Love's Labour's Lost (2017) - full transcript

(lively string music)

(bell tolling)

(birds chirping)

(regal orchestral music)

- Let fame, that all hunt after

in their lives, live
registered upon...

(Ferdinand sighs)

(regal orchestral music)

Let fame, that all hunt
after in their lives,

live registered 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 honor which shall blunt
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.

Our court shall be
a little academe,

still and contemplative
in living art.

(crowd applauds)

You three, Berowne,
Dumaine, 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 passed,
and now subscribe

your names, that his own hand
may strike his honor down

that violates the
smallest branch herein.

(regal brass music)

(crowd applauds)

- I am resolved.

'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.

(regal brass music)

(crowd applauds)

- My loving lord,
Dumaine is mortified.

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.

(regal brass music)

(crowd applauds)

- 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,

(audience laughs)

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; (chuckles)

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, (chuckles)

(audience laughs)

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.

- Your oath is passed
to pass away from these.

- Let me say no, my
liege, and if you please.

I only swore to study
with your grace,

and stay here in your court
for three years' space.

- You swore to that,
Berowne, and to the rest.

- By yea and nay, sir,
then I swore in jest.

(men guffaw)

(audience laughs)

What is the end of
study, let me know?

- Why, that to know which
else we should not know.

- Things hid and barred,
you mean, from common sense?

- Ay, that is study's
god-like recompense.

- 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.

Or study where to
meet a 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 be it so,

study knows that which
yet it doth not know.

(gasps) Swear me to this,
and I will ne'er say no.

- These be the stops
that hinder study quite,

and train our intellects
to vain delight.

- Why, all delights are vain,

but that most vain which,
with pain purchased,

doth inherit pain.

As painfully to pore upon a book

to seek the light of truth,
while truth the while

doth falsely blind the eyesight
of his look. (chuckles)

Light seeking light doth
light of light beguile.

So, ere you find where
truth in darkness lies,

your light grows dark
by losing of your eyes.

(audience laughs)

Study me how to
please my 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,

that will not be
deep-searched by 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 naught but fame,

and every godfather
can give a name.

- How well he's read, to
reason against reading.

- Proceeded well, to
stop all good proceeding.

- He weeds the corn, and
still lets grow the weeding.

- Spring is near when
green geese are a-breeding.

(audience laughs)

- How follows that?

- Fit in his place and time.

- In reason nothing.

- Something then in rhyme.

- Berowne is like an
envious sneaping frost,

that bites the first-born
infants of the spring.

- Well, say I am.

Why should proud summer boast

before the birds
have cause to sing?

Why should I joy in
any abortive birth?

At Christmas, I no
more desire a rose

than wish a snow in
May's new-fangled shows,

but like of each thing
that in season grows.

So you, to study
now it is too late,

climb over the house to
unlock a little gate.

- Well, sit you out.

Go home, Berowne, adieu!

- No, my good lord, I have
sworn to stay with you.

(audience laughs)

And though I have for
barbarism spoke more

than for that angel
knowledge you can say,

yet, confident, I'll
keep what I have sworn,

and bide the penance of
each three years' day.

Give me the paper.

(audience laughs)

Let me read the same, and to the

strict'st decrees
I'll write my name.

- How well this yielding
rescues thee from shame.

- "Item: that no
woman shall come

"within a mile of my court."

Hath this been proclaimed?

- Four days ago.

(audience laughs)

- Let's see the penalty.

(audience laughs)

"On pain of losing her tongue."

(audience laughs)

Who devised this penalty?

- Marry, that did I.

- Sweet lord, and why?

- To fright them hence
with that dread penalty.

(audience laughs)

- Dangerous law
against gentility.

"Item: if any man be
seen to talk with a woman

"within the term of three years,

"he shall endure
such public shame

"as the rest of the court
can possible devise."

Why this article, my
liege, yourself must break.

For well you know
here comes in embassy

the French King's daughter
with yourself to speak,

a maid of grace and
complete majesty,

about surrender up of Aquitaine

to her decrepit, sick,
and bedrid father.

Therefore is this
article made in vain,

or vainly comes the
admired Princess hither.

- What say you, lords?

Why, this was quite forgot.

- So!

(audience laughs)

Study evermore is overshot.

While it doth study
to have what it would,

it doth forget to do
the thing it should.

- We must of force
dispense with this decree.

She must lie here
on mere necessity.

- Necessity will
make us all forsworn

3,OOO times within this
three years' space.

For every man with
his affects is born,

not by might mastered,
but by special grace.

If I break faith, this
word shall speak for me.

I am forsworn "by
mere necessity."

So to the laws at
large I write my name.

And he that breaks them
in the smallest 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 my oath.

(hums brass fanfare)

(audience laughs)

But is there no quick
recreation granted?

- Ay, that there is.

Our court, you know, is haunted

with a refined
traveler 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 compliments,
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.

- Armado is a most
illustrious wight,

a man of fire-new words,
fashion's own knight.

- Costard the swain and
he shall be our sport,

and so to study three
years is but short.

- Which is the
Duke's own person?

- This fellow, what wouldst?

- I myself reprehend
his own person,

for I am his grace's farborough,

but I would see his own person

in flesh and blood.

- This is he.

Senor Arm, Arm...

- Armado.

(audience laughs)

- Commends you.

There's villainy abroad.

This letter will tell you more.

- Sir, the contempts
thereof are as touching me.

- A letter from the
magnificent Armado.

- How low soever the matter,
I hope in God for high words.

- The matter is to me, sir,
as concerning Jaquenetta.

The manner of it is, I
was taken with the manner.

- In what manner?

- 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.

(audience laughs)

Now, sir, for the manner, it is

the manner of a man
to speak to a woman.

(Berowne gasps)
(audience laughs)

For the form, in some form.

- And for the following, sir?

- As it shall follow
in my correction,

and God defend the right!

- Will you hear this
letter with attention?

- As we would hear an oracle.

- Such is the simplicity of
man to hearken after the flesh.

(Berowne gasps)

(audience laughs)

- "Great deputy, the
welkin's vicegerent,

"and sole dominator of
Navarre, my soul's earth's god,

"and body's fostering patron."

- Not a word of Costard yet.

- "So it is"...

- It may be so, but
if he say it is so,

he is, in telling true, but so.

- Peace!

- Be to me, and every
man that dares not fight.

- No words!

- Of other men's
secrets, I beseech you.

(audience laughs)

- "So it is, besieged with
sable-colored melancholy,

"I did commend the
black oppressing humor

"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.

(audience laughs)

"So much for the time when,
now for the place where.

"It is ycleped thy park.

"There I did
encounter that obscene

"and most preposterous
event that draweth

"from my snow-white pen
the ebon-colored ink.

"There did I see that
low-spirited swain,

"that base minnow of thy mirth."

- Me?

- "That unlettered
small-knowing soul."

- Me?

- "That shallow vassal."

- Still me?

- "Which, as I remember,
hight Costard."

- O, me!

(audience laughs)

- "Sorted and consorted,
contrary to thy

"established proclaimed
edict, O with,

"but with this I passion
to say wherewith"...

- With a wench.

- "With a child of
our grandmother Eve,

"a female, or, for thy more
sweet understanding, a woman.

"Him have I sent thee,

"to receive the
meed of punishment,

"by thy sweet grace's
officer, Anthony Dull,

"a man of good repute, carriage,
bearing, and estimation."

- Me!

(audience laughs)

An't shall please you.

I am Anthony Dull.

(audience laughs)

- "For Jaquenetta, so is
the weaker vessel called,

"which I apprehended
with the aforesaid swain,

"I keep her as a vessel
of thy law's fury.

"Thine in all
compliments of devoted

"and heart-burning heat of
duty, Don Adriano de Armado."

But, sirrah, what
say you to this?

- Sir, I confess the wench.

- Did you hear the proclamation?

- I do confess much
of the hearing it,

but little of the marking of it.

(audience laughs)

- It was proclaimed
a year's imprisonment

to be taken with a wench.

- I was taken with none, sir.

I was taken with a damsel.

- Well, it was
proclaimed damsel.

- This was no
damsel neither, sir.

She was a virgin.

- It is so varied too, for
it was proclaimed virgin.

- If it were, I
deny her virginity.

(audience laughs)

I was taken with a maid.

- This maid will not
serve your turn, sir.

- This maid will serve
my turn, sir. (chuckles)

(audience laughs)

- Sir, I will pronounce
your sentence.

You shall fast a week
with bran and water.

- I had rather pray a month
with mutton and porridge.

(audience laughs)

- And Don Armado
shall be your keeper.

My Lord Berowne, see
him delivered o'er.

And go we, lords,
to put in practice

that which each to other
hath so strongly sworn.

(dramatic strings music)

- I'll lay my head
to any good man's hat

these laws and oaths
will prove an idle scorn.

Sirrah, come on.

- I suffer for the truth, sir,
for true it is I was taken

with Jaquenetta, and
Jaquenetta is a true girl.

And therefore welcome the
sour cup of prosperity.

Affliction may one
day smile again.

Till then, sit
thee down, sorrow!

(audience applauds)

(lively mandolin and
acoustic guitar music)

(audience laughs)

- Boy, what sign
is it when a man

of great spirit
grows melancholy?

- A great sign, sir,
that he will look sad.

- Why, sadness is one and
the selfsame thing, dear imp.

- No, no, O Lord, sir, no.

- How canst thou part sadness

and melancholy,
my tender juvenal?

- By a familiar demonstration

of the working, my tough senor.

(audience laughs)

- Why tough senor?
Why tough senor?

- Why tender juvenal?
Why tender juvenal?

- I spoke it, tender
juvenal, as a congruent

epitheton appertaining
to thy young days,

which we may nominate tender.

- And I, tough senor,
as an appertinent title

to your old time, which
we may name tough.

- Pretty and apt.

- How mean you, sir?

I pretty and my saying apt,
or I apt and my saying pretty?

- Thou pretty, because little.

- Ah, little pretty,
because little.

Wherefore apt?

- And therefore
apt, because quick.

- Speak you this in
my praise, master?

- In thy condign praise.

- I will praise an eel
with the same praise.

- What, that an
eel is ingenious?

- That an eel is quick. (claps)

- I do say thou art
quick in answers.

Thou heatest my blood!

- I am answered, sir.

- I love not to be crossed.

- He speaks the mere contrary,
crosses love not him.

(audience laughs)

- I have promised to study
three years with the Duke.

- You may do it in an hour, sir.

- Impossible.

- How many is one thrice told?

- I am ill at reckoning.

It fitteth the
spirit of a tapster.

- You are a gentleman
and a gamester, sir.

- I do confess both.

They are both the varnish
of a complete man.

- Then I am sure
you know how much

the sum of deuce-ace amounts to.

- It doth amount to
one more than two.

- Which the base vulgar do call

three! - True!

- Why, sir, is this
such a piece of study?

Now here is three studied
ere ye'll thrice wink.

And how easy it is to put
years to the word three,

and study three
years in two words,

the dancing horse will tell you.

- A most fine figure!

- To prove you a cipher.

(audience laughs)

- I will hereupon
confess I am in love.

And as it is base for
a soldier to love,

so am I in love
with a base wench.

I think scorn to sigh.

Methinks I should
outswear Cupid.

Comfort me, boy.

What great men
have been in love?

- Hercules, master.

- Most sweet Hercules!

(audience laughs)

More authority,
dear boy, name more.

And, sweet my child, let them be
men of good repute and carriage.

- Samson, master.

He was a man of good
carriage, great carriage,

for he carried the
town-gates on his back

like a porter, and
he was in love.

- O well-knit Samson,
strong-jointed Samson!

I am in love, too.

(audience laughs)

Who was Samson's
love, my dear Moth?

- A woman, master.

- Of what complexion?

- Of all the four, or the three,

or the two, or one of the four.

- Tell me precisely
of what complexion.

- Of the sea-water green, sir.

- Is that one of the
four complexions?

(audience laughs)

- As I have read, sir,
and the best of them too.

- Green indeed is
the color of lovers.

But to have a love
of that color,

methinks Samson had
small reason for it.

(audience laughs)

He surely affected
her for her wit.

- It was so, sir, for
she had a green wit.

- My love is most
immaculate black and red.

- Most maculate
thoughts, master,

are masked under such colors.

- Define, define,
well-educated infant.

(sentimental mandolin music)

- My father's wit and my
mother's tongue assist me!

- Sweet invocation of a child,
most pretty and pathetical!

♪ If she be made
of black and red

♪ Her faults will ne'er be known

♪ For blushing cheeks
by faults are bred

♪ And fears by pale white shown

♪ Then if she fear
or be to blame

♪ By this you shall not know

♪ For still her cheeks
possess the same

♪ Which native she doth owe

- Is there not a ballad, boy,
of the King and the beggar maid?

- The world was very
guilty of such a ballad

some three ages since, but I
think now 'tis not to be found.

