ABSTRACT
Don Adriano de Armado, in Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost, takes pride in disclosing to Holofernes and Nathaniel the King's request that he devise "some delightful ostentation, or show, or pageant, or antic, or firework" to entertain and give pleasure to the Princess of France. Given the apparently contradictory claims and the surplus of credible candidates, source-hunting has seemed unproductive as a way of explaining the theatrical pleasure triggered by Armado's role. Even if the braggart stereotype misses out much of what captivates in Armado's language and performance, one cannot dismiss it as irrelevant. Armado's tale-telling about Spain and his characterization as "A man of compliments, whom right and wrong / Have chose as umpire of their mutiny" seem to project or imply a specific history. It is important, as this essay has emphasized, to recognize the mixed cultural affiliations of theatrical pleasures the complex character affords—part braggart soldier, part Spanish "Peregrino," and part enfranchised linguistic stranger.
