Love’s Labour’s Lost (Bard to the Bone #13)

Year written: mid-1590s

Context of the writing (Shakespeare’s career, political events it was responding to): Up and coming guy. Perhaps responding to a kind of “dare” about a good play not being able to include both clowns and kings?

Plot in a paragraph: The King of Navarre and his three best mates are going to do three years of hard study, no distractions, definitely no women. Then four women – the Princess of France and her bezzies turn up.  Not much hilarity ensues. Then someone (offstage) dies.

Things that worked well: Biron/Berowne getting busted after berating the others

Things that didn’t work well: The lack of a plot?

Favourite character: Biron/Berowne (ouch – the shock of recognition….) Rosaline and the Princess are pretty cool too, obvs.

Words I learnt: 

Word	Definition
Sneaping	Sneaping – nipping,  biting, sharply cold (wind)
Hight	Hight – named, called
Wight	Wight – a person of a specified kind/ghost, spirit
Dey-woman	Dey-woman – dairy maid
Passado	Passado –  specific fencing maneuver where the fencer steps forward, extending the weapon arm to thrust at the opponent.
Duello	Duello – the custom of duelling or the established code governing duellists.
Chapmen	Chapmen – pedlars
Concolinel	Concolinel- ‘This article proposes that “Concolinel” is a mistranscription of “Qvand Colinet,” a popular French song first anthologised in 1602,’
Guerdon	Guerdon – a reward or recompense.
Purblind	Purblind -having impaired or defective vision; partially blind.
Placket	Placket – A placket (also spelled placquet) is a finished[1] opening in the upper part of trousers or skirts, or at the neck, front, or sleeve of a garment.[2][3] The finish frequently consists of a fold of fabric that is attached to the opening in order for the fasteners (buttons, hooks, press studs) to be sewn to it. In modern usage, the term placket often refers to these double layers of fabric.
Paritors	Paritors servants, attendants, from Latin paritus (past participle of parēre to come forth, be visible, attend)
Pricket	Pricket – a male fallow deer in its second year, having straight, unbranched horns.2. Historical a spike for holding a candle.
Canzonet	Canzonet –  a light usually strophic song. 2. : a part-song resembling but less elaborate than a madrigal
Quillets	Quillets – small tracts of land
Gloze	Glozes – make excuses for, use ingratiating language.
Fadge	Fadge – Fadge is a type of Irish and Scottish potato bread. It’s made like a lot of other potato breads with mashed potatoes and flour,
Hest	Hest – archaic form of behest
Fleer	Fleer – laugh impudently or jeeringly.
Fain	Fain –  1. pleased or willing under the circumstances. “the traveller was fain to proceed”2. compelled by the circumstances; obliged.
Bodkin	Bodkin – 1. a thick, blunt needle with a large eye, used for drawing tape or cord through a hem.2. Printin a pointed tool used for removing pieces of metal type for correction.
Falchion	Falchion – A falchion (/ˈfɔːltʃən/; Old French: fauchon; Latin: falx, “sickle”) is a one-handed, single-edged 37–40-inch (94–102 cm) sword of European origin. Falchions are found in different forms from around the 13th century up to and including the 16th century. In some versions, the falchion looks rather like the seax and later the sabre, and in other versions more like a machete with a crossguard.

Lines worth knowing: 

Act scene lines	Character	Lines	Comment
1, i	KING	“When, spite of cormorant devouring time”
	King	“The huge army of the world’s desires”
Act 1, scene 1 25	Longaville	Fat paunches have lean pates, and dainty bitsMake rich the ribs but bankrout quite the wits
Act 1, scene 1	Costard	Sir, I confess the wench
Act 1, scene 2	ArmadoJaquenetta	“I love thee”“So I heard you say”
Act 4, scene 2,	Nathaniel	he hath not drunkink. His intellect is not replenished. He is only ananimal, only sensible in the duller parts.
Act 4, scene 3	Dumaine	For none offend where all alike do dote.
Act 4, scene 3	biron	Let us once lose our oaths to find ourselves,Or else we lose ourselves to keep our oath
Act 5, scene 2	Rosaline	And spent his prodigal wits in bootless rhymes.

Marc’s entirely subjective verdict and score out of 5 bards (ymmv): 2

Will I be tracking down movies of this? : no – hugh the 2000 Branagh one does sound fun?,.

How far would I travel to see a good production of this? Xx

NB Longest scene in Shakespear (Act 5, scene 2)

Limericks

The kings “self-bettery” kicks

Doth colline with organic sticks

Princesses aren’t netted

And dicks aren’t wetted

Only with bombs could this yawner you fix

AND

The king’s has minions  – they’re bossed

Into three years of study they’re tossed

But then come some wenches

Amusing “adventures”

Over two hours of your life will be lost

AND

The princess and her pals so well-bred

And the men are just thinking of bed

Then her dad is a corpse

And the future this warps

With a year of heel-cooling ahead

AND

This comedy’s “plot” is too light

And the puns it has are too trite

The satire’s specific

Was maybe terrific

The centuries have softened its bite.

UPDATE

What other people think:

xxx

Books/chapters/articles I might try to track down: 

Kammer, Miriam. “Breaking the Bounds of Domesticity: Ecofeminism and Nature Space in Love’s Labour’s Lost.” Shakespeare Bulletin 36, no. 3 (2018): 467-483.

Murray, Jessica. “Women Navigating the Climate Catastrophe: Challenging Anthropocentrism in Selected Fiction.” Journal of Literary Studies 37, no. 3 (2021): 15-33.

Podcasts and their contents

Date	Podcast	Episode title	Topic	Length	Score out of ten (ymmv)	Comments
6/7/2025	No Holds Bard	053 – So you’re going to see LLL		32	9
6/7/2025	Approaching Shakespeare	Love’s Labour’s Lost | University of Oxford Podcasts			10	Brilliant, as usual
	Not true but useful
	History of European Theatre	https://www.thehistoryofeuropeantheatre.com/loves-labours-lost-assist-me-some-extemporal-god-of-rhyme/
	History of European Theatre	Nothing Goes to Plan in Love’s Labour’s Lost: A conversation with Eleanor Conlon