- I will have that
subject newly writ o'er,

that I may example my digression
by some mighty precedent.

Boy, I do love that country
maid that I took in the park

with the rational hind Costard.

She deserves well.

- To be whipped, and yet a
better love than my master.

- Sing, boy.

My spirit grows heavy in love.

- Forbear till this
company be passed.

- Sir, the Duke's
pleasure is that you keep

Costard safe, and
you must suffer him

to take no delight,
nor no penance,

but he must fast
three days a week.

For this damsel, I must
keep her at the park.

She is allowed for
the dairy-woman.

Fare you well.

- I do betray myself
with blushing.

(audience laughs)

Maid.

- Man.

- I will visit
thee at the lodge.

- That's hereby.

- I know where it is situate.

- Lord, how wise you are!

- I will tell thee wonders.

- Ah, with that face?

- I love thee.

- So I heard you say.

- And so (smooches) farewell.

- Fair weather after you.

- Come, Jaquenetta, away.

(Jaquenetta laughs)
(audience laughs)

- Villain, thou
shalt fast for thy

offenses ere thou be pardoned.

- Well, sir, I hope when I do it

I shall do it on a full stomach.

(audience laughs)

- Thou shalt be
heavily punished!

- I am more bound to
you than your fellow,

for he is but lightly rewarded.

- Take away this villain.

Shut him up.

- Come, you transgressing
slave, away.

- Let me not be pent up, sir.

I will fast being loose.

- No, sir, that
were fast and loose.

- (chuckles) Fast and loose.
(audience laughs)

- Thou shalt to prison.

- (squawks) Well, if ever
I do see the merry days

of desolation that I have
seen, some shall see.

- What shall some see?

- Nay, nothing, Master Moth,
but what they look upon.

I thank God I have
as little patience

as another man, and therefore
I can be quiet, mm-hmm.

(audience laughs)

- I do affect the very
ground, which is base,

where her shoe, which is baser,

guided by her foot, which
is basest, doth tread.

(audience laughs)

I shall be forsworn,
which is a great

argument of
falsehood, if I love.

And how can that be true love
which is falsely attempted?

Love is a familiar.
Love is a devil.

There is no evil angel but Love.

Yet was Samson so tempted, and
he had an excellent strength.

Yet was Solomon so seduced,
and he had a very good wit.

Cupid's butt-shaft is too
hard for Hercules' club,

and therefore too much odds
for a Spaniard's rapier.

The first and second cause
will not serve my turn.

The passado he respects not,
the duello he regards not.

His disgrace is
to be called boy,

but his glory is to subdue men.

Adieu, valor; rust, rapier;

be still, drum; for
your manager is in love.

Yea, he loveth.

(ethereal synth music)

Assist me, some
extemporal god of rhyme,

for I am sure I
shall turn sonnet.

Devise wit; write, pen; for I
am for whole volumes in folio!

(audience applauds)
(somber brass music)

- Now, madam, summon up
your dearest spirits.

Consider who the King
your father sent,

to whom he sent, and
what's his embassy.

Yourself, held precious
in the world's esteem,

to parley with
the sole inheritor

of all perfections
that a man may owe,

Matchless Navarre; the
plea of no less weight

than Aquitaine, a
dowry for a queen.

Be now as prodigal
of all dear grace

as Nature was in
making graces dear

when she did starve the
general world beside,

and prodigally gave
them all to you.

- Good Lord Boyet, my
beauty, though but mean,

needs not the painted
flourish of your praise.

Beauty is bought by
judgment of the eye,

not uttered by base sale
of chapmen's tongues.

I am less proud to
hear you tell my worth

than you much willing
to be counted wise

in spending your wit
in the praise of mine.

But now to task the tasker.

Good Boyet, you are not
ignorant all-telling fame

doth noise abroad
Navarre hath made a vow,

till painful study shall
outwear three years,

no woman may approach
his silent court.

Therefore to's seemeth
it a needful course,

before we enter his
forbidden gates,

to know his pleasure,
and in that behalf,

bold of your worthiness,
we single you

as our best-moving
fair solicitor.

Tell him the daughter
of the King of France,

on serious business
craving quick dispatch,

importunes personal
conference with his grace.

Haste, signify so
much, while we attend,

like humble-visaged
suitors, his high will.

- Proud of employment,
willingly I go.

- All pride is willing pride,
and yours is so. (chuckles)

Who are the votaries,
my loving lord,

that are vow-fellows
with this virtuous Duke?

- Lord Longaville is one.

- Know you the man?

- I know him, madam.

At a marriage feast
between Lord Perigord

and the beauteous heir
of Jaques Falconbridge,

solemnized in Normandy,
saw I this Longaville.

A man of sovereign
parts, he is esteemed,

well fitted in arts,
glorious in arms.

Nothing becomes him
ill that he would well.

The only soil of his
fair virtue's gloss,

if virtue's gloss will
stain with any soil,

is a sharp wit matched
with too blunt a will,

whose edge hath power to
cut, whose will still wills

it should none spare that
come within his power.

- Some merry mocking
lord belike, is't so?

- They say so most that
most his humors know.

- Such short-lived wits
do wither as they grow.

(Maria gasps) (maidens laughing)

Who are the rest?

- The young Dumaine, a
well-accomplished youth,

of all that virtue
love for virtue loved,

most power to do most
harm, least knowing ill,

for he hath wit to
make an ill shape good,

and shape to win grace,
though he had no wit.

I saw him at the
Duke Alencon's once,

and much too little
of that good I saw

is my report to his
great worthiness.

- Another of these
students at that time

was there with him, if
I have heard a truth.

Berowne they call him,
but a merrier man,

within the limit
of becoming mirth,

I never spent an
hour's talk withal.

His eye begets
occasion for his wit,

for every object that
the one doth catch

the other turns to
a mirth-moving jest,

which his fair tongue,
conceit's expositor,

delivers in such apt
and gracious words

that aged ears play
truant at his tales,

and younger hearings
are quite ravished,

so sweet and voluble
is his discourse.

- God bless my ladies!

Are they all in love,
that every one her own

hath garnished with such
bedecking ornaments of praise?

- Here comes Boyet.

- Now, what admittance, lord?

- Navarre had notice
of your fair approach,

and he and his
competitors in oath

were all addressed to meet you,
gentle lady, before I came.

Marry, thus much I have learnt.

He rather means to
lodge you in the field,

like one that comes here
to besiege his court,

than seek a dispensation
for his oath

to let you enter
his unpeopled house.

(regal brass music)

- Here comes Navarre.

(regal brass music)

- Fair Princess, welcome
to the court of Navarre.

- Fair I give you back again,
and welcome I have not yet.

The roof of this court
is too high to be yours,

and welcome to the wide
fields too base to be mine.

- You shall be welcome,
madam, to my court.

- I will be welcome then.

Conduct me thither.

- Hear me, dear lady.

I have sworn an oath.

- Our Lady help my lord!

He'll be forsworn.

- Not for the world,
fair madam, by my will.

- Why, will shall break
it, will and nothing else.

- Your ladyship is
ignorant what it is.

- Were my lord so, his
ignorance were wise,

where now his knowledge
must prove ignorance.

I hear your grace hath
sworn out housekeeping.

(maidens laughing)

'Tis deadly sin
to keep that oath,

my lord, and sin to break it.

(audience laughs)

But pardon me, I
am too sudden bold.

To teach a teacher
ill beseemeth me.

Vouchsafe to read the
purpose of my coming,

and suddenly resolve
me in my suit.

- Madam, I will,
if suddenly I may.

- You will the sooner
that I were away,

for you'll prove perjured
if you make me stay.

- Did not I dance with
you in Brabant once?

- Did not I dance with
you in Brabant once?

- I know you did.

- How needless was it
then to ask the question.

- Oh, you must not be so quick.

- 'Tis long of you that
spur me with such questions.

- Your wit's too hot, it
speeds too fast, 'twill tire.

- Not till it leave
the rider in the mire.

- What time o'day?

- The hour that
fools should ask.

- Now fair befall your mask.

- Fair fall the face it covers.

- And send you many lovers.

- Amen, so you be none.

- Nay, then will I be gone.

- Madam, your father
here doth intimate

the payment of a
hundred thousand crowns,

being but the one
half of an entire sum

disbursed by my
father in his wars.

But say that he, or
we, as neither have

received that sum, yet
there remains unpaid

a hundred thousand more,
in surety of the which

one part of Aquitaine
is bound to us,

although not valued
to the money's worth.

If then the King your
father will restore

but that one half
which is unsatisfied,

we will give up our
right in Aquitaine,

and hold fair friendship
with his majesty.

But that, it seems,
he little purposeth,

for here he doth
demand to have repaid

a hundred thousand
crowns, and not demands,

on payment of a hundred
thousand crowns,

to have his title
live in Aquitaine,

which we much rather
had depart withal,

and have the money
by our father lent,

than Aquitaine, so
gelded as it is.

(audience laughs)

Dear Princess, were
not his requests so far

from reason's yielding,
your fair self should make

a yielding 'gainst some
reason in my breast,

and go well satisfied
to France again.

- You do the King my
father too much wrong,

and wrong the
reputation of your name,

in so unseeming
to confess receipt

of that which hath so
faithfully been paid.

- I do protest I
never heard of it!

And if you prove it, I'll repay

it back or yield up Aquitaine.

- We arrest your word.

Boyet, you can produce
acquittances for such a sum

from special officers
of Charles, his father.

- Satisfy me so.

- So please your grace,
the packet is not come

where that and other
specialties are bound.

Tomorrow you shall
have a sight of them.

- It shall suffice
me, at which interview

all liberal reason
I will yield unto.

Meantime receive such
welcome at my hand as honor,

without breach of
honor, may make

tender of to thy
true worthiness.

You may not come, fair
Princess, within my gates

but here without you
shall be so received

as you shall deem yourself
lodged in my heart,

though so denied fair
harbor in my house.

Your own good thoughts
excuse me, and farewell.

Tomorrow shall we
visit you again.

- Sweet health and fair
desires consort your grace.

- Thy own wish wish I
thee in every place.

- Lady, I will commend
you to mine own heart.

- Pray you, do my commendations.

I would be glad to see it.

- I would you heard it groan.

- Oh, is the fool sick?

- Sick at the heart.

- Alack, let it blood.

- Would that do it good?

- My physic says ay.

- Will you prick
it with your eye?

- Non point, with my knife.

- Now God save thy life.

- And yours, from long living.

(Boyet clears throat)

- Oh, I cannot
stay thanksgiving.

- Sir, I pray you a word.

What lady is that same?

- The heir of Alencon,
Katherine her name.

- A gallant lady!

Monsieur, fare you well.

- I beseech you a word.

What is she in the white?

- A woman sometimes,
and you saw her in the light.

- Perchance light in the light.

I desire her name.

- She hath but one for herself.

To desire that were a shame.

- Pray you, sir, whose daughter?

- Her mother's, I've heard.

- God's blessing on your beard!

(audience laughs)

- Good sir, be not offended.
She is an heir of Falconbridge.

- Nay, my choler is ended.
She is a most sweet lady.

- Not unlike, sir, that may be.

- Psst, psst. (audience laughs)

What's her name in the cap?

- Rosaline, by good hap.

- Oh, is she wedded or no?

- To her will, sir, or so.

- Ah, you are
welcome, sir, adieu.

- Farewell to me, sir, and
welcome to you. (blows kiss)

(all laughing)

- That last is Berowne,
the merry madcap lord.

Not a word with him but a jest.

- And every jest but a word.

- It was well done of you
to take him at his word.

- I was willing to grapple
as he was to board.

- Two hot sheeps, marry!

- And wherefore not ships?

No sheep, sweet lamb,
lest we feed on your lips.

- You sheep, and I pasture.

Shall that finish the jest?

- So you grant pasture for me.

- Not so, gentle beast.

- My lips are no common,
though several they be.

- Belonging to whom?

- To my fortunes.

- And me. (Boyet laughs)

- Good wits will be jangling,
but, gentles, agree.

This civil war of wits
were much better used

on Navarre and his book-men,
for here 'tis abused.

- If my observation,
which very seldom lies

by the heart's still rhetoric
disclosed with the eyes,

deceive me not now,
Navarre is infected.

- With what?

- With that which we
lovers entitle affected.

(audience laughs) - Your reason?

- Why, all his behaviors
did make their retire

to the court of his eye,
peeping thorough desire.

His heart, like an agate
with your print impressed,

proud in his form, in
his eye pride expressed.

His tongue, all impatient
to speak and not see,

did stumble in haste
in his eyesight to be.

All senses to that sense
did make their repair,

to feel only looking
on fairest of fair.

His face's own margin
did quote such amazes

that all eyes saw his
eyes enchanted with gazes.

I'll give you Aquitaine,
and all that is his

and you give him for my sake

but one loving kiss. (smooches)

- Come, to our pavilion.
Boyet is disposed.

