Speeches (Lines) for Rosaline
in "Love's Labour's Lost"
Total: 75

1

II,1,550

Another of these students at that time
Was there with him, if I have heard a truth.
Biron they call him; but a merrier man,
Within the limit of becoming mirth,
I never spent an hour's talk withal:
His eye begets occasion for his wit;
For every object that the one doth catch
The other turns to a mirth-moving jest,
Which his fair tongue, conceit's expositor,
Delivers in such apt and gracious words
That aged ears play truant at his tales
And younger hearings are quite ravished;
So sweet and voluble is his discourse.

2

II,1,604

Did not I dance with you in Brabant once?

3

II,1,606

How needless was it then to ask the question!

4

II,1,608

'Tis 'long of you that spur me with such questions.

5

II,1,610

Not till it leave the rider in the mire.

6

II,1,612

The hour that fools should ask.

7

II,1,614

Fair fall the face it covers!

8

II,1,616

Amen, so you be none.

9

II,1,673

Pray you, do my commendations; I would be glad to see it.

10

II,1,675

Is the fool sick?

11

II,1,677

Alack, let it blood.

12

II,1,679

My physic says 'ay.'

13

II,1,681

No point, with my knife.

14

II,1,683

And yours from long living!

15

II,1,755

Thou art an old love-monger and speakest skilfully.

16

II,1,757

Then was Venus like her mother, for her father is but grim.

17

II,1,761

Ay, our way to be gone.

18

IV,1,1089

Shall I teach you to know?

19

IV,1,1091

Why, she that bears the bow.
Finely put off!

20

IV,1,1096

Well, then, I am the shooter.

21

IV,1,1098

If we choose by the horns, yourself come not near.
Finely put on, indeed!

22

IV,1,1103

Shall I come upon thee with an old saying, that was
a man when King Pepin of France was a little boy, as
touching the hit it?

23

IV,1,1109

Thou canst not hit it, hit it, hit it,
Thou canst not hit it, my good man.

24

V,2,1885

Madame, came nothing else along with that?

25

V,2,1890

That was the way to make his godhead wax,
For he hath been five thousand years a boy.

26

V,2,1893

You'll ne'er be friends with him; a' kill'd your sister.

27

V,2,1899

What's your dark meaning, mouse, of this light word?

28

V,2,1901

We need more light to find your meaning out.

29

V,2,1904

Look what you do, you do it still i' the dark.

30

V,2,1906

Indeed I weigh not you, and therefore light.

31

V,2,1908

Great reason; for 'past cure is still past care.'

32

V,2,1912

I would you knew:
An if my face were but as fair as yours,
My favour were as great; be witness this.
Nay, I have verses too, I thank Biron:
The numbers true; and, were the numbering too,
I were the fairest goddess on the ground:
I am compared to twenty thousand fairs.
O, he hath drawn my picture in his letter!

33

V,2,1921

Much in the letters; nothing in the praise.

34

V,2,1924

'Ware pencils, ho! let me not die your debtor,
My red dominical, my golden letter:
O, that your face were not so full of O's!

35

V,2,1941

They are worse fools to purchase mocking so.
That same Biron I'll torture ere I go:
O that I knew he were but in by the week!
How I would make him fawn and beg and seek
And wait the season and observe the times
And spend his prodigal wits in bootless rhymes
And shape his service wholly to my hests
And make him proud to make me proud that jests!
So perttaunt-like would I o'ersway his state
That he should be my fool and I his fate.

36

V,2,1955

The blood of youth burns not with such excess
As gravity's revolt to wantonness.

37

V,2,2020

Come on, then; wear the favours most in sight.

38

V,2,2029

But shall we dance, if they desire to't?

39

V,2,2065

What would these strangers? know their minds, Boyet:
If they do speak our language, 'tis our will:
That some plain man recount their purposes
Know what they would.

40

V,2,2071

What would they, say they?

41

V,2,2073

Why, that they have; and bid them so be gone.

42

V,2,2079

It is not so. Ask them how many inches
Is in one mile: if they have measured many,
The measure then of one is easily told.

43

V,2,2087

How many weary steps,
Of many weary miles you have o'ergone,
Are number'd in the travel of one mile?

44

V,2,2095

My face is but a moon, and clouded too.

