LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST ACT I SCENE I.-The King of Navarre's Park. Enter FERDINAND, King of Navarre, BIRON, LONGAVILLE, and DUMAIN. King. 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; Th' endeavour of this present breath may buy That honour which shall bate his scythe's keen edge, Therefore, brave conquerors-for so you are, And the huge army of the world's desires Our late edict shall strongly stand in force : 5 IO Biron] Ff 2, 3, 4; Berowne Qq, F 1, and frequently. 1. King] Ferdinand Ff, Qq. 5. Th' endeavour] Ff; Thendeuour Q 1. Hartings' Ornithology of Shakespeare, where, however, there is no more than the assertion. But is it not the quality of voracity that has enabled the cormorant to be domesticated for the purpose of sea-fishing from time immemorial? 6. bate] dull, deaden or lessen. 10. army] a great many. Compare Sidney's Arcadia, bk. i. (repr. 1898, p. 52), ante 1586: “armies of objections rising against any accepted opinion." See The Merchant of Venice, III. v. 72. Our court shall be a little academe, Still and contemplative in living art. You three, Biron, Dumain, and Longaville, 15 Have sworn for three years' term to live with me, My fellow-scholars, and to keep those statutes Your oaths are pass'd; and now subscribe your names, 20 That violates the smallest branch herein :- The mind shall banquet, though the body pine: 25 15. Dumain] 13. academe] Q 2, F 2; Achademe Q 1, F 1; Academy Ff 3, 4. Dumaine Q 1; Dumane F 1, etc. 18. schedule] sedule Q 1; scedule Q 2, Ff. 23. oaths] oath Steevens (1793). it] Qq, F 1; them Ff 3, 4. 27. bankrupt quite] bancrout quite Q1; banerout quite Q 1 (Dev. copy), Furnivall; bankerout Ff. 13. academe] An uncommon poetic form of "academy." See later, iv. iii. 300. The term came into use about this time of serious, or quasi-serious, associations of students, from the name of the garden near Athens where Plato taught. "A Platonicall garden or orchard, otherwise called an Academie, where I was not long since with certaine yoong gentlemen of Aniou my companions discoursing togither of the institution in good maners, and of the means how all estates may live well and happily" (T[hos.] B[owes'] trans. of De la Primaudaye's French Academy, 1577, Epistle Dedicatory, 1586). Greene, in The Royal Exchange (Grosart, vii. 314), 1590, tells us that "Plato admitted no Auditour in his Academie, but such as while they were his schollers woulde abstaine from women: for he was wont to say that the greatest enemie to memorie, was venerie." Compare Dekker, Seven Deadly Sinnes of London (Grosart, ii. 50), 1606: "the world itself is an Academ, to bring up man in knowledge and to put him still into action." The French Academy and the Arcadia are two chief works ordered to be read by the " Knights of the Helmet" in Gesta Grayorum, 1594 (Nichols' Progresses, iii. 285). 26. Fat paunches have lean pates] Ray and Fuller give this in their lists of proverbs, but no earlier example has been found than the present. The sentiment is in Plato: "For (as Plato saith) . . . gluttonie fatteth the bodye, maketh the minde dull and unapt, and which is worse, undermineth reason (T. B.'s trans. of Primaudaye's French Academy, chap. xx., 1586). St. Jerome has: "Pinguis neuter non gignit sensum tenuem," translated from the Greek (Ray). "Pates" means the seat of intellect, "brains." See note at v. ii. 268. Clarke inserts lines 26, 27 as a proverb in his Paræmiologia, 1639. 27. bankrupt] beggar, reduce to beggary. Compare Nashe, Christ's Teares (Grosart, iv. 102), 1593: "In giving them sutable phrase, had I the commaund of a thousand singular wits, I should banqroute them all in description." 28. mortified] become apathetic, deprived of feeling. Compare Romans viii. 13, Colossians iii. 5; and Mar The grosser manner of these world's delights So much, dear liege, I have already sworn, 30 35 40 King. Your oath is pass'd to pass away from these. And then to sleep but three hours in the night, 45 50 I only swore to study with your grace, And stay here in your court for three years' space. Long. You swore to that, Biron, and to the rest. 43. of all the day] in, or during all the day. Compare Hamlet, 1. v. 60. 44. think no harm all night] think no harm of sleeping all night. 48. Not to see ladies] In Gesta Grayorum, 1594, "the sixth Councellor, perswading Pass-time and Sport," says: "What, nothing but tasks? nothing but working-days? No feasting, no music, no dancing, no triumphs, no comedies, no love, no ladies? Let other men's lives be as pilgrimages, but Princes' lives are as Progresses, 55 dedicated only to variety and solace" (Nichols' Progresses, iii. 295). The previous counsellors have recommended War, Fame, State, Virtue and Philosophy. 