Source: Extract from Robert Tofte, ‘Alba, the Month’s Minde of a Melancholy Lover’ (1598, third part, stanzas 81-84), reprinted in Rev. Alexander B. Grossart, Alba. The Month’s Minde of a Melancholy Lover, by Robert Tofte, Gentleman (1880), p. 105
Production: William Shakespeare, Love’s Labour’s Lost, London (?), 1590s
Text: LOVES LABOUR LOST, I once did see a Play
Ycleped so, so called to my pain.
Which I to hear to my small Joy did stay,
Giving attendance on my forward dame:
My misgiving mind presaging to me Ill,
Yet was I drawn to see it ‘gainst my Will.
This Play no Play, but Plague was unto me,
For there I lost the Love I liked most:
And what to others seemde a Jest to be,
I, that (in earnest) found unto my cost,
To every one (save me) twas Comicall,
Whilst Tragick like to me it did befall.
Each Actor played in cunning wise his part,
But chiefly Those entrapt in Cupids snare;
Yet all was fained, ’twas not from the hart,
They seemed to grieve, but yet they felt no care:
‘Twas I that Griefe (indeed) did bear in breast,
The others did but make a show in Jest.
Yet neither faining theirs, nor my meere Truth,
Could make her once so much as for to smile:
Whilst she (despite of pitie milde and ruth)
Did sit as skorning of my Woes the while.
Thus did she see fit to see LOVE lose his LOVE,
Like hardend Rock that force nor power can move.
Comments: Robert Tofte (c.1562-1620) was an English poet and translator. His long 1598 poem ‘Alba, The Months Minde of a Melancholy Lover’ contains the first reference in print to William Shakespeare‘s play Love’s Labour’s Lost.
Links: Copy at Internet Archive
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