1    Now, madam, summon up your dearest spirits:
2    Consider who the king your father sends,
3    To whom he sends, and what's his embassy:
4    Yourself, held precious in the world's esteem,
5    To parley with the sole inheritor
6    Of all perfections that a man may owe,
7    Matchless Navarre; the plea of no less weight
8    Than Aquitaine, a dowry for a queen.
9    Be now as prodigal of all dear grace
10   As Nature was in making graces dear
11   When she did starve the general world beside
12   And prodigally gave them all to you.

13   Good Lord Boyet, my beauty, though but mean,
14   Needs not the painted flourish of your praise:
15   Beauty is bought by judgement of the eye,
16   Not utter'd by base sale of chapmen's tongues:
17   I am less proud to hear you tell my worth
18   Than you much willing to be counted wise
19   In spending your wit in the praise of mine.
20   But now to task the tasker: good Boyet,
21   You are not ignorant, all-telling fame
22   Doth noise abroad, Navarre hath made a vow,
23   Till painful study shall outwear three years,
24   No woman may approach his silent court:
25   Therefore to's seemeth it a needful course,
26   Before we enter his forbidden gates,
27   To know his pleasure; and in that behalf,
28   Bold of your worthiness, we single you
29   As our best-moving fair solicitor.
30   Tell him, the daughter of the King of France,
31   On serious business, craving quick dispatch,
32   Importunes personal conference with his grace:
33   Haste, signify so much; while we attend,
34   Like humble-visaged suitors, his high will.

35   Proud of employment, willingly I go.

36   All pride is willing pride, and yours is so.
Exit BOYET
37   Who are the votaries, my loving lords,
38   That are vow-fellows with this virtuous duke?

39   Lord Longaville is one.

40   Know you the man?

41   I know him, madam: at a marriage-feast,
42   Between Lord Perigort and the beauteous heir
43   Of Jaques Falconbridge, solemnized
44   In Normandy, saw I this Longaville:
45   A man of sovereign parts he is esteem'd;
46   Well fitted in arts, glorious in arms:
47   Nothing becomes him ill that he would well.
48   The only soil of his fair virtue's gloss,
49   If virtue's gloss will stain with any soil,
50   Is a sharp wit matched with too blunt a will;
51   Whose edge hath power to cut, whose will still wills
52   It should none spare that come within his power.

53   Some merry mocking lord, belike; is't so?

54   They say so most that most his humours know.

55   Such short-lived wits do wither as they grow.
56   Who are the rest?

57   The young Dumain, a well-accomplished youth,
58   Of all that virtue love for virtue loved:
59   Most power to do most harm, least knowing ill;
60   For he hath wit to make an ill shape good,
61   And shape to win grace though he had no wit.
62   I saw him at the Duke Alencon's once;
63   And much too little of that good I saw
64   Is my report to his great worthiness.

65   Another of these students at that time
66   Was there with him, if I have heard a truth.
67   Biron they call him; but a merrier man,
68   Within the limit of becoming mirth,
69   I never spent an hour's talk withal:
70   His eye begets occasion for his wit;
71   For every object that the one doth catch
72   The other turns to a mirth-moving jest,
73   Which his fair tongue, conceit's expositor,
74   Delivers in such apt and gracious words
75   That aged ears play truant at his tales
76   And younger hearings are quite ravished;
77   So sweet and voluble is his discourse.

78   God bless my ladies! are they all in love,
79   That every one her own hath garnished
80   With such bedecking ornaments of praise?

81   Here comes Boyet.

82   Now, what admittance, lord?

83   Navarre had notice of your fair approach;
84   And he and his competitors in oath
85   Were all address'd to meet you, gentle lady,
86   Before I came. Marry, thus much I have learnt:
87   He rather means to lodge you in the field,
88   Like one that comes here to besiege his court,
89   Than seek a dispensation for his oath,
90   To let you enter his unpeopled house.
91   Here comes Navarre.

92   Fair princess, welcome to the court of Navarre.

93   'Fair' I give you back again; and 'welcome' I have
94   not yet: the roof of this court is too high to be
95   yours; and welcome to the wide fields too base to be mine.

96   You shall be welcome, madam, to my court.

97   I will be welcome, then: conduct me thither.

98   Hear me, dear lady; I have sworn an oath.

99   Our Lady help my lord! he'll be forsworn.

100  Not for the world, fair madam, by my will.

101  Why, will shall break it; will and nothing else.

102  Your ladyship is ignorant what it is.

103  Were my lord so, his ignorance were wise,
104  Where now his knowledge must prove ignorance.
105  I hear your grace hath sworn out house-keeping:
106  Tis deadly sin to keep that oath, my lord,
107  And sin to break it.
108  But pardon me. I am too sudden-bold:
109  To teach a teacher ill beseemeth me.
110  Vouchsafe to read the purpose of my coming,
111  And suddenly resolve me in my suit.

112  Madam, I will, if suddenly I may.

113  You will the sooner, that I were away;
114  For you'll prove perjured if you make me stay.

115  Did not I dance with you in Brabant once?

116  Did not I dance with you in Brabant once?

117  I know you did.

118  How needless was it then to ask the question!

119  You must not be so quick.

120  'Tis 'long of you that spur me with such questions.