45

V,2,2099

O vain petitioner! beg a greater matter;
Thou now request'st but moonshine in the water.

46

V,2,2103

Play, music, then! Nay, you must do it soon.
[Music plays]
Not yet! no dance! Thus change I like the moon.

47

V,2,2107

You took the moon at full, but now she's changed.

48

V,2,2110

Our ears vouchsafe it.

49

V,2,2112

Since you are strangers and come here by chance,
We'll not be nice: take hands. We will not dance.

50

V,2,2115

Only to part friends:
Curtsy, sweet hearts; and so the measure ends.

51

V,2,2118

We can afford no more at such a price.

52

V,2,2120

Your absence only.

53

V,2,2122

Then cannot we be bought: and so, adieu;
Twice to your visor, and half once to you.

54

V,2,2125

In private, then.

55

V,2,2172

Not one word more, my maids; break off, break off.

56

V,2,2179

Well-liking wits they have; gross, gross; fat, fat.

57

V,2,2184

O, they were all in lamentable cases!
The king was weeping-ripe for a good word.

58

V,2,2194

Well, better wits have worn plain statute-caps.
But will you hear? the king is my love sworn.

59

V,2,2214

Good madam, if by me you'll be advised,
Let's, mock them still, as well known as disguised:
Let us complain to them what fools were here,
Disguised like Muscovites, in shapeless gear;
And wonder what they were and to what end
Their shallow shows and prologue vilely penn'd
And their rough carriage so ridiculous,
Should be presented at our tent to us.

60

V,2,2285

Madam, speak true. It is not so, my lord:
My lady, to the manner of the days,
In courtesy gives undeserving praise.
We four indeed confronted were with four
In Russian habit: here they stay'd an hour,
And talk'd apace; and in that hour, my lord,
They did not bless us with one happy word.
I dare not call them fools; but this I think,
When they are thirsty, fools would fain have drink.

61

V,2,2300

This proves you wise and rich, for in my eye,—

62

V,2,2302

But that you take what doth to you belong,
It were a fault to snatch words from my tongue.

63

V,2,2305

All the fool mine?

64

V,2,2307

Which of the vizards was it that you wore?

65

V,2,2309

There, then, that vizard; that superfluous case
That hid the worse and show'd the better face.

66

V,2,2314

Help, hold his brows! he'll swoon! Why look you pale?
Sea-sick, I think, coming from Muscovy.

67

V,2,2338

Sans sans, I pray you.

68

V,2,2349

It is not so; for how can this be true,
That you stand forfeit, being those that sue?

69

V,2,2352

Nor shall not, if I do as I intend.

70

V,2,2371

Madam, he swore that he did hold me dear
As precious eyesight, and did value me
Above this world; adding thereto moreover
That he would wed me, or else die my lover.

71

V,2,2379

By heaven, you did; and to confirm it plain,
You gave me this: but take it, sir, again.

72

V,2,2727

We did not quote them so.

73

V,2,2760

You must be purged too, your sins are rack'd,
You are attaint with faults and perjury:
Therefore if you my favour mean to get,
A twelvemonth shall you spend, and never rest,
But seek the weary beds of people sick]

74

V,2,2784

Oft have I heard of you, my Lord Biron,
Before I saw you; and the world's large tongue
Proclaims you for a man replete with mocks,
Full of comparisons and wounding flouts,
Which you on all estates will execute
That lie within the mercy of your wit.
To weed this wormwood from your fruitful brain,
And therewithal to win me, if you please,
Without the which I am not to be won,
You shall this twelvemonth term from day to day
Visit the speechless sick and still converse
With groaning wretches; and your task shall be,
With all the fierce endeavor of your wit
To enforce the pained impotent to smile.

75

V,2,2801

Why, that's the way to choke a gibing spirit,
Whose influence is begot of that loose grace
Which shallow laughing hearers give to fools:
A jest's prosperity lies in the ear
Of him that hears it, never in the tongue
Of him that makes it: then, if sickly ears,
Deaf'd with the clamours of their own dear groans,
Will hear your idle scorns, continue then,
And I will have you and that fault withal;
But if they will not, throw away that spirit,
And I shall find you empty of that fault,
Right joyful of your reformation.