54. By yea and nay] An old biblical affirmation of a sanctimonious nature. Compare A Merry Knack to Know a Knave (Hazlitt's Dodsley, vi.519), quoted in notes to The Merry Wives of Windsor (Arden ed. pp. 10, 60); and Udall's Roister Doister (Hazlitt's Dodsley, iii. 59), 1566: “ Hold by his yea and nay be his nown white son.' See Matthew v. 37, etc. 55-58. See note on p. 184. 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; 60 Or study where to meet some mistress fine, 65 Study knows that which yet it doth not know. King. These be the stops that hinder study quite, And train our intellects to vain delight. 70 Biron. Why? all delights are vain, and that most vain, 75 To seek the light of truth; while truth the while 62. feast. forbid] Theobald et seq.; fast. forbid Qq, Ff. 80 65. 72. Why?] Qq, Ff; why, Pope, and] Ff, Q 2; but Q 1, Cambridge. 77. of light] Qq, F 1; omitted in Ff 2, 3, 4. 57. common sense] ordinary perception; average intelligence. 71. train] allure, entice. 73. inherit] own, possess. See iv. i. treacher 80. me] dativus ethicus. 82. dazzling] becoming dim dazzled. Compare Venus and Adonis, or 1064: "her sight dazzling makes the wound seem three." "Who" refers to the eye of line 80. Johnson gives an unnecessarily obscure explanation. his heed] that which he heeds or attends to; his beacon. Schmidt, however, explains "heed" here as meaning "guard, protection, means of safety." In either case (and I dislike the latter sense) the use is somewhat strained. That will not be deep-search'd with saucy looks; 85 Save base authority from others' books. These earthly godfathers of heaven's lights That give a name to every fixed star, Have no more profit of their shining nights 90 Than those that walk and wot not what they are. Too much to know is to know nought but fame; King. How well he's read, to reason against reading! Long. He weeds the corn, and still lets grow the weeding. Biron. Dum. In reason nothing. Biron. Fit in his place and time. Something then in rhyme. 86. plodders] drudges. Not else where in Shakespeare. Nashe has: "Grosse plodders they were all, that had some learning and reading, but no wit to make use of it" (The Unfortunate Traveller [Grosart, v. 74], 1594). 95. Proceeded] Johnson suggests here the academical sense of taking a degree in a university. Compare Ascham, Scholemaster (Arber, p. 24): "untill the Scholar be made able to go to the Universitie, to procede in Logik, Rhetoricke, and other kindes of learning." To continue one's course of study. 97; green geese] young geese of the previous autumn, fit for sale about Whitsuntide. "Green geese" suggests festivity (line 106), since Green Goose Fair, or Goose Fair, held on Whit Monday when they were in season, was a feast of merriment. See Ben Jonson's Poetaster, III. i. (1601). Gifford says it was still held at Bow in Essex. Compare Beaumont and Fletcher, Wit in a Constable: "Our country sports. . . at Islington and Green goose-Fair"; and Webster, Cure for a Cuckold, 11. iii.: "did not he dance the hobby-horse In Hackney morris once? . . . Yes, yes, at Green goose fair." As a further "reason "of the fitness "in place and time," com 95 pare the following passage in The Penniless Parliament of Threadbare Poets, 1608 (Hindley's reprint): "59. Furthermore, for the benefit and increase of foolish humours, we think it necessary that those our dear friends who are sworn true servitors to womens pantables, should have this order set doun, that you suit yourselves handsomely against goose-feast, and if you meet not a fair lass betwixt St. Paul's and Stratford that day, we will bestow a new suit of satin upon you, so you will bear all the charges." A note refers to Green Goose Fair held on 23rd May at Stratford, Bow. 99. reason rhyme] The saying "neither rhyme nor reason occurs in The Comedy of Errors, II. ii. 48. "You shall hear him chafe beyond all reason or rhyme" (Jacob and Esau [Hazlitt's Dodsley, ii. 217], 1558). Bartlett quotes from Tyndale, 1530. With reference to the suggested alterations in this scene, to make rhymes agree where they do not, writers were careless upon this point when they got amongst the doggerels, and we are not enabled to correct their methods by ours. Alliteration saves the position often, as in "lily lips" in A MidsummerNight's Dream, v. i. 337. |