- But to speak that in words
which his eye hath disclosed!

I only have made
a mouth of his eye

by adding a tongue which
I know will not lie.

- Thou art an old love-monger,
and speakest skillfully.

- He is Cupid's grandfather,
and learns news of him.

- Then was Venus like her mother
for her father is but grim.

(Boyet screams) (women laugh)

- Do you hear, my mad wenches?

- No!

- What then, do you see?

- Our way to be gone.

- Oh, you are too hard for me.

(regal brass music)

(audience applauds)

(upbeat mandolin music)

- Warble, child, make
passionate my sense of hearing.

♪ I read that once in Africa

♪ A noble king did reign

♪ He had to name Cophetua

♪ As poets they did feign

♪ From Nature's
laws he did decline

♪ For sure he was not of my mind

♪ He cared not for womenkind

♪ But did them all disdain

♪ But mark what
happened on a day

♪ As he out of his window lay

♪ A beggar passed
him all in gray

♪ That did amaze his eyes

♪ In thee, mused he,
doth rest my life

♪ For surely thou
shalt be my wife

♪ Or else this hand
with bloody knife

♪ The Gods will sure suffice

♪ What is thy name, fair maid
♪ Quoth he

♪ Xenelophon, O King ♪ Quoth she

♪ With that she
made a low curtsy

♪ A trim one as I ween

♪ My bride thou
shalt betrothed be

♪ And thou shalt
rise to my degree

♪ Come on ♪ Quoth he

♪ And follow me for thou
must shift thee clean

♪ The beggar
blusheth scarlet red

♪ And straight again
as pale as lead

♪ But not a word at all she said

♪ She was in such amaze

♪ At last she spake
with trembling voice

♪ And said, O King, I do rejoice

♪ That you will take
me for your choice

♪ And my degree so base

♪ They wed and led a quiet life

♪ During their princely reign

♪ And in a tomb were buried both

♪ As writers showeth plain

♪ Their fame did
sound so passingly

♪ That it did pierce
the starry sky

(Jaquenetta laughs)

♪ And throughout all
the world did fly

♪ To every prince's realm

(Armado sings)

(audience laughs)
(audience applauds)

- Sweet air!

Go, tenderness of
years, take this key,

give enlargement to the swain,
bring him festinately hither.

I want to employ him
in a letter to my love!

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

- What meanest thou,
brawling in French?

- No, my complete master,
but to jig off a tune

at the tongue's end, canary
to it with your feet,

humor 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

with 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 with your hands ln
your pocket like a man

after the old painting
and keep not too long

in one tune, but
a snip and away.

- How hast thou purchased
this experience?

(audience laughs)

- By my penny of observation.

But have you forgot your love?

- Almost I had.

- Negligent student,
learn her by heart.

- By heart and in heart, boy.

- And out of heart, master.

All those three I will prove.

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
you cannot enjoy her.

- I am all these three.

- And three times as much
more, and yet nothing at all.

- Fetch hither the swain.

He must carry me the letter.

The way is but short, away!

- As swift as lead, sir.

(audience laughs)

- Thy meaning, pretty ingenious?

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

- Minime, honest master,
or rather, master, no.

- I say lead is slow.

- You are too swift,
sir, to say so.

Is that lead slow which
is fired from a gun?

- Sweet smoke of rhetoric!

(audience laughs)

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

I shoot thee at the swain.

- Thump then, and I flee!

- Thump!
- Flee!

(audience laughs)

(audience applauds)

- A most acute juvenal,
voluble and free of grace!

By thy favor, sweet welkin,
I must sigh in thy face.

(Armado sighs) (audience laughs)

Most rude melancholy,
valor gives thee place.

(Costard shouts in pain)

My herald is returned.

- A wonder, master, here is
the costard broken in a shin.

- Some enigma, some riddle,
come, thy l'envoi, begin.

- No egma, no riddle,
no l'envoi,

no salve in the mail, sir!

O, sir, plantain,
a plain plantain!

- O, pardon me, my stars!

The heaving of my lungs provokes
me to ridiculous smiling.

Doth the inconsiderate
take salve

for l'envoi and the word
l'envoi for a salve?

- Do the wise think them other?
Is not l'envoi a salve?

- No, page.

It is a discourse or
epilogue 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 is the moral.
Now the l'envoi.

- I will add the I'envoi.
Say the moral again.

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

were still at odds,
being but three.

- Until the goose
came out of door,

and stayed the odds
by adding four.

Now will I begin your moral,

and do you follow
with my l'envoi.

The fox, the ape,
and the humble-bee

were still at odds,
being but three.

- Until the goose
came out of door,

staying the odds by adding four.

- A good l'envoi,
ending in the goose.

Would you desire more?

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

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

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

Let me see, a fat l'envoi, ay.

That's a fat goose!

- Come hither, come hither.

How did this argument begin?

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

Then called you for the l'envoi.

- True, and I for a plantain,
thus came your argument in.

- But tell me, how was there
a costard broken in a shin?

- I will tell you sensibly.

- Thou hast no
feeling of it, Moth.

I will speak that l'envoi.

I, Costard, running out,
that was safely within,

fell over the threshold,
and broke my shin.

(audience laughs)

- We will talk no
more of this matter.

- Till there be more
matter in the shin.

- Sirrah Costard, I
will enfranchise thee.

- O, marry me to one
Frances! (scoffs)

I smell some l'envoi,
some goose in this.

- By my sweet soul,
I mean setting thee

at liberty,
enfreedoming thy person.

Thou wert immured,
restrained, captivated, bound!

- True, true, and
now you will be

my purgation and let me loose.

(blows raspberries)
(audience laughs)

- I give thee thy liberty,
set thee from durance,

and in lieu thereof impose
on thee nothing but this.

Bear this significant (smooches)

to the country maid Jaquenetta.

There is remuneration,
for the best ward

of mine honor is
rewarding my dependants.

Moth, follow!

- Like the sequel, I.
Signor Costard, adieu.

- My sweet ounce of man's
flesh, my incony Jew!

(Moth claps) (Costard laughs)

Now will I look to
his remuneration.

Remuneration?

O, that's the Latin word
for three farthings.

(audience laughs)

Three farthings, remuneration.

What's the price of this inkle?

(gasps) One penny?

No, I'll give you
a remuneration.

Why, it carries
it, remuneration!

I will never buy and
sell out of this word.

- Ah, my good knave Costard,
exceedingly well met.

- Pray you, sir, how
much carnation ribbon

may a man buy for
a remuneration?

- What is the remuneration?

- Marry, sir,
halfpenny-farthing.

- Why then,
three-farthing-worth of silk.

- I thank your worship.
God be with you.

- Ah, stay, slave, for
I must employ thee.

As thou wilt win my
favor, good my knave,

do one thing for me
that I shall entreat.

- When would you
have it done, sir?

- This afternoon.

- Well, I will do it, sir.
Fare you well.

- Thou knowest not what it is.

(audience laughs)

- I shall know, sir,
when I have done it.

- Why, villain, thou
must know first!

(audience laughs)

- I'll come to your
worship tomorrow morning.

- It must be done
this afternoon!

(Costard grunts)

(audience laughs)

The Princess comes to
hunt here in the park.

In her train there
is a gentle lady.

When tongues speak
sweetly, they name

her name, and Rosaline
they call her.

Ask for her, and to
her fair hand see

thou do commend this
sealed-up counsel.

There's thy guerdon, go.

- Guerdon, o sweet guerdon!

Better than remuneration.
(audience laughs)

11-pence-farthing better,
(chuckles) oh sweet guerdon!

I'll do it, sir, in print.

Guerdon, remuneration!

(audience laughs)

- 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 wimpled, whining,
purblind, wayward boy,

this Signor Junior,
giant dwarf, Dan Cupid,

(chuckles) 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 paritor.

(laughs)

O my little heart.

And I to be a
corporal of his field,

and wear his colors
like a tumbler's hoop.

What? I love.

I sue.

I seek a wife?

A woman (chuckles) that
is like a German clock,

still a-repairing,
ever out of frame,

never going aright,
being a watch.

(audience laughs)

But being watched, it
may still go right.

Nay, to be perjured,
which is worst of all.

And among three to
love the worst of all,

a darkly wanton
with a velvet brow

and 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.

(ethereal synth music)

Well, I will love, write,
sigh, pray, sue, and groan.

Some men must love my lady,

and some Joan.

(regal brass music)
(horse whinnying)

(dogs barking)

- Was that the King that
spurred his horse so hard

against the steep
uprising of the hill?

- I know not, but I
think it was not he.

- Whoe'er it was, a
showed a mounting mind.

Well, sir, today 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?

- Hereby, upon the
edge of yonder coppice,

a stand where you may
make the fairest shoot.

- I thank my beauty,
I am fair that shoot,

and thereupon thou speak'st,
"The fairest shoot."

- Pardon me, madam,
for I meant not so.

- What, what?

First praise me,
and again say no?

O short-lived pride, not fair?

Alack for woe!

- Yes, madam, fair.

- 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.

- Nothing but fair is
that which you inherit.

- 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.

(contemplative brass music)

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.

- Do not curst wives hold
that self sovereignty

only for praise's sake when they

strive to be lords
over their lords?

- Only for praise, and
praise we may afford

to any lady that subdues a lord.

(both laugh)

- Oh, here comes a member
of the commonwealth.

- God dig-you-den all!

(audience laughs)

Pray you, which
is the head lady?

- Thou shalt know her, fellow,

by the rest that have no heads.

(all laughing)

- Which is the greatest
lady, the highest?

- The thickest and the tallest.

- (chuckles) Thickest
and the tallest.

It is so, truth is truth.

And your waist, mistress,
were as slender as my wit,

one of these maids' girdles
for your waist should be fit.

Are not you the chief woman?

You are the thickest here.

(audience laughs)

- What's your will,
sir, what's your will?

- I have a letter
from Monsieur Berowne

to one Lady Rosaline.

- O, thy letter, thy letter!

He's a good friend of mine.

(audience laughs)

Stand aside, good bearer.

Boyet, you can carve.

Break up this capon.

- I am bound to serve.

Oh, this letter is mistook.

It importeth none here.

It is writ to Jaquenetta.

- We will read it, I swear.

Break the neck of the wax,
and everyone give ear.

(Boyet clears throat)

- "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 vassel.

"The magnanimous and most
illustrate King Cophetua set eye

"upon the penurious and
indubitate beggar Zenelophon,

"and he it was that
might rightly say,

"Veni, vidi, vici.

(women laugh)

"which to annothanize
in the vulgar,

"o base and obscure vulgar.

"He came, see, and overcame.

"He came, one,
see, two, overcame.

- Three!
- Yes!

Oh, who came?

The King, why did he come?
To see.

Why did he see? - To overcome.

- Mm, to whom came he?
To the beggar.

What saw he? - The beggar!

- Who overcame he?
- The beggar!

- Mm, inclusion is victory.
On whose side?

- The King's.

- The captive is enriched.
On whose side?

- The beggar.

- The catastrophe is a nuptial.
On whose side?

- The King.

- No, on one in
both or both in one.

I am the King, for so
stands the comparison.

Thou the beggar, for so
witnesseth thy lowliness.

(chuckles) Shall I
command thy love?

I may.

Shall I enforce thy love?

I could.

Shall I entreat thy love?

- I will.

- What shall thou
exchange for rags?

- Riches!

- Robe, for tittles?

- Titles!
- For thyself?

- Me!

- "Thus, expecting thy reply,
I profane my lips on thy foot,

"my eyes on thy
picture," oh dear.

- "And my heart on
thy every part."

(women laughing)

- Ladies!

Thine in the dearest design

of industry, Don
Adriano de Armado.

Oh, wait, ladies, post scriptum.

"Thus dost thou hear
the Nemean lion roar

"'gainst thee, thou lamb,
that standest as his prey.

"Submissive fall his
princely feet before,

"and he from forage
will incline to play.

"But if thou strive, poor
soul, what art thou then?

"Food for his rage,
repasture for his den."

- What plume of feathers is
he that indited this letter?

What vane, what weathercock?

Did you ever hear better?

- I am much deceived but
I remember the style.

- Oh, else your memory is
bad, going o'er it erewhile.

- This Armado is a Spaniard
that keeps here in court,

a phantasime, a Monarcho,
and one that makes sport

to the Prince and
his book-mates.

- Thou, fellow, a word.

Who gave thee this letter?

- I told you, my lord.

- To whom shouldst thou give it?

- From my lord to my lady.

- From which lord to which lady?

- From my Lord Berowne,
a good master of mine,

to a lady of France
he called Rosaline.

- Thou hast mistaken his letter.

(regal trumpetting)
(dogs barking)

Come, lords, away.

Here, sweet, put up this.

'Twill be thine another day.

- Who is the shooter?
Who is the shooter?

- Shall I teach you to know?

