King of Navarre

Play

Love's Labour's Lost

Summary

Ferdinand, King of Navarre, initiates the play's central conceit: a sworn academy of three years' study in which women are forbidden. His noble idealism is undercut almost immediately when he falls for the Princess of France, whom he is duty-bound to receive at his court. He leads his lords in the pageant of disguised courtship and is, like Berowne, left without resolution at the play's end — tasked to prove his love through a year of hermitage.

Notable Quotations

"Let fame, that all hunt after in their lives, / Live registered upon our brazen tombs." *(1.1)*

"Saint Cupid, then! and, soldiers, to the field!" *(4.3)*

Cross-references

• Love's Labour's Lost — the play
• Comedies
• character_princess_lll — the Princess of France, his love interest
• character_berowne — his most witty lord
• character_armado — the fantastical Spaniard at his court