their change of allegiance may expose them to uncharitable laughter and expressions of mock hor-
ror from the sharp-tongued ladies, they abandoned the project which was grounded in a denial of

human nature beforeit did cause serious harm to anybody. "For every man with his affects is

born, / Not by might mast'red, but by special grace."⁴⁵Hence we and the women feel nothing but
relief when Berowne proposes, "Let us once lose our oaths to find ourselves, / Or else we lose

ourselves to keep our oaths,"⁴⁶preparatory to Navarre's charge: "Saint Cupid then! And, soldiers,

to the field!"⁴⁷Hence the infraction or infractions which make the women reject their suitors must

occur in Act V.
In Act V the women's first complaint concerns the thousands of verses they have received from
the men. It is clear that they regard the feelings embodied in them not as expressive of "the heart's

still rhetoric"⁴⁸but rather as reflective of borrowed sentiments dressed in what Armado likes to

praise as "sweet smoke of rhetoric."⁴⁹

Katherine, for example, reports with considerable annoy-

ance that among her gifts from Dumaine were

Some thousand verses of a faithful lover.

A huge translation of hypocrisy,

Vilely compiled, profound simplicity .⁵⁰

And they all conclude that Cupid appears to have turned their lovers into fools who disguise their
feelings with affected borrowed sentiments dressed up in hyperbolic language--both of which de-

serve punishment for their trifling with the women's emotions, or even images of self.
When Boyet tells them that their would-be lovers intend to visit them disguised as Muscovites,

exasperation turns into fury:

And will they so? The gallants shall be tasked;

For, ladies, we will every one be masked,

And not a man of them shall have the grace,

Despite of suit, to see a lady's face.⁵¹

They, further, decide to exchange favors to mislead the men into wooing the wrong lady by mis-

take, hoping that

The effect of my intent is to cross their.

They do it but in mockery merriment,

And mock for mock is only my intent.⁵²

45_{LLL.I.i.150-1.}
46_{LLL.IV.iii.358-9.}
47_{LLL.IV.iii.362}
48_II.i.229.
49_III.i.63.
50_V.ii.50-2
51_V.ii.126-9.
52_V.ii.138-40.

cpb@gac.edu: CRC 98 Paper

10

January, 1998