The above foray into the realm of Elizabethan social legislation and discussion of its significance
for the theater should have buttressed my claim about the seriousness of Navarre and his courtiers'
"sport" of visiting the ladies disguised as Muscovites. In yielding to their sense of boyish merri-
ment, they undoubtedly have made it impossible for the women to gauge their characters, frustrat-
ing all romantic expectations of the witty and resourceful women. An affected identity, supple-
mented by affected professions of love couched in affected language, are not mistaken by the
worldly-wise women for "the heart's still rhetoric." Their harsh reception of the men dressed in
exotic costume, which could not be readily classified by people unfamiliar with non-Western attire,

attests to their frustration.
Affectation in the use of language, affectation in the profession of love, and affectation in iden-
tity, all of which are dressed in metaphors of apparel appear to be the focus of Shakespeare's satire

inLove's Labor's Lostand explain its unusual ending. While modern spectators may find it
difficult to discern why these threads are woven together to create the fabric of the play, Queen
Elizabeth and her subjects might have recognized an 'obvious' connection, especially, if they re-

membered the Homily Against Excess in Apparelor had read Phillip Stubbes' Anatomie of

Abuses (1583), or the thrust of their Queen's sproclamations concerning sumptuousness of ap-

parel. And they surely were familiar with tweo of the three kinds of documents.
Anyway, when Navarre and his courtiers suffer the consequences of their foolish actions, they
vent their frustrations on the next group of innocent would-be disguisers they encounter, namely,
the characters of the sub-plot, who, having all along served to mock their betters through their un-
intentional burlesquing imitations, have come to perform the Pageant of the Nine Worthies. Even
though they commissioned the entertainment themselves, the frustrated wooers immediately begin
to frustrate the would-be actors by taking advantage of the ambiguity inherent in all Elizabethan
costuming on the stage. They both refuse to accept the stage convention which stipulates that cos-
tume defines the character wearing it, refusing to let the overparted actors disappear behind the
parts, and take it most literal in challenging the actors to live up to the quality of the characters they
have assumed. The predictable outcome is a complete blurring of the line separating art from life.
In the end spectators and some of the performers regroup as a new audience to watch Pompey fight
Hector over Jaquenetta, which results in the exposure and humiliation of Don Armado, who is
compelled to admit "The naked truth" about himself, namely, that he has "no shirt," i. e., that his
appearance/apparel has all been a disguising of his identity. Don Armado, you see, an extreme case
of the affectations of language and learning so self-consciously displayed by all men in Love's

Labor's Lost, exhibits how the wearing of costume which hides one's true self represents
merely another form of the same kind of unnatural behavior which continues to stand in the way of
the women trusting in the verbal assurances of their wooers. Though all the men, including the

cpb@gac.edu: CRC 98 Paper

11

January, 1998