The character of Moth in Love's Labor's LostLike much of Love's Labor's Lost, the young character Moth is full of paradoxes. When Shakespeare has little Moth play the great Hercules in "Nine Dignitaries," the playwright offers humor by contrasting the actor's physique with his role, or as Armado puts it, Moth is "not quantitative enough" (5.2.130) to play the Greek god. However, Shakespeare could also use this contradiction to compare physical strength to mental strength. Although physical prowess has no significance in Love's Labour's Lost, mental prowess does, and Moth (mentally superior to his contemporaries) proves himself worthy of high status. Using Moth as a Herculean figure is one of the play's most obvious paradoxes, but there are others. Moth relies on rhetoric and integrity to show how true intellect comes from understanding people and not through academic demonstration. Moth, for the most part, gets the better of his fellow characters, especially the educated ones. In the initial conversation between Moth and his boss, Armado, the page's first response to Armado's question shows common sense. Falena responds that a "great sign" (1.2.3) of melancholy is sadness. This statement, too simple for Armado to understand, mocks and uses rhetoric. Falena defines a sad face as a great sign, implying that the greatness of the sign lies in its obviousness. Claiming that something as common as a sad face is “awesome,” Moth treats the rhetoric as a joke by giving an overly simplistic answer to a difficult and eloquent question. But at the same time, Moth uses rhetoric by changing the definitions of words to make his point. Because a sad face is so visible, it is grand in its degree. Like any rhetorician, Moth h...... in the center of the card...... is more. Moth, with her integrity intact, passes through the "Nine Worthy" unscathed. The same can also be said for his role in Love's Labour's Lost. Moth manages to pull off the play without looking like a fool. It does this by relying on two things: integrity and common sense. Moth has learned to balance these two qualities, not through book study, but through social interaction. Shakespeare uses Moth as an example of how true intellect works. True intellect is not the ability to speak Latin or write stylized poetry, but as Moth states, true intellect "is the way of making an offense gentle" (5.1.140). And whenever Moth deals with abusive characters, he always maintains his grace. Works Cited Shakespeare, William. The labors of love are lost. The bank of the Shakespeare River. Ed. G. Blakemore Evans. 2nd ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997. 208-46.