- Ay, my continent of beauty.

- Why, she that bears the bow.

Finely put off.

- My lady goes to kill
horns, but if thou marry,

hang me by the neck if
horns that year miscarry.

Finely put on.

- Well then, I am the shooter.

- And who is your deer?

- If we choose by the horns,
yourself come not near.

(all laughing)

Finely put on indeed.

- You still wrangle
with her, Boyet,

and she strikes at the brow.

- But she herself is hit lower.

Have I hit her now?

- Shall I come upon
thee with an old saying,

that was a man when
King Pepin of France

was a little boy, as
touching the hit it?

- (chuckles) So I may
answer thee with one as old,

that was a woman when
Queen Guinevere of Britain

was a little wench, as
touching the hit it.

- Thou canst not hit
it, hit it, hit it.

Thou canst not hit
it, my good man.

- An I cannot, cannot, cannot,
an I cannot, another can!

- Poof! (laughs)
- Oh!

(audience laughs)

- By my troth, most pleasant,
how both did fit it!

- A mark marvelous well shot,
for they both did hit it.

- A mark, o, mark but that mark!

Let the mark have a prick
in't, to mete at, if it may be!

- Oh, wide o' the bow hand.

I'faith, your hand is out.

- Indeed, he must shoot nearer
or he'll ne'er hit the clout.

- And if my hand be out,
belike your hand is in.

- Then will she get the
upshoot by cleaving the pin.

(Rosaline squeals)
(audience laughs)

- Come, come, you talk greasily.

Your lips grow foul.

- She's too hard for
you at pricks, sir.

Challenge her to bowl.

- (chuckles) I fear
too much rubbing.

(audience laughs)

Good night, my good
owl. (blows kiss)

- By my soul, a swain,
a most simple clown.

Lord, Lord, how the ladies
and I have put him down!

On my troth, most sweet jests,

most incony vulgar wit, when
it comes so smoothly off,

so obscenely, as
it were, so fit.

- Pshaw, Armado on
the t'other side.

Oh, a most dainty man! (huffs)

(audience laughs)

To see him walk before a lady,

and to bear her
fan! (mimics fan)

(audience laughs)

To see him kiss his hand and
how most sweetly he will swear!

(blows kisses)

(mimics swords unsheathing)

And his page on the t'other
side, that handful of wit.

Ah, heavens, it is a
most pathetical nit.

(men yelling)
(upbeat brass music)

Sola, sola!

(audience applauds)

- Very reverend
sport, truly, and done

in the testimony of
a good conscience.

- The deer was, as
you know, sanguis,

in blood, ripe as the pomewater,

who now hangeth like a
jewel in the ear of caelum,

the sky, the welkin, the heaven,

and anon falleth like a
crab on the face of terra,

the soil, the land, the earth.

- Truly, Master Holofernes,
the epithets are

sweetly varied, like a
scholar at the least.

But, sir, I assure ye it was
a buck of the first head.

- Sir Nathaniel, haud credo.

- 'Twas not a auld grey
doe, 'twas a pricket.

- (laughs) Most
barbarous intimation!

Yet a kind of
insinuation, as it were,

in via, in way, of
explication, facere,

as it were, replication,
or rather ostentare,

to show, as it were,

his inclination,
after his undressed,

unpolished, uneducated,
unpruned, untrained,

or rather unlettered,
or ratherest

unconfirmed fashion,
to insert again

my haud credo
(laughs) for a deer.

- I said the deer was
not a auld grey doe.

'Twas a pricket.

- (laughs) Twice-sod
simplicity, bis coctus!

O thou monster Ignorance,

how deformed dost thou look!

- Sir, he hath never fed of the

dainties that are
bred in a book.

He hath not eat paper, as it
were, he hath not drunk ink.

His intellect is
not replenished.

He is only an animal, only
sensible in the duller parts.

And such barren plants are set

before us that we
thankful should be,

which we of taste
and feeling are,

for those parts that do
fructify in us more than he.

For as it would ill
become me to be vain,

indiscreet, or a fool,
so were there a patch

set on learning, to
see him in a school.

But omne bene, say I, being
of an old father's mind.

Many can brook the weather

that love not the wind.

(audience laughs)

- You two are book-men.

Can you tell me by your wit

what was a month
old at Cain 's birth

that is not five
weeks old as yet?

- Dictynna, Goodman Dull.

Dictynna, Goodman Dull.

- What is Dictima?

- A title to Phoebe,
to Luna, to the moon.

- The moon was a month
old when Adam was no more,

and raught not to five weeks
when he came to fivescore.

The allusion holds
in the exchange.

- 'Tis true, indeed.

The collusion holds
in the exchange.

- God comfort thy capacity!

I say the allusion
holds in the exchange.

- And I say the pollution
holds in the exchange.

(audience laughs)

For the moon is never
but a month old.

(Dull laughs)

And I say beside
that 'twas a pricket

that the Princess killed.

- Sir Nathaniel, will you hear

an extemporal epitaph on
the death of the deer?

And, to humor the
ignorant, call I

the deer the Princess
killed a pricket.

- (chuckles) Perge, good
Master Holofernes, perge,

so it shall please you
to abrogate scurrility.

- I will something
affect the letter,

for it argues
facility. (buzzes lips)

(audience laughs)

The preyful Princess pierced and

pricked a pretty
pleasing pricket.

(Dull laughs)

Some say a sore, but not a sore

till now made sore
with shooting.

The dogs did yell,
put L to sore,

and sorel jumps from
thicket, or pricket sore,

or else sorel, the
people fall a hooting.

If sore be sore, then L to
sore makes 50 sores of sorel.

Of one sore I and hundred
make by adding but one more L.

(Nathaniel laughs)

(audience applauds)

- A rare talent! (chuckles)

- This is a gift that I have.

(audience laughs)

Simple, simple, a foolish
extravagant spirit,

full of forms, figures,
shapes, objects, ideas,

apprehensions,
motions, revolutions.

These are begot in the
ventricle of memory,

nourished in the
womb of pia mater,

and delivered upon the
mellowing of occasion.

But the gift is good
in those in whom

it is acute, and I
am thankful for it.

(audience laughs)

- (laughs) I praise
the Lord for you, Sir,

and so may my parishioners,
for their sons

are well tutored by
you, and their daughters

profit very greatly under you.

(audience laughs)

You are a good member
of the commonwealth.

- Mehercle, if their
sons be ingenious,

they shall want no instruction.

If their daughters be capable,
I will put it to them.

(audience laughs)

But vir sapit qui
pauca loquitur.

A soul feminine saluteth us.

- God give you good
morrow, Master Person.

- Master Person,
quasi pierce one?

And if one should be
pierced, which is the one?

(audience laughs)

- Marry, Master Schoolmaster,

he that is likeliest
to a hogshead.

- Of piercing a
hogshead, a good luster

of conceit in a turf of earth,

fire enough for a flint,
pearl enough for a swine.

'Tis pretty, it is well.

- Good Master Parson, be so
good as read me this letter.

It was given me by Costard,
and sent me from Don Armado.

I beseech you, read it.

- Fauste, precor
gelida quando pecus

omne sub umbra
ruminat and so forth.

(audience laughs)

Ah, good old Mantuan,
I may speak of thee

as the traveler doth of Venice.

Venetia, Venetia, chi non
ti vede, non ti pretia.

Old Mantuan, old Mantuan,

who understandeth thee
not, loves thee not.

♪ Ut, re, sol, la, mi, fa

(audience laughs)

Under pardon, sir,
what are the contents?

Or rather, (laughs)
as Horace says in...

What, my soul, verses?

- Ay, sir, and very learned.

- Let me hear a staff,
a stanza, a verse.

Lege, domine.

- (laughs) "If love
make me forsworn,

"how shall I swear to love?

"Ah, never faith could hold,
if not to beauty vowed!

"Though to myself forsworn,
to thee I'll faithful prove.

"Those thoughts to me were
oaks, to thee like osiers bowed.

"Study his bias
leaves, and makes

"his book thine
eyes, where all"...

- You find not the apostrophus
and so miss the accent.

(audience laughs)

(Nathaniel chuckles)

Let me supervise the canzonet.

(speaks gibberish)

Oh, Sir Nathaniel, here
are only numbers ratified,

but for the elegancy, facility,

and golden cadence
of poesy, caret.

Ovidius Naso was the man.

And why indeed Naso

but for smelling out
the odoriferous flowers

of fancy, (inhales) the jerks

of invention,
imitari is nothing.

So does the hound
his master, the ape

his keeper, the tired
horse his rider.

But, domicella, virgin.

(Jaquenetta laughs)

(audience laughs)

Was this directed to you?

- Ay, sir.

- I will overglance
the superscript.

(Jaquenetta laughs)

"To the gentle hand of the
most beauteous Lady Rosaline."

I will look again
on the intellect

of the letter for
nomination of the party

writing to the
person written unto.

"Your ladyship's in all
desired employment, Berowne."

Sir Nathaniel, this Berowne
is one of the votaries

with the King, and here
he hath framed a letter

to a sequent of the stranger
Queen's, which accidentally,

or by the way of
progression, hath miscarried.

Trip and go, my sweet.

Deliver this into the
royal hand of the King.

It may concern much.

Stay not thy compliment.

I forgive thy duty, adieu.

(audience laughs)

- Good Costard, go with me!

Sir, God save your
life. (laughs)

(audience laughs)

- Have with thee,
my girl! (grunts)

(audience laughs)

(audience applauds)

(Nathaniel laughs)

- Sir, you have done this in the

fear of God, very religiously.

- Let us return to the verses.

Did they please
you, Sir Nathaniel?

- Marvelous well for the pen.

- I do dine today
at the father's

of a certain pupil
of mine, where,

if before repast
it shall please you

to gratify the
table with a grace,

I will, undertake
your ben venuto,

where I will prove those
verses to be very unlearned,

neither savoring of
poetry, wit, nor invention.

I beseech your society.

- And thank you
too, for society,

saith the text, is
the happiness of life.

- And, certes, the text most
infallibly concludes it.

I do invite you too, sir.

You shall not say me nay.

Pauca verba.

(regal brass music)

(horse whinnies)

Away, the gentles
are at their game,

and we will to our recreation.

Away!

Away!

(audience applauds)

(instrumental music)

- The King he is
hunting the deer.

I am coursing myself.

They have pitched a toil,

I am toiling in a pitch.

Pitch that defiles, defile!

A foul word.

Well, set thee down, sorrow,

for so they say fool said,

and so say I, and I the fool.

Well proved, wit!

By the Lord, this love
is as mad as Ajax.

It kills sheep, it kills me.

I a sheep.

Well proved again o' my side!

I will not love.

If I do, hang me.

Faith, I will not.

O, but her eye!

By this light, but for her
eye I would not love her.

Yes, for her two eyes.

(audience laughing)

Well, I do nothing
in the world but lie,

and lie in my throat.

By heaven, I do love,

and it hath taught me to rhyme

and to be melancholy,

and here is part of my rhyme,

and here my melancholy.

Well, she hath one o'
my sonnets already.

The clown bore it,
the fool wrote it,

and the lady hath It.

Sweet clown, sweeter
fool, sweetest lady!

By the world,

I would not care a pin if
the other three were in.

Here comes one with a paper.

God give him grace to groan.

- Ay me!

- Shot, by heaven!

Proceed, sweet Cupid.

Thou hast thumped him
with thy bird-bolt

under the left pap.

In faith, secrets.

- So sweet a kiss the
golden sun gives not

to those fresh morning
drops upon the rose

as thy eye-beams when
their fresh rays have smote

the night of dew that on my
cheeks down flows.

Nor shines the silver
moon one half so bright

through the transparent
bosom of the deep

as doth thy face through
tears of mine give light.

Thou shin'st in every
tear that I do weep.

No drop but as a
coach doth carry thee,

so ridest thou
triumphing in my woe.

Do but behold the
tears that swell in me,

and they thy glory through
my grief will show.

But do not love thyself, then
thou wilt keep

my tears for glasses,
and still make me weep.

(audience laughing)

O Queen of queens, how
far dost thou excel?

No thought can think

nor

tongue

of

Mortal

tell.

How shall she know my griefs?

I'll drop the paper.

Sweet leaves,

shade folly.

Who is he comes here?

What, Longaville, and reading!

Listen, ear!

- Now, in thy likeness,
one more fool appears!

- Ay me!

I am forsworn.

- Why, he comes in like a
perjure, wearing papers.

- In love, I hope.

Sweet fellowship in shame.

- One drunkard loves
another of the name.

- Am I the first that
have been perjured so?

- I could put thee in comfort,
not by two that I know.

- I fear these stubborn
lines lack power to move.

O sweet Maria,
empress of my love.

These numbers will I
tear, and write in prose.

- Rhymes are guards on
wanton Cupid's hose.

Disfigure not his shop.

- This same shall go.

