After Boyet reads out Armado's letter, he and Rosaline have a playful conversation about who will fall in love next. They riff back and forth about whom the next suitor will be. Rosaline's replies pun on the words “suitor” and “shooter,” which would have been pronounced in the same way. After a few jokes, Rosaline adopts the pun as a metaphor:
ROSALINE
Well, then, I am the shooter.BOYET
And who is your deer?ROSALINE
If we choose by the horns, yourself come not near.
Rosaline describes herself as the shooter, the next decision-maker in the romantic game playing within Ferdinand’s court. Boyet extends the metaphor, asking her who the object of her affections is (“Who is your deer?”). Rosaline responds with a joke: if she is looking for someone with horns, he shouldn’t come any nearer. This is a reference to the old folk belief that cuckolds grew horns.
Boyet and Rosaline are joking, but Rosaline’s assumption of the role of “shooter” subverts the complex sexual politics of the play. Within this metaphor, Rosaline accepts a traditionally male,“hunting” role. As the "shooter," Rosaline decides on the value of "game" (potential partners), and then she pursues and captures them. Throughout Love’s Labor’s Lost, the king and his men try to outwit and seduce the French women, who anticipate and counter their moves at every turn. In this way, Rosaline’s joke is apt: women consistently exercise autonomy, determine the outcomes of courtship, and pursue the relationships they want throughout the play.
Rosaline lays out the terms under which Berowne might win her hand in marriage. In so doing, she compares his wit to wormwood:
ROSALINE
Oft I have heard of you, my Lord Berowne,
Before I saw you; and the world's large tongue
Proclaims you for a man replete with mocks,
Full of comparisons and wounding flouts,
[...] To weed this wormwood from your fruitful brain,
And therewithal to win me, if you please,
Without the which I am not to be won,
You shall this twelvemonth term from day to day
Visit the speechless sick[.]
Rosaline begins with a remark on Berowne’s reputation for sharp, biting jokes, which he puts to use wounding those around him. She compares his sense of humor to “wormwood,” a bitter herb. To rid his “fruitful brain” of this cruel wit, he must spend a year visiting the ill and trying to make them laugh. Otherwise, Rosaline will not even consider marrying him.
Wormwood has been used in herbal medicine for hundreds of years, but it can be toxic if taken in the wrong amount. Rosaline seems to suggest that Berowne’s sense of humor is not implicitly a negative trait but can be misused to painful and disastrous effect. She refuses even to consider him as a potential match unless he learns how to use his words responsibly and kindly. She demands that he employ them as literal medicine for the ill. Rosaline hopes that once Berowne learns what constitutes a medicinal dose, he will be more judicious about how he doles out his jokes in the future.
Boyet informs the princess and her ladies of the Spaniards’ plans to arrive at their camp dressed as Russian ambassadors. He identifies Ferdinand’s plan as one aimed at winning the romantic attentions of these ladies and urges them to prepare accordingly with this metaphor:
BOYET
Arm, wenches, arm. Encounters mounted are
Against your peace. Love doth approach, disguised,
Armèd in arguments. You’ll be surprised.
Muster your wits, stand in your own defense,
Or hide your head like cowards, and fly hence.
Boyet speaks of love as if it were a literal battle. He urges the women to “arm” themselves for the campaign “mounted against [their] peace” by the men of the court. Love itself is approaching “armed in arguments,” with careful words as weapons. The ladies must stand in their own defense or flee.
Of course, Boyet is being playful here. But the reader can’t help but notice the shift in tone from the last scene to this one. In the scene previous, Berowne compares love to a woman, flanked by dances and celebration, walking a path “strew[n] [...] with flowers.” Boyet’s metaphor is not the first negative description of love in the play (Berowne offers a few of his own), but the placement of this metaphor in the play tells the reader something about the perspective of the noblewomen on love compared to that of the noblemen.
The noblemen see love (and women) as something easily attained through flashy displays of interest. They presume love will come more or less straightforwardly to them, and that the French women will gladly acquiesce to their attentions.
But this play is one in which the preconceptions the noblemen hold about love and women are disproven over and over, and the choice of metaphor here reflects this. The noblewomen are more wary of love than Ferdinand and his friends. They approach love as if it were a battle of wits, in which moves must be carefully calculated. Contrary to the expectations of Berowne, Ferdinand, and the others, they are not easily won. Nor are they charmed by the plan to appear in disguise, a plan that has Boyet doubled over with laughter. His warning to the women is half-ironic, as the plan appears so foolish and silly that he can’t imagine such clever women will fall prey to it.
