? 

 MOTH  By saying that a costard was broken in a shin. 

 Then call'd you for the l'envoy. 

 COSTARD  True, and I for a plantain: thus came your 

 argument in; 

 Then the boy's fat l'envoy, the goose that you bought; 

 And he ended the market. 

 DON 

 ADRIANO DE ARMADO  But tell me; how was there a costard broken in a shin? 

 MOTH  I will tell you sensibly. 

 COSTARD  Thou hast no feeling of it, Moth: I will speak that l'envoy: 

 I Costard, running out, that was safely within, 

 Fell over the threshold and broke my shin. 

 DON 

 ADRIANO DE ARMADO  We will talk no more of this matter. 

 COSTARD  Till there be more matter in the shin. 

 DON 

 ADRIANO DE ARMADO  Sirrah Costard, I will enfranchise thee. 

 COSTARD  O, marry me to one Frances: I smell some l'envoy, 

 some goose, in this. 

 DON 

 ADRIANO DE 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. 

 DON 

 ADRIANO DE ARMADO  I give thee thy liberty, set thee from durance; and, 

 in lieu thereof, impose on thee nothing but this: 

 bear this significant 



 Giving a letter  to the country maid Jaquenetta: 

 there is remuneration; for the best ward of mine 

 honour 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! 



 Exit MOTH  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 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  LOVE'S LABOURS LOST 

 Shakespeare homepage  |  Love's Labour's Lost  | Act 3, Scene 1 

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