Did not the heavenly
rhetoric of thine eye,

'gainst whom the world
cannot hold argument,

persuade my heart to
this false perjury?

Vows for thee broke
deserve not punishment.

A woman I forswore,
but I will prove,

thou being a goddess,
I forswore not thee.

(snaps fingers)
(audience laughing)

My vow was earthly,
thou a heavenly love,

thy grace, being gained,
cures all disgrace in me.

Vows are but breath,
and breath a vapor is.

Then thou, fair sun, which
on my earth dost shine,

Exhal'st this vapor-vow,
in thee it is.

If broken then, it
is no fault of mine.

If by me broke, what
fool is not so wise

to lose an oath
to win a paradise?

(audience laughing) (applauding)

- This is the liver vein,
which makes flesh a deity,

a green goose a goddess.

Pure, pure idolatry.

God amend us, God amend!

We are much out of the way.

- By whom shall I send this?

Company?

Stay.

- All hid, all hid,
an old infant play.

Like a demigod here
sit I in the sky,

and wretched fools'
secrets heedfully o'er-eye.

More sacks to the mill!

(audience laughing)

O heavens, I have my wish!

Dumaine transformed!

Four woodcocks in a dish!

- O most divine Kate!

- O most profane coxcomb.

(audience laughing)

- By heaven, the
wonder in a mortal eye!

- By earth, she
is not, corporal.

There you lie.

- As upright as the cedar.

- Stoop, I say.

Her shoulder is with child.

- As fair as day.

- Ay, as some days, but
then no sun must shine.

- 0 that I had my wish!

- And I had mine!

- And I mine too, good Lord!

- Amen, so I had mine!

Is not that a good word?

- Once more I'll read
the ode that I have writ.

- Once more I'll mark
how love can vary wit.

- On a day, alack the day!

Love, whose month is ever May,

spied a blossom passing fair
playing in the wanton air.

Through the velvet
leaves the wind,

all unseen, can passage find,

that the lover, sick to death,

wished himself the
heavens' breath.

"Air", quoth he,
"thy cheeks may blow,

"Air, would I might triumph so!

"But, alack, my hand is sworn
(audience cheering)

"ne'er to pluck
thee from thy thorn.

"Vow, alack, for youth unmeet,

"youth so apt to pluck a sweet.

"Do not call it sin in me,
that I am forsworn for thee,

"thou for whom Jove would
swear Juno but an Ethiop fair,

"and deny himself for Jove,
turning mortal for thy love."

(audience cheering
and applauding)

This will I send, and
something else more plain,

that shall express my
true love's fasting pain.

O, would the King, Berowne,
and Longaville were lovers too!

Ill, to example ill,

would from my forehead
wipe a perjured note,

for none offend where
all alike do dote.

- Dumaine, thy love
is far from charity,

that in love's grief
desir'st society.

You may look pale, but
I should blush, I know,

to be overheard and
taken napping so.

- Come, sir, you blush.

As his your case is such.

You chide at him,
offending twice as much.

You do not love Maria?

Longaville.

Did never sonnet for
her sake compile.

I have been closely
shrouded in this bush,

and marked you both, and
for you both did blush.

I heard your guilty rhymes,

observed your fashion,

(audience laughing)

saw sighs reek from you,
noted well your passion.

You would for paradise

break faith and troth,

and Jove, for your love,
would infringe an oath.

What will Berowne say
when that he shall hear

faith so infringed, which
such zeal did swear?

How will he scorn, how
will he use his wit!

How will he triumph,
leap, and laugh at it.

For all the wealth
that ever I did see,

I would not have him
know, so much by me.

- Now step I forth
to whip hypocrisy.

Ah, good my liege, I
pray thee pardon me.

Good heart, what grace
hast thou, thus to reprove

these worms for loving,
that art most in love?

Your eyes do make no
coaches, in your tears

there is no certain
princess that appears,

but you will not be perjured,
'tis a hateful thing.

Hush, none but minstrels
like of sonneting

but are you not ashamed?

(audience laughing)

Nay are you not, the three of
you, to be thus much o'ershot?

You found his mote, the
King your motes did see,

but I a beam do find
in each of three.

O, what a scene of
foolery have I seen,

of sighs, of groans,
of sorrow, and of teen!

O me, with what strict
patience have I sat,

to see a king
transformed to a gnat!

Where lies thy grief?

O, tell me, good Dumaine.

And, gentle Longaville,
where lies thy pain?

And where my liege's?

All about the breast.

(audience laughing)

A caudle, ho!

- Too bitter is thy jest.

Are we thus betrayed
to thy over-view?

- Not you to me, but
I betrayed by you.

I that am honest.

(audience laughing)

And hold it sin to break
the vow I am engaged in.

I am betrayed by keeping company

with men like you,
men of inconstancy.

When shall you see me
write a thing in rhyme?

Or groan for Joan?

Or spend a minute's
time pruning?

When shall you hear that
I will praise a hand,

a foot, a face, an eye,

a gait, a state, a brow, a
breast, a waist, A leg, a limb.

- Soft! (audience laughing)

Whither away so fast?

A true man, or a
thief, that gallops so?

- I post from love.
Good lover, let me go.

- God bless the King!

- What present
hast though there?

- Some certain treason.

- What makes treason here?

- Nay it makes nothing, sir.

- If it mar nothing neither,

the treason and you go
in peace away together.

- I beseech your grace
let this letter be read.

Our person misdoubts it,
'twas treason, he said.

- Berowne, read it over.
- Yup.

(audience laughing)

- Where hadst thou it?
- Of Costard.

- Where hadst thou it?

- Of, of Dun Adramadio,
Dun Adramadio.

- How now,

what is in you?
Why dost thou tear it?

- A toy, my liege, a toy.

Your grace needs not fear it.

- It did move him to passion,
and therefore let's hear it.

- It is Berowne's writing,
and here is his name.

- You whoreson loggerhead,
you were born to do me shame.

Guilty, my lord, guilty
I confess, I confess.

- What?

- That you three fools lacked
me fool to make up the mess.

He, he, and you, and
you, my liege, and I

are pick-purses in love,
and we deserve to die.

(gasping)

Dismiss this audience,
and I shall tell you more.

- Now the number is even.

- True, true, we are four.

Will these turtles be gone?

- Hence, sirs, away!

- Walk aside the true folk,
and let the traitors stay.

(audience laughing)

(audience applauding)

- Sweet lords, sweet lovers,

O, let us embrace!

As true we are as
flesh and blood can be.

Seas will ebb and flow,
heaven show his face,

Young blood doth not
obey an old decree.

We cannot cross the
cause why we were born,

(audience laughing)

therefore by all hands
must we be forsworn.

- What, did these rent lines
show some love of thine?

- "Did they?" quoth you.

Who but sees
the heavenly Rosaline,

that, like a rude
and savage man of Ind

at the first opening
of the gorgeous east,

bows not his vassal
head, and strucken blind,

kisses the base ground
with obedient breast?

What peremptory
eagle-sighted eye

dares look upon the
heaven of her brow

that is not blinded
by her majesty?

- What zeal, what fury,
hath inspired thee now?

My love, her mistress,
is a gracious moon,

She, an attending star,
scarce seen a light.

- My eyes are then no
eyes, nor I Berowne.

O, but for my love, the
day would turn to night.

Lend me the flourish
of all gentle tongues

fie, painted rhetoric
O, she needs it not.

To things of sale a
seller's praise belongs.

She passes praise, then
praise too short doth blot.

- A withered hermit.

Five score winters worn.

- Might shake off 50,
looking in her eye.

Beauty doth varnish
age, as if new-born,

and gives the crutch
the cradle's infancy.

O, 'tis the sun

that maketh all things shine.

- By heaven, thy love
is black as ebony.

- Is ebony like her?

O would divine!

A wife of such
wood were felicity.

(audience laughing)

O, who can give an oath?

Where is a book

that I may swear beauty
doth beauty lack,

if that she learn not
of her eye to look?

No face is fair that
is not full so black.

- O paradox!

Black is the badge of hell,

the hue of dungeons,
and the school of night,

(audience laughing)

and beauty's crest
becomes the heavens well.

- Devils soonest tempt,
resembling spirits of light.

- O, if in black my
lady's brows be decked,

it mourns that painting
and usurping hair

should ravish doters
with a false aspect,

and therefore is she
born to make black fair.

- Her favor turns the
fashion of the days,

for native blood is
counted painting now,

and therefore red, that
would avoid dispraise,

paints itself black
to imitate her brow.

- But what of this?

Are we not all in love?

- Nothing so sure, and
therefore all forsworn.

- Then leave this chat,
and, good Berowne,

now prove our loving lawful
and our faith not torn.

- Ay marry, there, some
flattery for this evil.

- Some authority how to proceed.

Some tricks, some quillets,
how to cheat the devil.

- Some salve for perjury.

- 'Tis more than need.

Have at you then,
affection's men-at-arms.

Consider what you
first did swear on,

to fast, to study,
and to see no women.

Flat treason against the
kingly state of youth.

Say, can you fast?

Your stomachs are too young,

and abstinence
engenders maladies.

O, we have made a
vow to study, lords,

and in that vow we have
forsworn our books.

For when would you, my
liege, or you, or you,

in leaden contemplation
have found out

such fiery numbers
as the prompting eyes

of beauty's tutors
have enriched you with?

Other slow arts
entirely keep the brain,

and therefore, finding
barren practisers,

scarce show a harvest
of their heavy toil,

but love,

first learned in a lady's eyes,

lives not alone
immured in the brain,

but with the motion
of all elements

courses swift as
thought in every power,

and gives to every
power a double power,

above their functions
and their offices.

It adds a precious
seeing to the eye,

a lover's eyes will
gaze an eagle blind.

A lover's ear will
hear the lowest sound,

when the suspicious head
of theft is stopped.

Love's feeling is
more soft and sensible

than are the tender
horns of cockled snails.

For valor, is not
Love a Hercules,

still climbing trees
in the Hesperides?

Subtle as Sphinx,
as sweet and musical

as bright Apollo's lute,
strung with his hair,

and when Love speaks,

the voice of all the gods

make heaven drowsy
with the harmony.

Never durst poet
touch a pen to write

until his ink were
tempered with Love's sighs.

O then his lines would
ravish savage ears

and plant in tyrants
mild humility.

From women's eyes this
doctrine I derive.

They sparkle still the
right Promethean fire.

They are the books,
the arts, the academes.

That show, contain, and
nourish all the world,

else none at all in
aught proves excellent.

Then fools you were
these women to forswear,

or, keeping what is sworn,
you will prove fools.

For wisdom's sake, a
word that all men love,

or for love's sake, a
word that loves all men,

or for men's sake, the
authors of these women,

for women's sake, by whom we men

are men.

Let us once lose our
oaths to find ourselves,

or else we lose ourselves
to keep our oaths.

It is religion to
be thus forsworn,

for charity itself
fulfills the law,

and who can sever
love from charity?

- Saint Cupid, then!

And, soldiers, to the field!

- Advance your standards,
and upon them, lords!

Pell-mell, down with them!

- Lay these glozes by.

Shall we resolve to woo
these girls of France?

- And win them too!

Therefore let us devise
some entertainment

for them in their tents.

- First, from the park let
us conduct them thither.

Then homeward every
man attach the hand

of his fair mistress.

In the afternoon we will

with some strange
pastime solace them,

such as the shortness
of the time can shape,

for revels, dances,
masques, and merry hours

forerun fair Love, strewing
her way with flowers.

- Away, away!

No time shall be omitted

that will be time, and
may by us be fitted.

- Allons, allons!

(audience applauding)

Sowed cockle reaped no corn,

and justice always
whirls in equal measure.

Light wenches may prove
plagues to men forsworn,

if so, our copper buys
no better treasure.

(audience applauding)

- Satis quod sufficit.

- I praise God for you, sir.

Your reasons at dinner have
been sharp and sententious,

pleasant with out scurrility,

witty without affection,

audacious with out impudency,

learned without opinion,

and strange

(audience laughing)

without heresy.

I did converse this quondam
day with a companion

of the King's, who is
intituled, nominated,

or called Don Adriano de Armado.

- Novi hominem tanquam te.

His humor is lofty,

his discourse peremptory,
his tongue filed,

his eye ambitious,
his gait majestical,

and his general behavior vain,
ridiculous, and thrasonical.

He is too picked,

too spruce,

too affected,

too

odd, as it were, too
peregrinate, as I may call it.

- A most singular
and choice epithet.

- He draweth out the
thread of his verbosity

finer than the staple
of his argument.

I abhor such
fanatical phantasimes,

such insociable and
point-device companions,

such rackers of
orthography, as to speak.

Dout, sine b,

when he should say doubt,

det when he should
pronounce debt

D-E-B-T, not D-E-T.

He clepeth a calf,
cauf, half, hauf,

neighbor, vocatur, nebour,

(audience laughing)

neigh, abbreviated ne.

