Love's Labors Lost

King
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’ endeavor of this present breath may buy
That honor which shall bate his scythe’s keen edge
And make us heirs of all eternity.

O,
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Berowne
What is the end of study, let me know?
King
Why, that to know which else we should not know.
Berowne
Things hid and barred, you mean, from common sense.
King
Ay, that is study’s godlike recompense.

Why, all delights are vain, and  that most vain
Which with pain purchased doth inherit pain

Berowne
Come on,
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King
Berowne is like an envious sneaping frost
That bites the firstborn infants of the spring.
Berowne
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
Than wish a snow in May’s new-fangled shows,
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King
We must of force dispense with this decree.
She must lie here on mere necessity.
Berowne
Necessity will make us all forsworn
Three thousand times within this three years’ space;
For every man with his affects is born,
Not by might mastered, but by special grace.
If I break faith, this word shall speak for me:
I am forsworn on mere necessity.
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Berowne
But is there no quick recreation granted?
King
Ay, that there is. Our court, you know, is haunted
With a refinèd 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,
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I do affect the very ground (which is base)
where her shoe (which is baser) guided by her foot
(which is basest) doth tread. 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,
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Boyet
Now, madam, summon up your dearest spirits.
Consider who the King your father sends,
To whom he sends, 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.
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I know him, madam. At a marriage feast
Between Lord Perigort and the beauteous heir
Of Jaques Falconbridge, solemnizèd
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,
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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 Alanson’s once,
And much too little of that good I saw
Is my report to his great worthiness.
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Rosaline
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

His eye begets occasion for his wit,
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