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Love's Labour's Lost
Love's Labour's Lost
Love's Labour's Lost
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Love's Labour's Lost

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In this charming comedy of manners, one of Shakespeare's earliest efforts in the genre, a well-intentioned king vows to forego all fleshly delights, setting the stage for romantic hijinks. Ferdinand, the king of Navarre, insists that his court join him in a pledge to undertake a strict regimen of study and celibacy. The grudging compliance of three noblemen is sorely tested — as is the king's own resolve — with the arrival of a French princess and a trio of comedy attendants.
First performed in 1594, Love's Labour's Lost features such typical Shakespearean elements as lovers in disguise, a witty clown, and an abundance of sparkling repartee. The play's role as a formative work (the plot is thought to be entirely of Shakespeare's invention) makes it of particular interest to students and scholars, and its merry doings and high spirts recommend it to all.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateJun 11, 2012
ISBN9780486153797
Author

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare is widely regarded as the greatest playwright the world has seen. He produced an astonishing amount of work; 37 plays, 154 sonnets, and 5 poems. He died on 23rd April 1616, aged 52, and was buried in the Holy Trinity Church, Stratford.

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Rating: 3.501666694666667 out of 5 stars
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  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The 2000 film of this play got me in trouble because I was laughing so loudly at Shakespeare; I was told after the film, "Everybody in this room HATES you." (Guess Americans are not s'posed to laugh at Great Drama--or poetry, either.) Arguably Shakespeare's most Shakespearean play, or interplay: the exchanges of wit, what he would have overheard at Middle Temple and among his fellow actors. Rather than the text, I'll comment on Branagh's musical version, with himself as Berowne and Director, Scorsese as producer. It's hilarious, especially for a Shakespearean; I laughed throughout so much (my laugh scares babies) one lady in the audience 25 came up to me after the film to kindly inform, "Everybody in this room HATES you." I thanked her for the admonition. Very slow, stagey opening lines by the Prince. Dunno why. They cut the poetry criticism, and substitute the American songbook--Gershwin, Berlin--for poems. The Don Armado stuff (with Moth his sidekick) is broad, not literary: mustachioed, funny body, melancholy humor. Armado's the most overwritten love-letter, parodying catechism; but he is standard Plautine Braggart Soldier ("Miles Gloriosus") by way of commedia dell'arte. Then the Plautine Pedant (commedia Dottore) Holofernia crosses gender, a female professor type. Costard wears a suit, maybe a Catskills standup.Branagh cuts the Russian (or fake-Russian) lingo, "muoosa-Cargo" of the masked entrance. Wonderful 30's film cliches: female swimmers, the dance scenes, the prop plane's night takeoff. Ends with WWII, grainy newsreel footage of the year, after news of the French Princess's father's death. Berowne (pronounced .."oon") is sentenced privately "to move wild laughter in the throat of death…" His judge, Rosaline, points out the Bard' instruction on jokes: "A jest's prosperity lies in the ear / Of him that hears it, never in the tongue / Of him that makes it" (V.end). LLL ends with death and winter (the Russian an intimation?): "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 pails.." and the owl talks, "Tu-whit..Tu whoo, a merry note/ While greasy Joan doth keel the pot." That's the European Tawny Owl (male and female must combine for it) so an American director might replace with the same prosody, "Who cooks for youuu?"(the Barred Owl). In the penultimate scene, Dull is onstage the whole scene nere speaking a word until Holofernes says, "Thou hast spoken no word the while," to which Dull, "Nor understood none neither, sir."Well, no wonder, if he has no Latin, for Costard offers, "Go to, thou has it AD dunghill…as they say." Hol, "Oh, I smell false Latin--dunghill for UNGUEM." The Bard kindly explains the Latin joke, essential for modern American readers. Incidentally, Berowne uses Moliere-like rhymed couplets in his social satire on Boyet, V.ii.315ff. His most daring rhymes, "sing/ushering" and maybe "debt/Boyet."
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Bizarre, yet entertaining story of men who renounce the company of women, then are quickly forsworn.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A king and his gentlemen vow to remain celibate, studious and moderate in their habits for three years to improve their minds. They have signed their names to this vow. Oops! They forgot that an embassy from France was due soon, consisting of a princess and her ladies! Shenanigans ensue. And wordplay, such wordplay!What seemed at first a fairly shallow and cynical plot, developed by the end to be a story of depth. No fools these women, they understood these men better than the men understood themselves, and called them on their foolishness. Shakespeare leaves the ending undecided, as the twelve month penance the men are given by the women is "too long for a play."