This is abhominable,

(audience laughing)

which he would call abominable.

It insinuateth me of insanire.

Ne intelligis, domine?

To make frantic a lunatic.

- Laus Dea, bone intelligo.

- Bone?

Bone for bene?

Priscian a little
scratched, 'twill serve.

- Videsne quis venit?

- Video et gaudeo.

- Chirrah!

(laughing)

- Quare chirrah, not sirrah.

- Men of peace,
well encountered.

- Most military sir, salutation.

- They have been
at a great feast of

languages and stolen the scraps.

(laughing)

- O, they have lived long
on the alms basket of words.

I marvel thy master hath
not eaten thee for a word,

for thou art not
so long by the head

as honorificabilitudinitatibus.

Thou art easier swallowed
than a flap-dragon.

- Peace, the peal begins.

- Monsieur, are
you not lettered?

- Yes, yes.

He teaches boys the hornbook.

What is a, b spelt backward
with the horn on his head?

- Ba, pueritia,
with a horn added.

- Ba, most silly
sheep with a horn.

You hear his learning.

- Quis, quis, thou consonant?

- The last of the five
vowels, if you repeat them,

or the fifth, if I.

- I will repeat them. a, e, i-

- The sheep.

The other two
concludes it, o, u.

(imitates sheep bleating)

- By the salt wave
of the Mediterranean,

a sweet touch, snip, snap,
it rejoiceth my intellect.

True wit!

- Offered by a child to an
old man, which is wit-old.

- What is the figure?

What is the figure?

- Horns.

- Thou disputes like an infant.

Go whip thy gig.

- Lend me your horn to make one,

and I will whip about
your infamy manu cita.

A gig of a cuckold's horn!

- An I had but one
penny in the world,

thou shouldst have it
to buy gingerbread.

Hold, there is the
very remuneration

I had of thy master,

(audience laughing)

thou halfpenny purse of wit,
thou pigeon-egg of discretion.

O, an the heavens
were so pleased

that thou wert but my bastard,

what a joyful father
wouldst thou make me!

Go to, thou hast it ad dunghill,

at the fingers'
ends, as they say.

- O, I smell false Latin,
dunghill for unguem.

(snickers mockingly)

- Arts-man, preambulate.

We will be singled
from the barbarous.

Do you not educate youth at the

charge-house on the
top of the mountain?

- I do, sans question.

- Sir, it is the King's
most sweet pleasure

and affection to
congratulate the Princess

at her pavilion in the
posteriors of this day.

- (giggling) Posterior.

- Which the rude multitude
call the afternoon.

- The posterior of the
day, most generous sir,

is a liable, congruent, and
measurable for the afternoon.

The word is well culled,
choice, sweet, and apt,

I do assure you,
sir, I do assure.

- Sir, the King is a noble
gentleman, and my familiar,

I do assure ye,
very good friend.

For what is inward between us,

let that pass.

But I must tell thee it
will please his greatness

by the world, sometime to
lean upon my poor shoulder,

and with his royal finger,
thus dally with my excrement,

(audience laughing)

with my mustachio.

- Ohh mustachio.

- But, sweetheart,
let that pass.

The very all of all
is but, sweetheart,

I do implore secrecy that the
King would have me present

the Princess, sweet chuck, with
some delightful ostentation,

or show, or pageant,
or antic, or firework.

Now, understanding that the
curate and your sweet self

are good at such eruptions
and sudden breaking-out of

mirth, as it were, I have
acquainted you withal,

to the end to crave
your assistance.

(audience laughing)

- Sir, you shall present
before her the Nine Worthies.

Sir Nathaniel, as concerning
some entertainment of time,

some show in the
posterior of this day

to be rendered by
our assistance,

the King's command, and this
most gallant, illustrate,

and learned gentleman
before the Princess,

I say none so fit as to
present the Nine Worthies.

- But where will you find men
worthy enough to present them?

- Joshua, yourself, myself,

Judas Maccabeus,

and this most gallant
gentleman, Hector.

(shouting in foreign language)
(audience laughing)

This swain, because of
his great limb or joint,

shall pass Pompey the
Great, the page, (chuckling)

Hercules.

- Pardon, sir, error!

He is not quantity enough
for that Worthy's thumb.

He is not so big as
the end of his club.

- Shall I have audience?

He shall present
Hercules in minority.

His enter and exit shall
be strangling a snake.

- For the rest of the Worthies?

- I will play three myself.

- Thrice-worthy gentleman!

- Shall I tell you a thing?

- We attend.

- We will have,
if this fadge not,

an antic I beseech you, follow.

- Via, Goodman Dull!

Thou hast spoken no
word all this while.

- Nor understood
none neither, sir.

(audience laughing)

- Allons!

We will employ thee.

- I'll make one
in a dance, or so,

or

I will play

on the tabor

to the Worthies,

and let them dance the hay.

(audience laughing)

- Most dull, dull, honest dull!

To our sport, away!

(audience applauding)

- Sweethearts, we shall
be rich ere we depart,

if fairings come
thus plentifully in.

A lady walled about
with diamonds!

Look you what I have
from the loving King.

- Madam, came nothing
else along with that?

- Nothing but this?

Yes, as much love in rhyme

as would be crammed up
in a sheet of paper,

writ o both sides the
leaf, margin and all,

that he was fain to
seal on Cupid's name.

- That was the way to
make his godhead wax,

for he hath been five
thousand year a boy.

- Ay, and a shrewd
unhappy gallows too.

- You'll ne'er be friends with
cupid, he killed your sister.

- He made her melancholy,
heavy, and sad, and so she died.

Had she been light, like you,

of such a merry,
nimble, stirring spirit,

she might ha' been a
grandam ere she died.

And so may you, for a
light heart lives long.

- What's your dark meaning,
mouse, of this light word?

- A light condition
in a beauty dark.

- We need more light to
find your meaning out.

- You'll mar the light
by taking it in snuff,

Therefore I'll darkly
end the argument.

- Look what you do, you
do it still i'th dark.

- So do not you, for
you are a light wench.

- Indeed I weigh not
you, and therefore light.

(audience laughing)

- You weigh me not?

O, that's you care not for me.

- Great reason, for past
cure is still past care.

- Well bandied both, a
set of wit well played.

But, Rosaline, you
have a favor too.

Who sent it, and what is it?

- I would you knew.

An if my face were
but as fair as yours,

my favor were as
great, be witness this.

Nay, I have verses
too, I thank Berowne,

the numbers true, and,
were the numbering too,

I were the fairest
goddess on the ground.

I am compared to
twenty thousand fairs.

O, he hath drawn my
picture in his letter!

- Anything like?

- Much in the letters,
nothing in the praise.

- But, Katherine,

what was sent to you
from fair Dumaine?

- Madam, this glove.

- Did he not send you twain?

- Yes, madam, and moreover

some thousand verses
of a faithful lover.

A huge translation of hypocrisy,

vilely compiled,
profound simplicity.

- This and these pearls
to me sent Longaville.

The letter is too
long by half a mile.

(laughing)

- I think no less.

Dost thou not wish in
heart the chain were longer

and the letter short?

- Ay, or I would these
hands might never part.

- We are wise girls
to mock our lovers so.

- They are worse fools
to purchase mocking so.

That same Berowne
I'll torture ere I go.

O that I knew he were
but in by the week!

How I would make him
fawn, and beg, and seek,

and wait the season,
and observe the times,

and spend his prodigal
wits in bootless rhymes,

and shape his service
wholly to my hests,

and make him proud to
make me proud that jests!

So fortune-like would
I o'ersway his state

that he should be my
fool, and I his fate.

- Here comes Boyet, and
mirth is in his face.

- O, I am stabbed with laughter!

Where's her grace?

- Thy news, Boyet?

- Prepare, madam, prepare!

Arm, wenches, arm!

Encounters mounted are
against your peace.

Love doth approach disguised,
armed in arguments.

You'll be surprised.

Muster your wits, stand
in your own defence,

or hide your heads like
cowards and fly hence.

- Saint Denis to Saint Cupid!

What are they that charge
their breath against us?

Say, scout, say.

- Under the cool
shade of a sycamore

I thought to close mine
eyes some half an hour,

when, lo, to interrupt
my purposed rest,

toward that shade I
might behold addressed

the King and his companions.

Warily I stole into a
neighbor thicket by,

and overheard what
you shall overhear.

That, by and by, disguised
they will be here.

Their herald is a
pretty knavish page,

That well by heart hath
conned his embassage.

Action and accent did
they teach him there.

Thus must thou speak,
and thus thy body bear.

And ever and anon
they made a doubt

presence majestical
would put him out,

"For," quoth the King,
"an angel shalt thou see,

"yet fear not thou,
but speak audaciously."

The boy replied, "An
angel is not evil.

"I should have feared her
had she been a devil.'

With that all laughed and
clapped him on the shoulder,

Making the bold wag by
their praises bolder.

One rubbed his elbow
thus, and fleered,

and swore a better speech
was never spoke before.

Another, with his
finger and his thumb,

cried "Via, we will do
it, come what will come!"

The third he capered and
cried "All goes well."

The fourth turned on the
toe, and down he fell.

With that they all did
tumble to the ground,

with such a zealous
laughter, so profound,

that in this spleen
ridiculous appears,

to check their folly,
passion's solemn tears.

- But what, but what?

Come they to visit us?

- They do, they do,
and are appareled thus,

Like Muscovites or
Russians, as I guess.

Their purpose is to
parley, court, and dance,

and every one his
love-suit will advance

unto his several mistress,
which they'll know

by favors several
which they did bestow.

- And will they so?

The gallants shall be tasked,

for, ladies, we will
every one be masked,

and not a man of them
shall have the grace,

despite of suit, to
see a lady's face.

- Hold, Rosaline, this
favor thou shalt wear,

and then the King will
court thee for his dear.

Hold, take thou this, my
sweet, and give me thine,

so shall Berowne
take me for Rosaline.

And change you favors too so
shall your loves woo contrary,

deceived by these removes.

- But in this changing
what is your intent?

- The effect of my intent
is to cross theirs.

They do it but in
mockery merriment,

And mock for mock
is only my intent.

(trumpet blasting)

- The trumpet sounds.

Be masked, the maskers come.

("Memory Eternal)

♪ VECH-NA-YA PA-MYAT

♪ VECH-NA-YA PA-MYAT

♪ VECH-NA-YA PA-MYAT

♪ VECH-NA-YA PA-MYAT

♪ VECH-NA-YA PA

♪ MYAT

♪ VECH-NA-YA PA-MYAT

♪ VECH-NA-YA PA-MYAT

♪ VECH-NA-YA PA

♪ MYAT

- All hail, the richest
beauties on the earth!

- Beauties no richer
than rich taffeta.

- A holy parcel of
the fairest dames

that ever turned their
backs, to mortal views.

- Their eyes,
villain, their eyes!

- That ever turned their
eyes to mortal views.

Out.

Out.

- True, out indeed!

- Out of your favors,
heavenly spirits,

vouchsafe not to behold.

- Once to behold, rogue.

- Once to behold with
your sun-beamed eyes,

with your sun-beamed eyes.

- They will not answer
to that epithet.

You were best call it
daughter-beamed eyes.

- They do not mark me,
and that brings me out.

- Is this your perfectness?

Be gone, rogue!

♪ VECH-NA-YA PA-MYAT

♪ VECH-NA-YA PA-MYAT

♪ VECH-NA-YA PA

♪ MYAT

- What would these strangers?

Know their minds, Boyet.

If they do speak our language,

'tis our will that some plain
man recount their purposes.

Know what they would.

- What would you
with the Princess?

- Say to her

we have measured many miles

to tread a measure
with her on this grass.

- She hears for herself.

- How many weary steps,

of many weary miles
you have o'ergone,

are measured in the
travel of one mile?

- We measure nothing
that we spend for you.

Our duty is so
rich, so infinite,

that we may do it
still without account.

Vouchsafe to show the
sunshine of your face,

that we, like savages,
may worship it.

- My face is but a
moon, and clouded too.

- Blessed are clouds,
to do as such clouds do.

Vouchsafe, bright moon, and
these thy stars, to shine

Those clouds removed-upon
our watery eyne.

- O vain petitioner,
beg a greater matter!

Thou now requests but
moonshine in the water.

- Then in our measure do
but vouchsafe one change.

Thou bid'st me beg, this
begging is not strange.

- Play, music, then!

Nay, you must do it soon.

Not yet? No dance.

Thus change I like the moon.

- Will you not dance?

How come you thus estranged?

- You took the moon at
full, but now she's changed.

- Yet still she is the
moon, and I the man.

The music plays, vouchsafe
some motion to it.

- Our ears vouchsafe it.

- But your legs should do it.

- Since you are strangers,
and come here by chance,

we'll not be nice.

Take hands.

We will not dance.

- Why take we hands then?

