Monologue

Berowne Monologue from Love's Labour's Lost

From Love's Labour's Lost by William Shakespeare

male · sarcastic · 2:58 min

(Comes forward.) Now step I forth to whip hypocrisy. Ah, good my liege, I pray thee pardon me. Good heart, what grace hast thou thus to reprove These worms for loving, that art most in love? Your eyes do make no coaches; in your tears There is no certain princess that appears. You’ll not be perjured, ’tis a hateful thing: Tush, none but minstrels like of sonneting! But are you not ashamed? Nay, are you not, All three of you, to be thus much o’ershot? You found his mote, the King your mote did see; But I a beam do find in each of three. O, what a scene of foolery have I seen, Of sighs, of groans, of sorrow, and of teen! O me, with what strict patience have I sat, To see a king transformed to a gnat! To see great Hercules whipping a gig, And profound Solomon to tune a jig, And Nestor play at push-pin with the boys, And critic Timon laugh at idle toys. Where lies thy grief, O, tell me, good Dumaine? And, gentle Longaville, where lies thy pain? And where my liege’s? All about the breast? A caudle, ho! (KING: Too bitter is thy jest. Are we betrayed thus to thy over-view?) Not you to me, but I betrayed by you. I that am honest, I that hold it sin To break the vow I am engaged in. I am betrayed by keeping company With men like you, men of inconstancy. When shall you see me write a thing in rhyme? Or groan for Joan? Or spend a minute’s time In pruning me? When shall you hear that I Will praise a hand, a foot, a face, an eye, A gait, a state, a brow, a breast, a waist, A leg, a limb— (KING: Soft! Whither away so fast? A true man, or a thief, that gallops so?) I post from love. Good lover, let me go. Enter Jaquenetta, with a letter, and Costard.

About this piece

20s · disgust · love · foolery · identity · hypocrisy

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