Ferdinand, King of Navarre, and three of his lords, have sworn to study for three years during which no woman shall come within a mile of them. They are swayed almost at once by the arrival of the Princess of France, with three of her ladies, to discuss her father’s debts to the King.

Costard, the clown, told to deliver two letters, muddles them so that a letter from Armado, a courtier, to the village wench, Jaquenetta, is read to the Princess and her ladies, and a love sonnet from Berowne to Rosaline is read (for Jaquenetta) by Sir Nathanial, the curate. Holofernes, the schoolmaster, tells the girl to show it to Ferdinand. She does so just when, in succession, the young men have caught each other reciting love-rhymes. Berowne, in an irresistible lyrical speech, claims that love belongs to study, that women’s eyes are “the books, the arts, the academes,/That show, contain and nourish all the world.”

Presently they meet the ladies – who have taken pains to trick them – in an unsuccessful mock-Russian entertainment. At length they are settled, watching the masque of the Nine Worthies, arranged by Armado and Holofernes, when Marcade brings new to the Princes that her father has died. She and her ladies prepare to leave, having put their lovers on probation, with tasks for a year and a day before they can come together. But before departing they listen in the twilight to the villagers’ songs of spring and winter – the cuckoo and the owl.

-Pocket Guide to Shakespeare by J C Trewin