Loves Labours Lost | Page 5

made in vain, Or vainly comes th' admired princess hither.
KING. What say you, lords? why, this was quite forgot.
BEROWNE. So study evermore is over-shot: While it doth study to
have what it would, It 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.
KING. We must of force dispense with this decree; She must lie here
on mere necessity.
BEROWNE. Necessity will make us all forsworn Three 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 degree Stands 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?
KING. Ay, that there is. Our court, you know, is haunted With 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 who the music of his own
vain tongue Doth ravish like enchanting harmony; A man of
complements, whom right and wrong Have chose as umpire of their
mutiny: This child of fancy, that Armado hight, For interim to our

studies shall relate, In high-born words, the worth of many a knight
From 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 lie, And I will use
him for my minstrelsy.
BEROWNE. 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?
BEROWNE. This, fellow. What wouldst?
DULL. I myself reprehend his own person, for I am his Grace's
tharborough: but I would see his own person in flesh and blood.
BEROWNE. This is he.
DULL. Signior Arm--Arm--commends you. There's villainy abroad:
this letter will tell you more.
COSTARD. Sir, the contempts thereof are as touching me.
KING. A letter from the magnificent Armado.
BEROWNE. How long soever the matter, I hope in God for high
words.
LONGAVILLE. A high hope for a low heaven: God grant us patience!
BEROWNE. To hear, or forbear laughing?
LONGAVILLE. To hear meekly, sir, and to laugh moderately; or, to
forbear both.
BEROWNE. Well, sir, be it as the style shall give us cause to climb in
the merriness.
COSTARD. The matter is to me, sir, as concerning Jaquenetta. The
manner of it is, I was taken with the manner.
BEROWNE. In what manner?
COSTARD. In manner and form following, sir; all those three: I was
seen with her in the manor-house, sitting with her upon the form, and
taken following her into the park; which, put together, is in manner and
form following. Now, sir, for the manner,--it is the manner of a man to
speak to a woman, for the form,--in some form.
BEROWNE. For the following, sir?
COSTARD. As it shall follow in my correction; and God defend the
right!

KING. Will you hear this letter with attention?
BEROWNE. As we would hear an oracle.
COSTARD. Such is the simplicity of man to hearken after the flesh.
KING. 'Great deputy, the welkin's vicegerent and sole dominator of
Navarre, my soul's earth's god and body's fostering patron,'
COSTARD. Not a word of Costard yet.
KING. 'So it is,'--
COSTARD. It may be so; but if he say it is so, he is, in telling true, but
so.--
KING. Peace!
COSTARD. Be to me, and every man that dares not fight!
KING. No words!
COSTARD. Of other men's secrets, I beseech you.
KING. 'So it is, besieged with sable-coloured melancholy, I did
commend the black-oppressing humour to the most wholesome physic
of thy health-giving air; and, as I am a gentleman, betook myself to
walk. The time when? About the sixth hour; when beasts most graze,
birds best peck, and men sit down to that nourishment which is called
supper: so much for the time when. Now for the ground which; which,
I mean, I upon; it is ycleped thy park. Then for the place where; where,
I mean, I did encounter that obscene and most preposterous event, that
draweth from my snow-white pen the ebon-coloured ink which here
thou viewest, beholdest, surveyest, or seest. But to the place where, it
standeth north-north-east and