# Don Adriano de Armado — Love’s Labour’s Lost character guide

> Don Adriano de Armado in Love’s Labour’s Lost by William Shakespeare.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Armado, the magnificent Armado

**First appearance:** 0001-act-i

## Snapshot

A fantastical Spanish braggart whose inflated letters and wounded dignity make him the play's most elaborate self-parody of romantic love.

## Who they are

Armado styles himself a soldier and scholar at Navarre's court, but his grandiloquent letters to the country wench Jaquenetta betray a man undone by desire he considers beneath him. He confesses to his page Moth that he is in love with a base wench and thinks it scorn to sigh, yet sighs anyway. His pompous rhetoric and his rivalry with the simpler Costard for Jaquenetta's attention turn the play's theme of love against vows into farce, and his letters become the very evidence that exposes the lords' own broken oaths.

## In the story

### [Scene I](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/love_s_labour_s_lost_se/chapters/act-i-scene-i)

Referenced as a refined traveler and writer of the letter that accuses Costard; his ornate language is mocked.

### [Scene II](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/love_s_labour_s_lost_se/chapters/act-i-scene-ii)

Confesses his love for Jaquenetta, laments being forsworn, and cites heroic precedents for love.

### [Scene I](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/love_s_labour_s_lost_se/chapters/act-iii-scene-i)

Armado commands Moth to sing, then sends Costard with a letter to Jaquenetta, displaying his affected rhetoric and love-sickness.

### [Scene I](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/love_s_labour_s_lost_se/chapters/act-iv-scene-i)

Author of the letter read aloud, which is actually addressed to Jaquenetta.

### [Scene I](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/love_s_labour_s_lost_se/chapters/act-v-scene-i)

Seeks Holofernes' help for a pageant to present to the princess.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/love_s_labour_s_lost_se/characters/armado
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/love_s_labour_s_lost_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/love_s_labour_s_lost_se/characters