LOVE'S LABOR'S LOST

A monologue from Act III, Scene i

by: William Shakespeare

BEROWNE: And I, forsooth, in love!

I, that have been love's whip,

A very beadle to a humorous sigh,

A critic, nay, a night-watch constable,

A domineering pedant o'er the boy,

Than whom no mortal so magnificent.

This wimpled, whining, purblind, wayward boy,

This signor-junior, giant-dwarf, Dan Cupid,

Regent of love-rimes, lord of folded arms,

The annointed sovereign of sighs and groans,

Liege of all loiterers and malcontents,

Dread prince of plackets, king of codpieces,

Sole imperator and great general

Of trotting paritors -- O my little heart!

And I to be a corporal of his field,

And wear his colors like a tumbler's hoop!

What? I love, I sue, I seek a wife!

A woman that is like a German clock,

Still a-repairing, ever out of frame,

And never going aright, being a watch,

But being watched that it may still go right!

Nay, to be perjured, which is worst of all;

And, among three, to love the worst of all;

A whitely wanton with a velvet brow,

With two pitch balls stuck in her face for eyes.

Ay, and, by heaven, one that will do the deed,

Though Argus were her eunuch and her guard.

And I to sigh for her, to watch for her,

To pray for her! Go to, it is a plague

That Cupid will impose for my neglect

Of his almighty dreadful little might.

Well, I will love, write, sigh, pray, sue, groan:

Some men must love my lady, and some Joan.

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