Shakespeare – Love’s Labour’s
Lost 1994
At the
heart of the book are promises and how easily they are given and broken.
So in the
beginning promises of study and learning are given by the king and his men.
“King: Let
fame, that all hunt after in their lives,
Live
register’d upon our brazen tombs,
And then
grace us in the disgrace of death;
When, spite
of cormorant devouring Time,
Th’endeavour
of this present breath may buy
The honor
which shall bate his scythe’s keen edge
And make us
heirs of all eternity.” (Shakespeare, 1994, p.213).
But even at
this first promise, language trickery is used to break it:
“King: How
well he’s read, to reason against reading.
Dumaine:
Proceeded well, to stop all good proceeding!
Longaville:
He weeds the corn, and still let’s grow the weeding.
Berowne:
The spring is near, when green geese are a-breeding.
Dumaine:
How follows that?
Berowne: Fit in his place
and time.
Dumaine: In
reason nothing.
Berowne: Something, then,
in rime.” (Shakespeare, 1994, p.214).
Within the
same act, these promises are broken fort he prospect of love.
“Longaville:
If by me broke, what fool is not so wise
To lose an
oath to win a paradise?” (Shakespeare, 1994, p.228).
And very
plainly one of the men, is asked to make an argument to justify this.
“King: But
what of this? Are we not all in love?
Berowne:
Nothing so sure; and thereby all forsworn.
King: Then
leave this chat; and, good Berowne, now prove
Our loving
lawful, and our faith not torn.
Dumaine:
Ay, marry, there; some flattery for this evil.” (Shakespeare, 1994, p.230).
“Berowne:
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 enrich you with?
(…)
But love,
first learned in a lady’s eyes,
Lives not
alone immured in the brain;
But, with
the motion of all the elements,
Courses as
swift as thought in every power,
And gives
to every power a double power,
Above their
functions and their offices.
(…)
Let us once
lose our oaths to find ourselves,
Or else we
lose ourselves to keep our oaths.” (Shakespeare, 1994, p.231).
The women
are not impressed though:
“King: We
came to visit you, and purpose now
To lead you
to our court; vouchsafe it then.
Princess:
This field shall hold me; and to hold your vow:
Nor God,
nor I, delights in perjured men.
King:
Rebuke me not for that which you provoke.
The virtue
of your eye must break my oath.
Princess:
You nickname virtue; vice you should have spoke;
For
virtue’s office never breaks men’s troth.” (Shakespeare, 1994, p.237).
Thus the
men promise to abstain from using flowery language – in the most flowery words:
“Berowne:
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 penn’d
Nor to the
motion of a schoolboy’s tongue,
Nor never
come in visard to my friend,
Nor woo in
rime, like a blind harper’s song!
Taffeta
phrases, silkern 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
white glovw,- how white the hand, God knows!-
Henceforth
my wooing mind shall be exprest
In russet
yeas and honest kersey noes:
And to
begin, wench, - so God help me, la!-
My love to
thee is sound, sns crack or flaw.
Rosaline:
Sans sans, I pray you.” (Shakespeare, 1994, p.238).
But at the
end, the women whose love the men want to win, put a stop to all this.
They make
the story go back tot he beginning and tell the men, they won’t believe in any
of their promises unless they abstain from courtly life for a year.
Only if
then they are still in love, will they marry.
So only if
they put action behind their words, their words will be trusted.
“Princess:
And time, me thinks, 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,
Remove from
all the pleasures of the world;
There stay
until twelve celestial signs
Have
brought about their 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
bearthis trial and last love;
Then, at
the expiration of the year,
Come
challenge me, challenge by these deserts,
And, by
this virgin palm now kissing thine,
I will be
thine.” (Shakespeare, 1994, p.243).
