Monologue

Princess Monologue from Love's Labour's Lost

From Love's Labour's Lost by William Shakespeare

female · philosophical · 1:45 min

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What, what? First praise me, and again say no? O short-lived pride! Not fair? Alack for woe! (FORESTER: Yes, madam, fair.) Nay, never paint me now. Where fair is not, praise cannot mend the brow. Here, good my glass, take this for telling true: (She gives him money.) Fair payment for foul words is more than due. (FORESTER: Nothing but fair is that which you inherit.) See, see, my beauty will be saved by merit. O heresy in fair, fit for these days! A giving hand, though foul, shall have fair praise. But come, the bow. Now mercy goes to kill, And shooting well is then accounted ill. Thus will I save my credit in the shoot: Not wounding, pity would not let me do’t; If wounding, then it was to show my skill, That more for praise than purpose meant to kill. And out of question so it is sometimes, Glory grows guilty of detested crimes, When, for fame’s sake, for praise, an outward part, We bend to that the working of the heart; As I for praise alone now seek to spill The poor deer’s blood, that my heart means no ill.

About this piece

20s · confusion · identity · honor · fame · violence

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