Here is the complete text of a circa-1595 comedy by Shakespeare, Love’s Labour’s Lost. You can read it aloud–or, even better, act it out. First performed before Queen Elizabeth at her Court in 1597 (as “Loues Labors LoÅ¿t”), it was likely written for performance before culturally-literate law students and barristers-in-training. The notion was that such well-rounded humans would appreciate its sophistication and wit at the Inns of Court in still over-percolating Legal London. And, most certainly, it was performed at Gray’s Inn, where Elizabeth was the “patron”. Interestingly, the play begins with a vow by several men to forswear pleasures of the flesh and the company of fast women during a three-year period of study and reflection. And to “train our intellects to vain delight”.
