Love's Labour's Lost - Softcover

Shakespeare, William

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0141396431 ISBN 13: 9780141396439

Verlag: Penguin Classics, 2015

Inhaltsangabe

William Shakespeare's comedy Love's Labours Lost is edited with an introduction by John Kerrigan in Penguin Shakespeare.

'What fool is not so wise
To lose an oath to win a paradise?'

Ferdinand, King of Navarre and his lords Berowne, Dumaine, and Longaville agree to form an austere academy, taking a solemn to have no contact with women for three years. But when the Princess of neighbouring France arrives with her female attendants, their pledge is quickly placed under strain. Soon all are smitten and confusion abounds, as each struggles to secretly declare his love in this comedy of deception, desire and mistaken identity.

This book contains a general introduction to Shakespeare's life and Elizabethan theatre, a separate introduction to Love's Labours Lost, a chronology, suggestions for further reading, an essay discussing performance options on both stage and screen, and a commentary.

If you enjoyed Love's Labours Lost, you might like The Merry Wives of Windsor, also available in Penguin Shakespeare.

'The most beautiful of Shakespeare's comedies'
Kenneth Branagh

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

William Shakespeare was born in late April 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon and died in 1616. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist.

Stanley Wells is Emeritus Professor of the University of Birmingham and Honorary President of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

John Kerrigan is a lecturer in English at Cambridge University.

Nick Walton is Shakespeare Courses Development Manager at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

list of parts

Ferdinand KING of Navarre
BEROWNE
LONGAVILLE
DUMAINE
Don Adriano de ARMADO, a Spanish braggart
MOTH, a boy, his page
COSTARD, a clown
JAQUENETTA, a dairymaid
Anthony DULL, a constable
Sir NATHANIEL, a curate
HOLOFERNES, a pedantic schoolmaster
The PRINCESS of France
ROSALINE
MARIA
KATHERINE
BOYET, a lord attending on the princess
Monsieur MARCADÉ, a messenger from the King of France
A FORESTER
Lords, Ladies, Attendants

Act 1 [Scene 1] running scene 1

Enter Ferdinand King of Navarre, Berowne, Longaville and Dumaine

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'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, 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. [Shows a paper]
Your oaths are passed, and now subscribe your names,
That his own hand may strike his honour down
That violates the smallest branch herein.
If you are armed to do as sworn to do,
Subscribe to your deep oaths, and keep it too.

LONGAVILLE 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.

DUMAINE 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.

BEROWNE 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 enrollèd 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 enrollèd 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 enrollèd there.
O, these are barren tasks, too hard to keep:
Not to see ladies, study, fast, not sleep.

KING Your oath is passed to pass away from these.

BEROWNE 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.

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

BEROWNE 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.

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

KING Ay, that is study's godlike recompense.

BEROWNE 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.

KING These be the stops that hinder study quite
And train our intellects to vain delight.

BEROWNE Why, all delights are vain, and 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-searched 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 fixèd 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.

DUMAINE Proceeded well, to stop all good proceeding.

LONGAVILLE He weeds the corn, and still lets 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 rhyme.

KING Berowne is like an envious sneaping frost
That bites the first-born 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,
But like of each thing that in season grows.
So your to study now it is too late,
That were to climb o'er the house to unlock the gate.

KING Well, sit you out. Go home, Berowne, adieu.

BEROWNE 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 sworn
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. [Takes the paper]

KING How well this yielding rescues thee from shame.

BEROWNE 'Item, That no woman shall come within
a mile of my court.' Hath this been proclaimed?

LONGAVILLE Four days ago.

BEROWNE Let's see the penalty: 'On pain of losing her tongue.' Who devised this penalty?

LONGAVILLE Marry, that did I.

BEROWNE Sweet lord, and why?

LONGAVILLE To fright them hence with that dread
penalty.

BEROWNE A 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 shall 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 th'admirèd princess hither.

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

BEROWNE 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,
'Tis 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.

BEROWNE Necessity will make us all forsworn
Three thousand times within this three years' space,
For every man with his affects is...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Penguin Classics
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2015
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0141396431
• ISBN 13: 9780141396439
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 288
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Penguin Random House Ireland Limited; productsafety@penguin.co.uk; ; Morrison Chambers, 32 Nassau Street; Dublin; Irland