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Costard is a comic figure in the play '' Love's Labour's Lost'' by
Costard is a comic figure in the play '' Love's Labour's Lost'' by William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
. A country bumpkin, he is arrested in the first scene for flouting the king's proclamation that all men of the court avoid the company of women for three years. While in custody, the men of the court use him to further their own romantic endeavors. By sending love notes to the wrong women and blurting out secrets (including that of an unplanned pregnancy
Pregnancy is the time during which one or more offspring develops (gestation, gestates) inside a woman, woman's uterus (womb). A multiple birth, multiple pregnancy involves more than one offspring, such as with twins.
Pregnancy usually occur ...
), Costard makes fools of the royal court. Along with Moth the page
Page most commonly refers to:
* Page (paper), one side of a leaf of paper, as in a book
Page, PAGE, pages, or paging may also refer to:
Roles
* Page (assistance occupation), a professional occupation
* Page (servant), traditionally a young m ...
and Jaquenetta, a country wench, Costard pokes fun at the upper-class. While mocking a pedantic schoolmaster, Costard uses the word ''honorificabilitudinitatibus
Honorificabilitudinitatibus (''honōrificābilitūdinitātibus'', ) is the dative and ablative plural of the medieval Latin word ''honōrificābilitūdinitās'', which can be translated as "the state of being able to achieve honours". It is ment ...
'', the longest word by far from any of Shakespeare's works.
Costard makes many clever puns, and is used as a tool by Shakespeare to explain new words such as ''remuneration''. He is sometimes considered one of the smartest characters in the play due to his wit and wordplay.
Costard's name is an archaic term for apple
An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancestor, ' ...
, or metaphorically a man's head. Shakespeare uses the word in this sense in '' Richard III''.
References