- Only to part friends.

Curtsy, sweethearts,
and so the measure ends.

- More measure of this measure.

Be not nice.

- We can afford no
more at such a price.

- If you deny to dance,
let's hold more chat.

- In private then.

- I am best pleased with that.

- Sharp-witted mistress,
one sweet word with thee.

- Honey, and milk, and sugar.

There is three.

- One word in secret.

- Let it not be sweet.

- Thou griev'st my gall.

- Gall-bitter!

- Therefore meet.

- Will you vouchsafe
with me to change a word?

- Name it.

- Fair lady...

- Say you so?

Fair lord!

Take that for your fair lady.

- Please it you,

as much in private,
and I'll bid adieu.

- What, was your visor
made without a tongue?

- I know the reason,
lady, why you ask.

- O, for your reason!

Quickly, sir, I long.

- You have a double
tongue within your mask,

and would afford my
speechless visor half.

- "Veal," quoth the Dutchman.

Is not veal a calf?

Take all, and wean it,
it may prove an ox.

- Look how you butt yourself
with these sharp mocks.

- One word in private
with you ere I die.

- Bleat softly then, the
butcher hears you cry.

- The tongues of mocking
wenches are as keen

as is the razor's
edge invisible,

cutting a smaller
hair than may be seen,

above the sense of sense,

so sensible seemeth
their conference,

their conceits have wings
fleeter than arrows,

bullets,

wind, thoughts,

swifter things. (giggling)

- Not one word more, my maids.

Break off, break off!

- By heaven, all
dry-beaten with pure scoff!

- Farewell, mad
wenches, you have simple wits.

- Twenty adieus, my
frozen Muscovites.

(salutatory shouting)
(instrumental accentuation)

(laughing)

Are these the breed of
wits so wondered at?

- Tapers they are, with your
sweet breaths puffed out.

- Will they not, think you,
hang themselves tonight?

Or ever but in visors
show their faces?

This pert Berowne was
out of count'nance quite.

- Ah, they were all
in lamentable cases.

But will you hear?

The King is my love sworn.

- And quick Berowne hath
plighted faith to me.

- And Longaville was
for my service born.

- Dumaine is mine as
sure as bark on tree.

- Madam, and pretty
mistresses, give ear.

Immediately they
will again be here

in their own shapes,
for it can never be

they will digest
this harsh indignity.

- Will they return?

- They will, they
will, God knows,

and leap for joy, though
they are lame with blows.

Therefore change favors,
and when they repair,

Blow like sweet roses
in this summer air.

- Good madam, if by
me you'll be advised,

Let's mock them still, as
well known as disguised.

Let us complain to them
what fools were here,

disguised like Muscovites
in shapeless gear,

and wonder what they
were, and to what end

their shallow shows, and
prologue vilely penned,

and their rough
carriage so ridiculous,

should be presented
at our tent to us.

- Ladies, beware.
(trumpets blasting)

The gallants are at hand.

- Fleet then our wits as
roes runs o'er the land!

- All hail, sweet
madam, and fair time of day.

- Fair in all hail is
foul, as I conceive.

- Construe my speeches
better, if you may.

- Then wish me better,
I will give you leave.

- We came to visit
you, and now propose

to lead you to our
court, vouchsafe it then.

- This field shall hold
me, and so hold your vow.

Nor God nor I delights
in perjured men.

Now, by my maiden honor,

yet as pure as the
unsullied lily, I protest,

a world of torments
though I should endure,

I would not yield to
be your house's guest.

So much I hate a
breaking cause to be

of heavenly oaths,
vowed with integrity.

- O, you have lived
in desolation here,

unseen, unvisited,
much to our shame.

- Not so, my lord.

It is not so, I swear.

We have had pastimes
here and pleasant game.

A mess of Russians
left us but of late.

- How, madam?

Russians?

- Ay, in truth, my lord,

trim gallants, full of
courtship and of state.

- Madam, speak true.

- It is not so, my lord.

My lady, to the
manner of the days,

In courtesy gives
undeserving praise.

We four indeed confronted were
with four in Russian habit.

Here they stayed an hour,

and talked apace, and
in that hour, my lord,

they did not bless us
with one happy word.

I dare not call them
fools, but this I think,

when they are thirsty,
fools would fain have drink.

(giggling)

- This jest is dry to me.

My gentle sweet, your wits
make wise things foolish.

When we greet, with
eyes' best seeing,

heaven's fiery eye, by
light we lose light.

Your capacity is of that
nature that to your huge store

wise things seem foolish,
and rich things but poor.

- This proves you wise
and rich, for in my eye...

- I am a fool, and
full of poverty.

O, I am yours, and
all that I possess.

- All the fool mine?

- Cannot give you less.

- Which of the visors
was it that you wore?

- Where, when, what visor?

Why demand you this?

- There, then, that visor,
that superfluous case,

that hid the worse, and
showed the better face.

(laughing)

- We were descried.

They'll mock us now downright.

- Let us confess, and
turn it to a jest.

- Amazed, my lord?

Why looks your highness sad?

- Help, hold his
brows, he'll swoon!

Why look you pale?

Seasick, I think,
coming from Muscovy.

(laughing)

- Thus pour the stars
down plagues for perjury.

Can any face of brass
hold longer out?

Here stand I, lady,
dart thy skill at me,

bruise me with scorn,
confound me with a flout,

thrust thy sharp wit quite
through my ignorance,

cut me to pieces with
thy keen conceit,

and I will wish thee
never more to dance,

nor never more in
Russian habit wait.

O, never will I trust
to speeches penned,

nor to the motion of
a schoolboy's tongue,

nor come in visor to my friend,

nor woo in rhyme, like
a blind harper's song.

Taffeta phrases,
silken terms precise,

three-piled hyperboles,
spruce affectation,

figures pedantical,
these summer flies

have blown me full of
maggot ostentation.

I do forswear them,
and I here protest

by this soft glove, how
soft the hand, God knows.

Henceforth my wooing
mind shall be expressed

in russet yeas and
honest kersey noes.

And to begin, wench,
so God help me, law!

My love to thee is sound,
sans crack or flaw.

- Sans sans, I pray you.

- Yet I have a trick
of the old rage.

Bear with me, I am sick.

(laughing)

I'll leave it by degrees.

Soft, let us see.

Write Lord have mercy
on us on those three.

They are infected, in
their hearts it lies,

they have the plague, and
caught it of your eyes.

These lords are visited,
you are not free,

for the Lord's tokens
on you do I see.

- No, they are free that
gave these tokens to us.

- Our states are forfeit.

Seek not to undo us.

- It is not so, for
how can this be true,

that you stand forfeit,
being those that sue?

- Peace, for I will not
have to do with you.

- Nor shall not, if
I do as I intend.

- Speak for yourselves.

My wit is at an end.

- Teach us, sweet madam,
for our rude transgression

some fair excuse.

- The fairest is confession.

Were not you here but
even now disguised?

- Madam, I was.

- And were you well advised?

- I was, fair madam.

- When you then were here,

what did you whisper
in your lady's ear?

- More than all the
world I did respect her.

- When she shall challenge
this, you will reject her.

- Upon mine honor, no.

- Peace, peace, forbear!

Your oath once broke, you
force not to forswear.

- Despise me when I
break this oath of mine.

- I will, and therefore keep it.

Rosaline, what did the
Russian whisper in your ear?

- Madam, he swore that
he did hold me dear

as precious eyesight, and did
value me above this world.

Adding thereto, moreover,

that he would wed me,
or else die my lover.

- God give thee joy of him!

The noble lord most honorably
doth uphold his word.

- What mean you, madam?

By my life, my troth, I never
swore this lady such an oath.

- By heaven, you did!

And to confirm it plain,

you gave me this, but
take it, sir, again.

- My faith and this the
Princess I did give.

I knew her by this
jewel on her breast.

- Pardon me, sir, this
jewel did she wear,

and Lord Berowne, I
thank him, is my dear.

What, will you have me,
or your pearl again?

- Neither of either,
I remit both twain.

(laughing)

I see the trick on't.

Here was a consent,

that knowing aforehand
of our merriment,

to dash it like a
Christmas comedy.

Some carry-tale, some
please-man, some slight zany,

some mumble-news, some
trencher-knight, some Dick

(audience laughing)

that smiles his cheek in
years, and knows the trick

to make my lady laugh
when she's disposed,

told our intents before,
which once disclosed,

the ladies did change favors,

and we, following the signs,
wooed but the sign of she.

Now, to our perjury
to add more terror,

we are again forsworn,
in will and error.

Much upon this 'tis and might
not you forestall our sport,

to make us thus untrue?

You put our page out.

Go, you are allowed,

die when you will, a smock
shall be your shroud.

You leer upon me, do you?

There's an eye wounds
like a leaden sword.

- Full merrily hath
this brave manege,

this career, been run.

- Lo, he is tilting straight.

Peace, I have done.

Welcome, pure wit.

Thou partest a fair fray.

- O Lord, sir, they would know

whether the three Worthies
shall come in or no.

- Are there but three?

- No, sir, but it is very fine,

for every one presents three.

- And three times
thrice is nine.

- Not so, sir.

Under correction, sir,
we know what we know.

(audience laughing)

I hope, sir, three
times thrice, sir...

- Is not nine?

- Under correction, sir,

we know where until
it doth amount.

- By Jove, I always took
three threes for nine.

- O Lord, sir,

it were pity you should get
your living by reckoning, sir.

- How much is it?

- O Lord, sir, the parties
themselves, the actors,

will show where
until it doth amount.

For mine own part,
I am, as they say,

but to parfect one
man in one poor man,

Pompion the Great, sir.

- Art thou one of the Worthies?

- It pleased them to think me
worthy of Pompey the Great.

- Go, bid them prepare.

- We will turn it finely off,
sir, we will take some care.

(celebratory cheering)

- Berowne, they will shame us.

Let them not approach.

(audience laughing)

- We are shame-proof, my lord,

(audience laughing)

and 'tis some policy
to have one show worse

than the King's and his company.

- I say they shall not come.

- Nay, my good lord,
let me o'errule you now.

That sport best pleases
that doth least know how.

Where zeal strives to
content, and the contents

dies in the zeal of
that which it presents,

there form confounded
makes most form in mirth,

when great things laboring
perish in their birth.

- A right description
of our sport, my lord.

- Anointed, I implore so
much expense of thy royal

sweet breath as will
utter a brace of words.

- Doth this man serve God?

- Why ask you?

- Speaks not like a
man of God his making.

- That is all one, my
royal, sweet, honey monarch,

but, I protest, the schoolmaster
is exceeding fantastical,

too too vain,

too too

vain.

But we will put it, as they
say, to fortuna de la guerra.

I wish you the peace of
mind, most royal couplement.

- Here is like to be a
good presence of Worthies.

He presents Hector
of Troy, the swain,

Pompey the Great, the
parish curate, Alexander,

Armado's page, Hercules,
the pedant, Judas Maccabeus.

(audience laughing)

(cheerful instrumental music)

- I Pompey am...

- You lie, you are not he.

- I Pompey am...

- With leopard's head on knee.

- Well said, old mocker.

I must be friends with thee.

- I Pompey am, Pompey
surnamed the Big...

- The Great.

- It is Great, sir.
Pompey surnamed the Great,

that oft in field,
with targe and shield,

did make my foe to sweat.

And traveling along this coast,
I here am come by chance,

and lay my arms before the legs

of this sweet lass of France.

(applauding)

If your ladyship would say
thanks Pompey, I had done.

- Great thanks, great Pompey.

- I hope it was not so much
worth, but I hope I was perfect.

I made a little fault in Great.

(cheerful instrumental music)

- My hat to a halfpenny,
Pompey proves the best worthy.

(cheerful instrumental music)

(impressed shouting)

- Neigh.

(audience laughing)

When,

when in the world

I lived, I

was the world's

commander.

By

East,

west,

north, and south,

I spread my conquering might.

My

Scutcheon plain declares that

I am Alisander.

- The conqueror is dismayed.

Proceed, good Alexander.

(applauding)

- When

in the world

I lived,

I was the worlds' commander.

- Pompey the Great.

- Your servant sir, and Costard.

(understanding moan)

- Take away the conqueror,
take away Alisander.

- O, sir, you have overthrown
Alisander the conqueror.

You will be scraped out of
the painted cloth for this.

(cheerful instrumental music)

A conqueror, and
afeard to speak?

Run away for shame, Alisander.

(audience laughing)

(audience applauding)

There, an 't shall please
you, a foolish mild man,

an honest man, look
you, and soon dashed.

He is a marvelous
good neighbor, faith,

and a very good bowler.

But for Alisander,
alas, you see how 'tis,

a little o'er parted, but
there are Worthies a-coming

that'll speak their
mind in some other sort.

- Stand aside, good Pompey,

- Great Hercules is
presented by this imp,

whose club killed Cerberus,
that three-headed canus,

and when he was a babe,
a child, a shrimp,

thus did he strangle
serpents in his manus.