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I’m normally a big fan of Shakespeare’s plays, and while I enjoyed parts of this one, it still fell a bit flat for me. The King of Navarre and three of his friends decide they will swear off women and other temptations for three years while they focus on their studies. Of course they decide to do this shortly before the Princess of France and her friends are about to visit. No sooner is the vow made than all four men are swooning over the lovely ladies. There are some really funny parts, like when the men try to hold each other to their vow while at the same time writing love letters to their new crushes. As with all of Shakespeare’s comedies, hidden identities and witty dialogue confound the characters as they find themselves unexpectedly falling in love. **SPOILERS**The play ends with a bit of an unusual cliff hanger. The lovers are all separated when the Princess must return to rule France after hearing of her father’s unexpected death. There is a theory that a sequel to the play existed but there are no surviving copies. The play “Love’s Labour’s Won” is mentioned in other texts from around the same time and it could have been the sequel that resolved the lovers’ future. **SPOILERS OVER**BOTTOM LINE: This isn’t one of the Bard’s strongest plays, but if you’re already a fan then it’s worth reading. If not, start with one of his better comedies, like Twelfth Night, As You Like It or Much Ado About Nothing. “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.”“As sweet and musicalAs bright Apollo's lute, strung with his hair;And when Love speaks, the voice of all the godsMakes heaven drowsy with the harmony.” 
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Love's Labour's Lost is easily one of my favorites in the whole body of Shakespeare's works (excluding his sonnets, of course, which are a whole different animal entirely). As I haven't yet gotten around to reading a different version, I can't comment on how the Folger measures up, but the annotations in this edition seem just about perfect, in that it explains the things that need to be the most and leaves the rest up to personal interpretation.The plot of this play is simple in that it could easily be a Renaissance rom-com if not for the superb execution. Per the usual, Shakespeare weaves layer upon layer of literary devices until your mind spins (in a good way), but the humor of this particular play overshadows even the ever-entertaining double entendres. I could read this over and over again for the cutting wit of Berowne alone; throw in Costard, too, and I'm hooked for life. Their exchange at the beginning of Act III makes me smile like an idiot no matter how many times I read it (see also: Berowne's soliloquy about love at the end of Act III, Scene I. Shakespeare was a freaking genius).***Spoilers***The only downside to this work is the ending, and even that really depends on how you look at it. Though part of me wants the fan-girly happily ever after, the more somber, uncertain ending lends the play some much needed weight.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I was surprised to say I quite liked William Shakespeare's "Love's Labors Lost." Knowing that it isn't often performed today (and that my local library didn't even have a copy of this one,) I really didn't have high expectations. I found it an entertaining, though sometimes challenging read."Love's Labors Lost" is essentially a romantic comedy. The King of Navarre and his courtiers pledge to dedicate themselves to study for the next three years and forsake all women... of course a bevy of beauties immediately emerge to challenge that notion. The play is typical Shakespeare -- word play, messages misdelivered, disguises and people switching places. I'm sure a lot of the puns were lost on me, but I still enjoyed the ones I got.While this definitely isn't one of Shakespeare's best, I did find it fun overall.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    You know what I'm not crazy about? Shakespeare's comedies
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    After seeing the fantastic Shakespeare in the Park original musical adaptation, I decided to read the play itself. The Shakespeare in the Park version interspersed modern lyrics with the original lines in a way that complemented both--and told a psychologically modern story that was set among recent college graduates getting back together again--and falling in love, interspersed with some of the more over-the-top satiric characters. It was hard to believe that the play itself could read anything like that adaptation. But, of course, it did.

