Love's Labour's Lost: Act 2

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 besides
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.

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.

Tell him the daughter of the King of France
On serious business craving quick dispatch,
Importunes personal conference with his Grace.

Who are the votaries, my loving lords,
That are vow-fellows with this virtuous duke?

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.

A man of sovereign parts he is esteemed,
Well fitted in arts, glorious in arms.

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 agèd ears play truant at his tales,
And younger hearings are quite ravishèd,
So sweet and voluble is his discourse.

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 agèd ears play truant at his tales,
And younger hearings are quite ravishèd,
So sweet and voluble is his discourse.

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 agèd ears play truant at his tales,
And younger hearings are quite ravishèd,
So sweet and voluble is his discourse.

God bless my ladies, are they all in love,
That every one her own hath garnishèd
With such bedecking ornaments of praise?

Marry, thus much I have learned:
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.

Marry, thus much I have learned:
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.

Conduct me thither.

Vouchsafe to read the purpose of my coming,
And suddenly resolve me in my suit.

BEROWNE: Your wit’s too hot, it speeds too fast; ’twill tire.
ROSALINE: Not till it leave the rider in the mire.

Madam, your father here doth intimate
The payment of a hundred thousand crowns,
Being but the one half of an entire sum
Disbursèd by my father in his wars.

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.

Lady, I will commend you to my own heart.

A gallant lady, monsieur.

Fare you well.

If my observation, which very seldom lies,
By the heart’s still rhetoric, disclosèd wi’ th’ eyes,
Deceive me not now, Navarre is infected.

With that which we lovers entitle “affected.”

Methought all his senses were locked in his eye,
As jewels in crystal for some prince to buy,
Who, tend’ring their own worth from where they were glassed,
Did point you to buy them along as you passed.