ACT V
SCENE i
Armado seeks Holofernes' recommendation for a show or pageant they can
present before the Princess and the rest, since Holofernes is so good at
"eruptions" (V.i.114). Holofernes suggests The Nine Worthies (nine
celebrated mythohistorical heroes, usually three Pagans, three Jews, and
three Christians) -- he'll take three of the parts and Dull, Costard,
Moth, and Armado can take the rest.
The Latin "Satis quod sufficit" -- referring to nothing in particular
in the scene -- is exactly what Horsey reports the Russian envoy saying when
he saw Lady Mary Hastings (Greenhill 19). Holofernes dissection of Armado as
a "racker of orthography" (V.i.19) connects Armado with Ivan the Terrible,
another kind of racker, with the Russian word for no ("ne") and mention of
debt (to the Muscovy Company for English goods) (Greenhill 24).
Samuel Johnson called "honorificabilitudinitatibus" (the state
of being loaded with honors) the longest word known, used here by
Costard. "It is Latin, of course, and is the ablative plural of a word
meaning 'honorableness'" (Asimov 439).
SCENE ii
This is the longest scene not only in the play but in all of Shakespeare
(Asimov 440)! Early on (V.ii.38f) we get some Oxfordian "O" punning (Ogburn
and Ogburn 394-395), perhaps including the o's or pits (V.ii.24) left from
smallpox (Ogburn and Ogburn 204), and a reference to a "visor" (V.ii.374f)
(Ogburn and Ogburn 202).
The Princess and ladies discuss the textual excesses of
their would-be lovers. They wish for some jest to play on the men, and
Rosaline seems especially vicious about her desire to "torture" Berowne
(V.ii.60). Candor or slander? Which is more artificial: the men's poetry
or the women's determination to play the "cruel fair"? Perhaps
schoolboy behavior merits a schoolgirl response, but the lack of
gentleness continues -- there's no warmth in the mockery.
The utterance "Saint Denis to Saint Cupid!" (V.ii.87) refers to the
patron saint of France being "opposed to the assaults of love" (Asimov
440).
Boyet brings news that the men are on their way, disguised as Russians
for a courtly masque. The women decide to confuse the men by switching
identities behind masks of their own. The men arrive and are treated with
some disdain by the Princess. Each thinks he knows who he is wooing, or
bantering with, but none do -- sort of a bad sign in relationships. "Again
the question is one of failed language, the dangers of indirection, and the
perils of communication" (Garber 181). "In the war of wits, women's
sophistication exoses and overcomes the universal inability of young men
fully to differentiate the objects of their desire, a trait that marks the
haplessness of their lust" (Bloom 137). When the men leave, the plan is to
mess with them further. Another identification of Boyet as Sidney (V.ii.316f)
occurs (Ogburn and Ogburn 184).
The four return undisguised and their follies are
exposed. Berowne, in elaborate rhetoric, swears off elaborate rhetoric
(V.ii.394-415). Rosaline notes "that Berowne uses the very kind of
artifice he purports to forswear by ending his impassioned plea in
affected French" (Garber 182). But immediately he announces that he'll
"leave it by degrees" (V.ii.418) because he's got another fancy bit that
just occurred to him. "Russet and kersey are the color and material of
homemade peasant clothing and Shakespeare thus expresses (as he usually
does in his plays) his opinion of the superiority of plain Englishness
over foreign ways and customs" (Asimov 441).
Mary Hastings famously "dressed down the real-life Russians" (Anderson 16)
during the period of the Muscovy marriage proposal. Berowne's suggestion
that the "descried" men "confess, and turn it to a jest" (V.ii.389-390)
is exactly what Castiglione in The Courtier advises (Miller 144).
The Pageant of the Nine Worthies has Armado as Hector of Troy, Costard as
Pompey the Great, Nathaniel as Alexander the Great, Moth as Hercules, and
Holofernes as Judas Maccabbaeus. Costard may partly be Thomas Churchyard
at one stage of the play's evolution, since he introduced the Pageant of
the Nine Worthies in 1578 (Ogburn and Ogburn 198).