    Love's Labor's Lost is about a King and his followers that take a vow to retreat from women to study for three years, a princess and her followers who come upon them and disrupt the vow, and what happens after. The romantic comedy between Berowne and Rosaline drives much of the plot and is up there with the best of Shakespeare's witty, romantic repartee.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Love's Labour's Lost is one of Shakespeare's comedies, despite its unique ending in which none of the lovers are conveniently married off, and the men are instead ordered to a year's worth of abstinence to prove their devotion to the women. The ending echoes the opening of the play in a bitterly amusing way: at the start of the play, the men have sworn off women and dissolute living for three years, to improve their minds, and at the end of the play they swear to be faithful for a year and a day (in other words, no women) to prove the constancy of their loves. Will they abide by the second promise, when they were unable to keep the first? The doubt surrounding this proposition closes the play on a jarring note.I started with the ending, so let me retrace my steps and explain the premise of the story. The King of Navarre and this three companions have taken an oath to perform three years of study and fasting, abstaining from women to keep their minds clear. One of the men, Berowne, skeptically observes that none of them has the endurance, but he reluctantly agrees. Enter the women: the Princess from France arrives for some political parley, along with her three women companions. The men immediately fall in love; fortunately, each man falls in love with a separate lady in the group. Without any hesitation, they throw aside their oath. In a scene that is replete with wonderful dramatic irony, each man comes out, one at a time, to confess in a soliloquy that he will pursue his new love, while at least one other man is hiding in the wings, eavesdropping. The King overhears the confessions of the others, and rebukes them for breaking their oath, before Berowne points out that he heard the King himself betray their earlier promise, and so they all have a good laugh at each other. They decide to court the ladies in disguise. Boyet, one of the men attending the Princess, overhears their plans and tells the female visitors. Not only are they a little indignant at this turn of events - the King had earlier refused them admittance into the Court, due to his oath, forcing them to camp outside - they are also contemptuous of how easily the men break their promises and of the foolish way they hope to woo them. To repay them for these issues, the women devise their own plot. They will also wear disguises, professing to be someone else, and force the men to court the wrong woman.As Shakespeare's women are so often the more clever gender, the plan goes exactly the way the women wish it to. The King and his entourage humbly apologize, and after some playful bickering, all turns out well, for it seems that the women have also fallen in love, each with the man that is most partial to her. This type of miraculous coincidence is to be expected in a comedy, where even fate and destiny work for the eventual good of the characters. Indeed, the story seems headed to the conventional marriage and celebration, when the festive events are interrupted with somber news. The Princess's father has died, and she must return home to mourn for the required year.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Eh, not a big fan of The Bard's comedies. The bulk of them come across as a Three's Company episode with better dialogue.

    Love's Labour's Lost is a particularly confused mess. The men declare themselves uninterested in women, then lose their minds over the first women they see, many of whom they admit are not that attractive. The women are keen to meet the men, then rebuff and humiliate them at every turn, then agree to accept their attentions after a suitable period of mourning/penance has passed. The whole situation is patently a platform on which to stage battles of wits, and those neither scintillating nor scathing.

    This is compounded by the puerile interpretations of the Norton editor, one Walter Cohen, who insists that the play is a homoerotic and scatological triumph. Every occurrence of the word "loose" or "end" has a chuckling gloss denoting "ass" or "anus" or "scatological". When "enigma" is misconstrued by a character to be "an egma", it is insisted that "egma" is "enema", and that "salve" is "an anal salvo discharged from the male". Within three lines, the word "goose" is assumed to refer to "prostitute", "a victim of veneral disease", and "buttocks". And all that is just one page from scene 3.1. It gets a bit tiresome.

Book preview

Love's Labour's Lost - William Shakespeare

ACT I.

SCENE I. Navarre. A Park, Near a Palace.

Enter the KING, BIRON, LONGAVILLE, and DUMAIN

KING.

Let fame, that all hunt after in their lives,

Live register’d upon our brazen tombs,

And then grace us in the disgrace of death;

When, spite of cormorant devouring Time,

The endeavour of this present breath may buy

That honour which shall bate his scythe’s keen edge,

And make us heirs of all eternity.

Therefore, brave conquerors,—for so you are,

That war against your own affections

And the huge army of the world’s desires,—

Our late edict shall strongly stand in force:

Navarre shall be the wonder of the world;

Our court shall be a little Academe,

Still and contemplative in living art.

You three, Biron, Dumain, and Longaville,

Have sworn for three years’ term to live with me

My fellow-scholars, and to keep those statutes

That are recorded in this schedule here:

Your oaths are pass’d; and now subscribe your names,

That his own hand may strike his honour down

That violates the smallest branch herein:

If you are arm’d to do as sworn to do,

Subscribe to your deep oaths, and keep it too.

LONG.

I am resolved; ’t is but a three years’ fast:

The mind shall banquet, though the body pine:

Fat paunches have lean pates; and dainty bits

Make rich the ribs, but bankrupt quite the wits.

DUM.

My loving lord, Dumain is mortified:

The grosser manner of these world’s delights

He throws upon the gross world’s baser slaves:

To love, to wealth, to pomp, I pine and die;

With all these living in philosophy.

BIRON.

I can but say their protestation over;

So much, dear liege, I have already sworn,

That is, to live and study here three years.

But there are other strict observances;

As, not to see a woman in that term,

Which I hope well is not enrolled there;

And one day in a week to touch no food,

And but one meal on every day beside,

The which I hope is not enrolled there;

And then, to sleep but three hours in the night,

And not be seen to wink of all the day,—

When I was wont to think no harm all night,

And make a dark night too of half the day,—

Which I hope well is not enrolled there:

O, these are barren tasks, too hard to keep,

Not to see ladies, study, fast, not sleep!

