Love’s Labour’s Lost

Four young men, the King of Navarre and three of his lords, swear off the company of women for three years so they can give themselves entirely to study and fasting. The vow lasts only until the Princess of France arrives with her ladies-in-waiting, and each scholar promptly falls for one of the visitors. Shakespeare packs the play with punning banter, mock love-sonnets, and eavesdropping scenes in which the men catch one another breaking their word. The mood shifts near the close, when news of a death sends the women home and postpones every courtship, an unusually sober ending for a comedy. It is prized for its verbal fireworks and its sly mockery of scholarly pretension. This free PDF and EPUB edition carries the full text.