"The King is reluctant to allow this
performance to go on, for fear of embarrassment, though Berowne notes
feelingly that it will be good to have 'one show worse than the King's
and company'" (V.ii.510) (Garber 183). "Discomfited, Berowne and his
fellows proceed to disgrace themselves by converting their frustration
into a rather nasty scorn of the Masque of the Nine Worthies ... behav[ing]
like petulant, scorned boys, ragging their social inferiors with
vivaciously false wit" (Bloom 140). The entertainment is stilted and
goofy, but unlike in the fifth act of A Midsummer Night's Dream,
the heckling here is nasty and ruthless. "The trite Latin rhyme of
canus (dog) and manus (hand) reduces pedantry to its
most foolish" (Asimov 441). Berowne, who despises Boyet otherwise,
respects him for his insults against the production. The hurt reaction
from a couple of the players brings about interesting dynamics:
"Holofernes becomes simple and dignified, Costard and Armado obliquely
and surpisingly profound" (French 93). "Costard's comments direct our
attention also to the human feelings of those who are mocked" (Wells 62).
Anderson finds compelling Costard's statement about "degree" in the
pageant, detecting again a depiction of William Shakspere (Anderson 263).
Part of the exchange may connect with further Russian topicalities,
including Costard as Ivan the Terrible's son, killed by Ivan, "a northern
man," with his staff or "pole" (V.ii.690-691). Like Armado, Ivan himself
after his son's death, wore woollen garments next to his skin as an act of
penance (Greenhill 26).
The frustration of the lords is invested in petulant scorn against the
pageant. A "viciously false wit" takes over (Bloom 140). The Princess is
kind to the pageant and Armado. But the men's baiting is worse than
anything women did to them. The sport of the duel comes close to Sir
Toby's arranged fight between Sir Andrew and Viola/Cesario in Twelfth
Night. Wit can harmlessly entertain or cause disruption and hurt. The
entire play contains multiple mockeries, but some are private and more
constructive. Low Costard has accepted punishment and has charity now in
his apology for Sir Nathaniel after the latter's break-down in the face
of mockery -- this turns the tables nicely.
Costard accuses Armado (as Hector) that he has impregnated Jaquenetta and
the pageant almost becomes a brawl but sombre news arrives of the
Princess' father's death. "Henry III was stabbed on August 1, 1589, and
died the next day. This may have nothing to do with the play at all, for
there is a good chance it was written before then" (Asimov 442). But
Oxfordians do think the assassination is relevant to the reported death
in the play (Ogburn and Ogburn 194).
The Princess will go into a period of mourning, and her ladies similarly
will withdraw from interaction with the men for a year. The men make an
awkward attempt to resume wooing, but there's a new seriousness here,
and now is not the time (Wells 62). The women make the men undergo
a year of penance, and Berowne must additionally use his wit to cheer
up the sick. "Our wooing doth not end like an old play: / Jack hath not
Jill," he remarks (V.ii.874-875). With the assertion "That's too long
for a play" (V.ii.869), "Berowne ruefully destroys two illusions:
erotic and representational" (Bloom 143). "The unsuccessful outcome
of the wooing is presented in a moment of alienation that states one
of the play's main claims to originality" (Wells 63). That one passage
repeats (V.ii.858-864 = 812-817) suggests unpolished revision (Ogburn
and Ogburn 183).
So love's labors are not lost but arbitrarily ended. "Seldom has a
seemingly romantic and artificial play has a more realistic and
unartificial conclusion.... Shakespeare leaves to our imaginations
the sixth act of this play. But somehow we have faith in Biron" (Goddard,
I 53-54).