KING. Your oath is pass’d to pass away from these.

BIRON.

Let me say no, my liege, an if you please: I only swore to study with your grace, And stay here in your court for three years’ space.

LONG. You swore to that, Biron, and to the rest.

BIRON.

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

What is the end of study? let me know.

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

BIRON. Things hid and barr’d, you mean, from common sense?

KING. Ay, that is study’s god-like recompence.

BIRON.

Come on, then; I will swear to study so,

To know the thing I am forbid to know:

As thus,—to study where I well may dine,

When I to feast expressly am forbid;

Or study where to meet some mistress fine,

When mistresses from common sense are hid;

Or, having sworn too hard a keeping oath,

Study to break it, and not break my troth.

If study’s gain be thus, and this be so,

Study knows that which yet it doth not know:

Swear me to this, and I will ne’er say no.

43 of all the day] all the day long.

57 common sense] the light of nature; cf. line 75, the light of truth.

62 feast] Theobald’s obviously correct emendation of the fast of the earlier editions.

KING.

These be the stops that hinder study quite,

And train our intellects to vain delight.

BIRON.

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:

Light, seeking light, doth light of light beguile:

So, ere you find where light in darkness lies,

Your light grows dark by losing of your eyes.

Study me how to please the eye indeed,

By fixing it upon a fairer eye;

Who dazzling so, that eye shall be his heed,

And give him light that it was blinded by.

Study is like the heaven’s glorious sun,

That will not be deep search’d with saucy looks:

Small have continual plodders ever won,

Save base authority from others’ books.

These earthly godfathers of heaven’s lights,

That give a name to every fixed star,

Have no more profit of their shining nights

Than those that walk and wot not what they are.

Too much to know, is to know nought but fame;

And every godfather can give a name.

KING. How well he’s read, to reason against reading!

DUM. Proceeded well, to stop all good proceeding!

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

BIRON. The spring is near, when green geese are a-breeding.

DUM. How follows that?

BIRON. Fit in his place and time.

DUM. In reason nothing.

BIRON. Something, then, in rhyme.

KING.

Biron is like an envious sneaping frost,

That bites the first-born infants of the spring.

BIRON.

Well, say I am; why should proud summer boast,

Before the birds have any cause to sing?

Why should I joy in any abortive birth?

At Christmas I no more desire a rose

77–79 Light, seeking . . . your eyes] The sense is, that a man by too close study may read himself blind.

80–83 Study me . . . blinded by] When the eye has been dazzled or half-blinded by fixing its gaze on a fairer eye, that fairer eye shall become its heed, or lode-star, and give back to it the light of which it has been deprived.

95 Proceeded] A quibble upon the academic use of this word for graduating.

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 o’er the house to unlock the little gate.

KING. Well, sit you out: go home, Biron: adieu.

BIRON.

No, my good lord; I have sworn to stay with you:

And though I have for barbarism spoke more

Than for that angel knowledge you can say,

Yet confident I’ll keep what I have swore,

And bide the penance of each three years’ day

Give me the paper; let me read the same;

And to the strict’st decrees I’ll write my name.

KING. How well this yielding rescues thee from shame!

BIRON. [reads] Item, That no woman shall come within a mile of my court,—Hath this been proclaimed?

LONG. Four days ago.

BIRON. Let’s see the penalty. [Reads] on pain of losing her tongue. Who devised this penalty?

LONG. Marry, that did I.

BIRON. Sweet lord, and why?

LONG. To fright them hence with that dread penalty.

BIRON. A dangerous law against gentility!

[Reads] 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 possibly devise.

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 this article is made in vain,

Or vainly comes the admired princess hither.

KING. What say you, lords? why, this was quite forgot.

BIRON.

So study evermore is overshot:

While it doth study to have what it would,

It doth forget to do the thing it should;

And when it hath the thing it hunteth most,

’T is won as towns with fire, so won, so lost.

KING.

We must of force dispense with this decree;

She must lie here on mere necessity.

112 sit you out] stand out, take no part; an expression used in connection with indoor games.

BIRON.

Necessity will make us all forsworn

Three thousand times within this three years’ space;

For every man with his affects is born,

Not by might master’d, but by special grace:

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

I am forsworn on mere necessity.

So to the laws at large I write my name: [Subscribes.

And he that breaks them in the least degree

Stands in attainder of eternal shame:

Suggestions are to other as to me;

But I believe, although I seem so loth,

I am the last that will last keep his oath.

But is there no quick recreation granted?

KING.

Ay, that there is. Our court, you know, is haunted

With a

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