121  Your wit's too hot, it speeds too fast, 'twill tire.

122  Not till it leave the rider in the mire.

123  What time o' day?

124  The hour that fools should ask.

125  Now fair befall your mask!

126  Fair fall the face it covers!

127  And send you many lovers!

128  Amen, so you be none.

129  Nay, then will I be gone.

130  Madam, your father here doth intimate
131  The payment of a hundred thousand crowns;
132  Being but the one half of an entire sum
133  Disbursed by my father in his wars.
134  But say that he or we, as neither have,
135  Received that sum, yet there remains unpaid
136  A hundred thousand more; in surety of the which,
137  One part of Aquitaine is bound to us,
138  Although not valued to the money's worth.
139  If then the king your father will restore
140  But that one half which is unsatisfied,
141  We will give up our right in Aquitaine,
142  And hold fair friendship with his majesty.
143  But that, it seems, he little purposeth,
144  For here he doth demand to have repaid
145  A hundred thousand crowns; and not demands,
146  On payment of a hundred thousand crowns,
147  To have his title live in Aquitaine;
148  Which we much rather had depart withal
149  And have the money by our father lent
150  Than Aquitaine so gelded as it is.
151  Dear Princess, were not his requests so far
152  From reason's yielding, your fair self should make
153  A yielding 'gainst some reason in my breast
154  And go well satisfied to France again.

155  You do the king my father too much wrong
156  And wrong the reputation of your name,
157  In so unseeming to confess receipt
158  Of that which hath so faithfully been paid.

159  I do protest I never heard of it;
160  And if you prove it, I'll repay it back
161  Or yield up Aquitaine.

162  We arrest your word.
163  Boyet, you can produce acquittances
164  For such a sum from special officers
165  Of Charles his father.

166  Satisfy me so.

167  So please your grace, the packet is not come
168  Where that and other specialties are bound:
169  To-morrow you shall have a sight of them.

170  It shall suffice me: at which interview
171  All liberal reason I will yield unto.
172  Meantime receive such welcome at my hand
173  As honour without breach of honour may
174  Make tender of to thy true worthiness:
175  You may not come, fair princess, in my gates;
176  But here without you shall be so received
177  As you shall deem yourself lodged in my heart,
178  Though so denied fair harbour in my house.
179  Your own good thoughts excuse me, and farewell:
180  To-morrow shall we visit you again.

181  Sweet health and fair desires consort your grace!

182  Thy own wish wish I thee in every place!

183  Lady, I will commend you to mine own heart.

184  Pray you, do my commendations; I would be glad to see it.

185  I would you heard it groan.

186  Is the fool sick?

187  Sick at the heart.

188  Alack, let it blood.

189  Would that do it good?

190  My physic says 'ay.'

191  Will you prick't with your eye?

192  No point, with my knife.

193  Now, God save thy life!

194  And yours from long living!

195  I cannot stay thanksgiving.

196  Sir, I pray you, a word: what lady is that same?

197  The heir of Alencon, Katharine her name.

198  A gallant lady. Monsieur, fare you well.

199  I beseech you a word: what is she in the white?

200  A woman sometimes, an you saw her in the light.

201  Perchance light in the light. I desire her name.

202  She hath but one for herself; to desire that were a shame.

203  Pray you, sir, whose daughter?

204  Her mother's, I have heard.

205  God's blessing on your beard!

206  Good sir, be not offended.
207  She is an heir of Falconbridge.

208  Nay, my choler is ended.
209  She is a most sweet lady.

210  Not unlike, sir, that may be.

211  What's her name in the cap?

212  Rosaline, by good hap.

213  Is she wedded or no?

214  To her will, sir, or so.

215  You are welcome, sir: adieu.

216  Farewell to me, sir, and welcome to you.

217  That last is Biron, the merry madcap lord:
218  Not a word with him but a jest.

219  And every jest but a word.

220  It was well done of you to take him at his word.

221  I was as willing to grapple as he was to board.

222  Two hot sheeps, marry.

223  And wherefore not ships?
224  No sheep, sweet lamb, unless we feed on your lips.

225  You sheep, and I pasture: shall that finish the jest?

226  So you grant pasture for me.

227  Not so, gentle beast:
228  My lips are no common, though several they be.

229  Belonging to whom?

230  To my fortunes and me.

231  Good wits will be jangling; but, gentles, agree:
232  This civil war of wits were much better used
233  On Navarre and his book-men; for here 'tis abused.

234  If my observation, which very seldom lies,
235  By the heart's still rhetoric disclosed with eyes,
236  Deceive me not now, Navarre is infected.

237  With what?

238  With that which we lovers entitle affected.

239  Your reason?

240  Why, all his behaviors did make their retire
241  To the court of his eye, peeping thorough desire:
242  His heart, like an agate, with your print impress'd,
243  Proud with his form, in his eye pride express'd:
244  His tongue, all impatient to speak and not see,
245  Did stumble with haste in his eyesight to be;
246  All senses to that sense did make their repair,
247  To feel only looking on fairest of fair:
248  Methought all his senses were lock'd in his eye,
249  As jewels in crystal for some prince to buy;
250  Who, tendering their own worth from where they were glass'd,
251  Did point you to buy them, along as you pass'd:
252  His face's own margent did quote such amazes
253  That all eyes saw his eyes enchanted with gazes.
254  I'll give you Aquitaine and all that is his,
255  An you give him for my sake but one loving kiss.

256  Come to our pavilion: Boyet is disposed.

257  But to speak that in words which his eye hath
258  disclosed.
259  I only have made a mouth of his eye,
260  By adding a tongue which I know will not lie.

261  Thou art an old love-monger and speakest skilfully.

262  He is Cupid's grandfather and learns news of him.

263  Then was Venus like her mother, for her father is but grim.

264  Do you hear, my mad wenches?

265  No.

266  What then, do you see?

267  Ay, our way to be gone.

268  You are too hard for me.