Hiss, hiss, hiss, hiss.

(shouting)

(cheering)

(audience laughing)

Keep some state in
thy exit, and vanish.

(laughing)

(audience applauding)

(female humming)

(audience laughing)

(laughing)

Judas I am

- A Judas!

- Not Iscariot, sir.

Judas I am, ycliped Maccabeus.

- But Judas Maccabeus
clipped is plain Judas.

- A kissing traitor.

How art thou proved Judas?

- Judas I am,

- The more shame for you, Judas.

- What mean you, sir?

- To make Judas hang himself.

- Begin, sir, you are my elder.

(shocked gasping)

- Well followed.

Judas was hanged on an elder.

(laughing)

- I will not be put
out of countenance.

- Because thou hast no face.

- What is this?
- A cittern-head.

- The head of a bodkin.
- A death's face in a ring.

- The face of an old
Roman coin, scarce seen.

- The pommel of
Caesar's falchion.

- The carved-bone
face on a flask.

- Saint George's
half-cheek in a brooch.

And now, forward, for we
have put thee in countenance.

(audience laughing)

- You have put me
out of countenance.

- False!

We have given thee faces.

- But you have
outfaced them all.

- An thou wert
a lion, we would do so.

- Therefore, as he is
an ass, let him go.

And so adieu, sweet Jude.

Nay, why dost thou stay?

- For the latter
end of his name.

- For the ass to the Jude?

Give it him.

Jud-as, away!

(laughing) (clapping)

- This is not generous,

(audience laughing)

not gentle, not humble.

- A light for Monsieur Judas!

It grows dark, he may stumble.

- Alas, poor Maccabeus,
how hath he been baited!

(applauding)

(heavy drumming music)

♪ The armipotent Mars

♪ Of lances the almighty

♪ Gave Hector a gift

♪ A gilt nutmeg

♪ A lemon

♪ Stuck with cloves

♪ No, cloven.

- Peace!

♪ The armipotent Mars

♪ Of lances the almighty

♪ Gave Hector a gift

♪ The heir of Ilion

♪ A man so breathed

♪ That certain he
would fight, yea

♪ From morn 'til night

♪ Out of his pavilion

I am that flower...

- That mint.

- That columbine.

- Sweet Lord Longaville,
rein thy tongue.

- I must rather
give it the rein,

for it runs against Hector.

- Ay, and Hector's a greyhound.

- The sweet war-man
is dead and rotten.

Sweet chucks, beat not
the bones of the buried.

When he breathed, he was a man.

But I will forward
with my device.

Sweet majesty, bestow on
me the sense of hearing.

- Speak, brave Hector,
we are much delighted.

- I do adore thy
sweet grace's slipper.

- Loves her by the foot.

- He may not by the yard.

- This Hector far
surmounted Hannibal.

The party is gone.

- Fellow Hector, she is gone.

She is two months on her way.

- What meanest thou?

- Faith, unless you
play the honest Trojan,

the poor wench is cast away.

She's quick, the child
brags in her belly already.

'Tis yours.

- Dost thou infamonize
me among potentates?

Thou shalt die.

(gasping)

- Then shall Hector be
whipped for Jaquenetta

that is quick by him,

and hanged for Pompey
that is dead by him.

- Most rare Pompey!

- Renowned Pompey!

- Greater than Great!

Great, great, great Pompey!

Pompey the Huge!

- Hector trembles.

- Pompey is moved.

- Hector will challenge him.

- By the North Pole,
I do challenge thee.

- I will not fight with a
pole like a northern man.

I'll slash, I'll
do it by the sword.

I bepray you, let me
borrow my arms again.

- Room for
the incensed Worthies.

- I'll do it in my shirt.

- Master, let me take
you a buttonhole lower.

Do you not see Pompey is
uncasing for the combat?

What mean you?

You will lose your reputation.

- Gentlemen and
soldiers, pardon me,

I will not combat in my shirt.

- You may not deny it.

Pompey hath made the challenge.

- Sweet bloods, I
both may and will.

- What reason have you for't?

- The naked truth of
it is I have no shirt.

(audience laughing)

I go woolward for penance.

- True, and it was enjoined
him in Rome for want of linen.

Since when, I'll be sworn, he
wore none but a dishclout of

Jaquenetta's, and that a wears
next his heart for a favor.

(bell tolling)

- God save you, madam.

- Welcome, Marcade,

but that thou interrupt'st
our merriment.

- I am sorry, madam,
for the news I bring

is heavy in my tongue.

The King your father...

- Dead, for my life!

- Even so.

My tale is told.

- Worthies, away!

The scene begins to cloud.

- For mine own part,
I breathe free breath.

I have seen the day of wrong
through the little hole

of discretion, and I will
right myself like a soldier.

- How fares your majesty?

- Boyet, prepare, we
will away tonight.

- Madam, not so.

I do beseech you, stay.

- Prepare, I say.

I thank you, gracious lords,

for all your fair
endeavors, and entreat,

out of a new-sad soul,
that you vouchsafe

in your rich wisdom
to excuse, or hide,

the liberal opposition
of our spirits.

If over-boldly we
have borne ourselves

in the converse of breath, your
gentleness was guilty of it.

Farewell, worthy lord!

A heavy heart bears
not a nimble tongue.

- Yet though the
mourning brow of progeny

forbid the smiling
courtesy of love

the holy suit which
fain it would convince,

let not the cloud
of sorrow jostle it

from what it purposed,
since to wail friends lost

is not by much so
wholesome-profitable

as to rejoice at
friends but newly found.

- I understand you not.

My griefs are double.

- Honest plain words best
pierce the ear of grief,

and by these badges
understand the King.

For your fair sakes
have we neglected time,

played foul play with our oaths.

Your beauty, ladies,
hath much deformed us,

fashioning our humors

even to the opposed
end of our intents,

and what in us hath
seemed ridiculous.

Put on by us, if, by
your heavenly eyes,

have misbecomed our
oaths and gravities,

those heavenly eyes, that
look into these faults,

suggested us to make.

Therefore, ladies,
our love being yours,

the error that love
makes is likewise yours.

We to ourselves prove false
by being once false for ever

to be true to those
that make us both,

fair ladies,

you.

- We have received your
letters, full of love,

your favors, the
ambassadors of love,

and in our maiden counsel
rated them at courtship,

pleasant jest, and courtesy,

as bombast and as
lining to the time.

But more devout than
this in our respects

have we not been, and
therefore met your loves

in their own fashion,
like a merriment.

- Our letters, madam,
showed much more than jest.

- So did our looks.

- We did not quote them so.

- Now, at the
latest minute of the hour,

grant us your loves.

- A time, methinks, too short

to make a world-without-end
bargain in.

No, no, my lord, your
grace is perjured much,

full of dear guiltiness,
and therefore this,

if for my love, as
there is no such cause

you will do aught, this
shall you do for me.

Your oath I will not
trust, but go with speed

to some forlorn and
naked hermitage,

remote from all the
pleasures of the world.

There stay until the
twelve celestial signs

have brought about
the annual reckoning.

If this austere insociable life

change not your offer
made in heat of blood,

if frosts and fasts, hard
lodging and thin weeds

nip not the gaudy
blossoms of your love,

but that it bear this
trial, and last love,

then, at the
expiration of the year,

come challenge me, challenge
me by these deserts,

and, by this virgin
palm now kissing thine,

I will be thine,

and 'til that instance

shut my woeful self up
in a mourning house,

raining the tears of lamentation

for the remembrance
of my father's death.

If this thou do deny,
let our hands part,

neither entitled in
the other's heart.

- If this, or more than
this, I would deny,

to flatter up these
powers of mine with rest,

the sudden hand of
death close up mine eye!

Hence, hermit, then,

my heart is in thy breast.

But what to me, my love?

- But what to me?

A wife?

- A beard, fair
health, and honesty,

With threefold love I
wish you all these three.

- O, shall I say, I
thank you, gentle wife?

- Not so, my lord.

A twelvemonth and a day

I'll mark no words that
smooth-faced wooers say.

Come when the King
doth to my lady come,

and if I have much love,
I'll give you some.

- I'll serve thee true
and faithfully 'tll then.

- Yet swear not, lest
ye be forsworn again.

- What says Maria?

- At the twelvemonth's end

I'll change my black gown
for a faithful friend.

- I'll stay with patience,
but the time is long.

- The liker you, few
taller are so young.

- Studies my lady?

Mistress, look on me,

behold the window of
my heart, mine eye,

what humble suit attends
thy answer there.

Impose some service
on me for thy love.

- Oft have I heard of
you, my lord Berowne,

before I saw you, and
the world's large tongue

proclaims you for a
man replete with mocks,

full of comparisons
and wounding flouts,

which you on all
estates will execute

that lie within the
mercy of your wit.

To weed this wormwood
from your fruitful brain,

and therewithal to
win me, if you please,

without the which
I am not to be won,

you shall this twelvemonth
term from day to day

visit the speechless
sick, and still converse

with groaning wretches,
and your task shall be

with all the fierce
endeavor of your wit

to enforce the pained
impotent to smile.

- To move wild laughter
in the throat of death?

It cannot be, it is impossible.

Mirth cannot move
a soul in agony.

- Why, that's the way to
choke a gibing spirit,

a jest's prosperity lies in
the ear of him that hears it,

never in the tongue
of him that makes it.

Then if sickly ears,

deafed with the clamors
of their own dear groans,

will hear your idle
scorns, continue then,

and I will have you
and that fault withal.

But if they will not,
throw away that spirit,

and I shall find you
empty of that fault,

right joyful of
your reformation.

- A twelvemonth?

Nay then, befall
what will befall,

I'll jest a twelvemonth
in an hospital.

(audience laughing)

- Ay, sweet my lord,
and so I take my leave.

- No, madam, we will
bring you on your way.

- Our wooing doth not
end like an old play.

Jack hath not Jill.

These ladies'
courtesy might well

have made our sport a comedy.

- Come, sir, it wants a
twelvemonth an' a day,

and then 'twill end.

- That's too long for a play.

(audience laughing)

- Sweet majesty, vouchsafe me.

I will kiss thy royal
finger, and take leave.

I am a votary,

I have vowed to Jaquenetta
to hold the plough

for her sweet love three year.

But, most esteemed greatness,

will you hear the dialogue
that the two learned men

have compiled in praise
of the owl and the cuckoo?

It should have followed
in the end of our show.

- Call them forth
quickly, we will do so.

- Holla, approach!

This side is Hiems, the Winter,

this Ver, the Spring.

The one maintained by the
owl, the other by the cuckoo.

Well, begin.

(cheerful instrumental music)

♪ When daisies pied,
and violets blue

♪ And lady-smocks
all silver-white

♪ And cuckoo-buds
with yellow hue

♪ Do paint the
meadows with delight

♪ The cuckoo then, on every tree

♪ Mocks married men,
for thus sings he

♪ Cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo

♪ Cuckoo

♪ Cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo

♪ O word of fear

♪ Unpleasing to a married ear

♪ When shepherds
pipe on oaten straws

♪ And merry larks are
ploughmen's clocks

♪ When turtles tread,
and rooks, and daws

♪ And maidens bleach
their summer smocks

♪ The cuckoo then, on every tree

♪ Mocks married men,
for thus sings he

♪ Cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo

♪ Cuckoo

♪ Cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo

♪ O word of fear

♪ Unpleasing to a married ear

♪ When icicles hang by the wall

♪ And Dick the
shepherd blows his nail

♪ And Tom bears
logs into the hall

♪ And milk comes
frozen home in pail

♪ When blood is nipped,
and ways be foul

♪ Then nightly sings
the staring owl

♪ Tu-whit, tu-whoo,
tu-whit, tu-whoo

♪ Tu-whoo, tu-whit, tu-whoo

♪ A merry note

♪ While greasy Joan
doth keel the pot

♪ When all aloud
the wind doth blow

♪ And coughing drowns
the parson's saw

♪ And birds sit
brooding in the snow

♪ And Marian's nose
looks red and raw

♪ When roasted crabs
hiss in a bowl

♪ Then nightly sings
the staring owl

(owl hooting)

♪ Tu-whoo, tu-whit, tu-whoo

♪ A merry note

♪ While greasy Joan
doth keel the pot

♪ When all aloud
the wind doth blow

♪ And coughing drowns
the parson's saw

♪ And birds sit
brooding in the snow

♪ And Marian's nose
looks red and raw

♪ When roasted crabs
hiss in a bowl

♪ Then nightly sings
the staring owl

♪ Tu-whoo, tu-whit, tu-whoo

♪ A merry note

♪ While greasy Joan
doth keel the pot

The words of Mercury are harsh
after the songs of Apollo.

You, that way.

We

This way.

(audience laughing)

(owl hooting)

(audience applauding)

(cheerful violin music)