Shakespeare explores how not to eliminate discord but contain it without
disrupting the whole. Music serves as symbol of this theme here and in
A Midsummer Night's Dream. "Nathaniel knows that society is the
happiness of life so dull Dull is not excluded from the feast" (French
94). The play ends with the sober and seemingly "unintegrated" and
arbitrary songs of Spring and Winter; "The songs provide the play's
third formal entertainment, and the only one that is not interrupted
by its stage audience. The aristocrats have learned at least a temporary
courtesy" (Wells 63). We face the homely facts of life in
the final songs. The cuckoo begins because it paints an enameled portrait
of spring as a sophisticated lyricist. "Berowne's vivid but oddly misplaced
fear of being cuckolded by his Dark Lady, as Shakespeare is in the Sonnets,
finds superb transmutation in the song of the Spring" (Bloom 146).
"In Spring life is easy, but the Cuckoo is the bird of infidelity; in
Winter it is hard, but the Owl is the bird of wisdom" (Goddard, I
54). And we have a nice sense of communal life in Winter's lyric. The
owl's song is not entirely dreary but a celebration of domesticity,
so say rather apologetic critics. We also have a respectful audience
now; there will be no interruptions. Floral imagery with the association
of the cuckoo with the blooming of the silver-white lady-smocks comes
from a pamphlet by John Gerard, horticulturalist for Cecil's estate
(Miller 155; Anderson 20). "Berowne's vivid but oddly misplaced fear of
being cuckolded by his Dark Lady, as Shakespeare is in the Sonnets, finds
superb transmutation in the song of the Spring" (Bloom 146).
FINAL PERSPECTIVE
The end almost breaks the mood: marriage is postponed, but the testing of
love is a romantic notion too, just in a different tone. Still, there's
more wormwood in Rosaline's gibes than in Berowne's brain. She enjoys her
power over him and her stance is more severe than the Princess to Navarre
or the other women towards their lovers. "[W]e have no desire to see
Berowne's wit choked" like this (Bloom 145). "Again and again throughout
his comedies, it will become clear that Shakespeare permits us this
quasi-Olympian detachment only to precipitate us int a consciousness
of our own implication in folly" (Garber 180). "Whether Berowne has any
interests that transcend his language is disputable, since his passion
for Rosaline may be no more than a play upon words, despite his own later
convictions" (Bloom 134). As for Berowne, "probably the only form of love
he ever can know: lust of the eye fused with self-delighting wit" (Bloom
134-135).
The conclusion is oddly unartificial. It's a curious delight that no one
gets married and we're free to doubt that the year of service, unlikely
to be performed, will work to bring about any unions. Besides, it makes
the most sense now that the women test the men's ability to stick to a
vow -- they haven't done so far, no matter how stupid the vow -- and it's
best to find this out before marriage!
What a warning to scholars and commentators Love's Labour's Lost
is! If the truth that it teaches is applicable to its author's own
works (including this one), their secret will never be revealed to
mere erudition or learning on the one hand nor mere romantic glorification
on the other. (Goddard, I 54)
"The action of the play is structured to form an examination of the tension
in these people's lives between reason and instinct, art and nature, wit
(in its largest sense) and folly" (Wells 59).
"Wit, the intellect, is masculine and by itself is barren. And the same
is true of learning" (Goddard, I 53). The end of study is not escapist love
in the sense of romance sheltered from life's suffering and realities nor
escapist philosophy in the sense of cloistered cultivation of intellect
and truth for its own sake. It's not erudition and affectation like Holofernes
thinks, nor servitude to fashion as Don Adriano de Armado seems to think. All
these approaches divorce hearts from heads. Indeed, "Whether Berowne has any
interests that transcend his language is disputable, since his passion for
Rosaline may be no more than a play upon words" -- "probably the only form of
love he can ever know [is] lust of the eye fused with self-delighting wit"
(Bloom 134-135).
Love's Labour's Lost is not only a witty play about sophisticated
and highly articulate people; it is also a play that is profoundly concerned
with the social function of wit, with that can harmlessly entertain but that
can also be deployed mockingly in a manner likely to disrupt the smooth
functioning of society by causing hurt to its victims; in this play, just
as pedantry represents the inhumane superfluity of learning, so mockery is
seen as a sterile outgrowth of wit. (Wells 61)
Of course, this is a concern if the play and Shakespeare's other plays
contain caricatures of living individuals.