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;
When, spite of cormorant devouring Time,

Th' endeavour of this present breath may buy

That honour which shall bate his scythe's keen edge,
And make us heirs of all eternity.

Therefore, brave conquerors-for so you are,
That war against your own affections

And the huge army of the world's desires

Our late edict shall strongly stand in force :
Navarre shall be the wonder of the world;

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,

Have sworn for three years' term to live with me,

My fellow-scholars, and to keep those statutes
That are recorded in this schedule here:

Your oaths are pass'd; and now subscribe your names,
That his own hand may strike his honour down

That 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.
Long. I am resolv'd; 'tis but a three years' fast :

The mind shall banquet, though the body pine:
Fat paunches have lean pates, and dainty bits
Make rich the ribs, but bankrupt quite the wits.
Dum. My loving lord, Dumain is mortified:

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.

The grosser manner of these world's delights
He 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 food,
And but one meal on every day beside;
The which I hope is not enrolled there:

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35

40

King. Your oath is pass'd to pass away from these.
Biron. Let me say no, my liege, an if you please.

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 night,
And 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.

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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.
Biron. By yea and nay, sir, then I swore in jest.
What is the end of study? let me know.

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;
As thus, to study where I well may dine,
When I to feast expressly am forbid ;

60

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,

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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.

70

Biron. Why? all delights are vain, and that most vain,
Which with pain purchas'd doth inherit pain:
As, painfully to pore upon a book,

75

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,
Your light grows dark by losing of your eyes.
Study me how to please the eye indeed,
By fixing it upon a fairer eye,
Who dazzling so, that eye shall be his heed,
And give him light that it was blinded by.
Study is like the heaven's glorious sun,

62. feast. forbid] Theobald et seq.; fast.
hard a keeping] had-a-keeping Hanmer.
Steevens, Cambridge.

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;
Small have continual plodders ever won,

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

Than 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.

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 ?

Fit in his place and time.

Something then in rhyme.