91
the men squirm. The plot could
hardly be simpler. Yet Shakespeare
uses this straightforward story to
create a gloriously intricate game
of words. There is ample scope for
a clever and merciless spoof of the
pretentious wordplay of the day,
which in many places is also
downright obscene.
Finding love and self
The thrust of the play is clear
enough: that it is absurd for men
to cut themselves off from women
and from love in order to find out
about the world—women and love
are the only true education. As
Biron finally acknowledges: “From
women’s eyes this doctrine I
derive. / They sparkle still the right
Promethean fire. / They are the
books, the arts, the academes /
That show, contain, and nourish
all the world” (4.3.326–329).
Shakespeare is keenly aware
that love poetry is no substitute
for real-life love, and, as later plays
such as Romeo and Juliet and
As You Like It show, young men
who indulge in love poetry are
often mistaking the idea of love for
the real thing. This indulgence is
the path taken by the King of
Navarre, Biron, Dumaine, and
Longueville, and so they are easily
fooled by the ladies into paying
court to the wrong girl when the
ladies swap accessories.
The men are misguided enough,
too, to think that they can disguise
themselves to go wooing. The girls
are not fooled—and only pretend
not to know the lords when they
come back as themselves. Finally,
Biron realizes he must learn to be
himself rather than act an image
of love. In his succinct summary of
the play, he says: “Let us once lose
our oaths to find ourselves, / Or
else we lose ourselves to keep
our oaths” (4.3.337–338).The final lesson
Unexpectedly, Shakespeare avoids
giving us a neat happy ending.
After Biron and the other men have
been through this moment of self-
discovery, they sit down to watch
the pageant of the Nine Worthies
presented by Holofernes, Nathaniel,
Moth, Costard, and Armado. The
women watch quietly, but in theirTHE LORD CHAMBERLAIN’S MAN
performances, the men mock so
mercilessly that even the pedant
Holofernes is moved to a heartfelt
criticism, “This is not generous,
not gentle, not humble” (5.2.622).
In the middle of the pageant,
news arrives that the princess’s
father, the King of France, has
suddenly died. The normal round
of weddings that might tie up a
comedy does not happen. Instead,
the ladies each ask their suitors to
wait a year, and to use that year to
learn more about people and the
world. Rosaline instructs Biron
to tend to the sick, and when he
protests that there are no jokes
in a hospital full of death,
Rosaline reminds him that: “A jest’s
prosperity lies in the ear / Of him
that hears it” (5.2.847–848). The play
ends poignantly with haunting
songs of the seasons, first the cuckoo
for spring then the owl for winter. ■This orderly Elizabethan knot
garden at Nyewood House in East
Sussex, echoes the careful grouping
of actors and the mannered patterns of
speech of Love’s Labour’s Lost.Sir, he hath never fed of the
dainties that are bred
in a book; he hath not eat
paper, as it were; he
hath not drunk ink: his
intellect is not replenished
Nathaniel
Act 4, Scene 2