ACT II, SCENE I. The same.
[Enter the PRINCESS of France, ROSALINE, MARIA, KATHARINE, BOYET,
Lords, and other Attendants]
BOYET:
- Now, madam, summon up your dearest spirits:
- Consider who the king your father sends,
- To whom he sends, and what's his embassy:
- Yourself, held precious in the world's esteem,
- To parley with the sole inheritor
- Of all perfections that a man may owe,
- Matchless Navarre; the plea of no less weight
- Than Aquitaine, a dowry for a queen.
- Be now as prodigal of all dear grace
- As Nature was in making graces dear
- When she did starve the general world beside
- And prodigally gave them all to you.
PRINCESS:
- Good Lord Boyet, my beauty, though but mean,
- Needs not the painted flourish of your praise:
- Beauty is bought by judgement of the eye,
- Not utter'd by base sale of chapmen's tongues:
- I am less proud to hear you tell my worth
- Than you much willing to be counted wise
- In spending your wit in the praise of mine.
- But now to task the tasker: good Boyet,
- You are not ignorant, all-telling fame
- Doth noise abroad, Navarre hath made a vow,
- Till painful study shall outwear three years,
- No woman may approach his silent court:
- Therefore to's seemeth it a needful course,
- Before we enter his forbidden gates,
- To know his pleasure; and in that behalf,
- Bold of your worthiness, we single you
- As our best-moving fair solicitor.
- Tell him, the daughter of the King of France,
- On serious business, craving quick dispatch,
- Importunes personal conference with his grace:
- Haste, signify so much; while we attend,
- Like humble-visaged suitors, his high will.
BOYET:
- Proud of employment, willingly I go.
PRINCESS:
- All pride is willing pride, and yours is so.
-
[Exit BOYET]
- Who are the votaries, my loving lords,
- That are vow-fellows with this virtuous duke?
First Lord:
- Lord Longaville is one.
PRINCESS:
- Know you the man?
MARIA:
- I know him, madam: at a marriage-feast,
- Between Lord Perigort and the beauteous heir
- Of Jaques Falconbridge, solemnized
- In Normandy, saw I this Longaville:
- A man of sovereign parts he is esteem'd;
- Well fitted in arts, glorious in arms:
- Nothing becomes him ill that he would well.
- The only soil of his fair virtue's gloss,
- If virtue's gloss will stain with any soil,
- Is a sharp wit matched with too blunt a will;
- Whose edge hath power to cut, whose will still wills
- It should none spare that come within his power.
PRINCESS:
- Some merry mocking lord, belike; is't so?
MARIA:
- They say so most that most his humours know.
PRINCESS:
- Such short-lived wits do wither as they grow.
- Who are the rest?
KATHARINE:
- The young Dumain, a well-accomplished youth,
- Of all that virtue love for virtue loved:
- Most power to do most harm, least knowing ill;
- For he hath wit to make an ill shape good,
- And shape to win grace though he had no wit.
- I saw him at the Duke Alencon's once;
- And much too little of that good I saw
- Is my report to his great worthiness.
ROSALINE:
- Another of these students at that time
- Was there with him, if I have heard a truth.
- Biron they call him; but a merrier man,
- Within the limit of becoming mirth,
- I never spent an hour's talk withal:
- His eye begets occasion for his wit;
- For every object that the one doth catch
- The other turns to a mirth-moving jest,
- Which his fair tongue, conceit's expositor,
- Delivers in such apt and gracious words
- That aged ears play truant at his tales
- And younger hearings are quite ravished;
- So sweet and voluble is his discourse.
PRINCESS:
- God bless my ladies! are they all in love,
- That every one her own hath garnished
- With such bedecking ornaments of praise?
First Lord:
- Here comes Boyet.
-
[Re-enter BOYET]
PRINCESS:
- Now, what admittance, lord?
BOYET:
- Navarre had notice of your fair approach;
- And he and his competitors in oath
- Were all address'd to meet you, gentle lady,
- Before I came. Marry, thus much I have learnt:
- He rather means to lodge you in the field,
- Like one that comes here to besiege his court,
- Than seek a dispensation for his oath,
- To let you enter his unpeopled house.
- Here comes Navarre.
-
[Enter FERDINAND, LONGAVILLE, DUMAIN, BIRON, and Attendants]
FERDINAND:
- Fair princess, welcome to the court of Navarre.
PRINCESS:
- 'Fair' I give you back again; and 'welcome' I have
- not yet: the roof of this court is too high to be
- yours; and welcome to the wide fields too base to be mine.
FERDINAND:
- You shall be welcome, madam, to my court.
PRINCESS:
- I will be welcome, then: conduct me thither.
FERDINAND:
- Hear me, dear lady; I have sworn an oath.
PRINCESS:
- Our Lady help my lord! he'll be forsworn.
FERDINAND:
- Not for the world, fair madam, by my will.
PRINCESS:
- Why, will shall break it; will and nothing else.
FERDINAND:
- Your ladyship is ignorant what it is.
PRINCESS:
- Were my lord so, his ignorance were wise,
- Where now his knowledge must prove ignorance.
- I hear your grace hath sworn out house-keeping:
- Tis deadly sin to keep that oath, my lord,
- And sin to break it.
- But pardon me. I am too sudden-bold:
- To teach a teacher ill beseemeth me.
- Vouchsafe to read the purpose of my coming,
- And suddenly resolve me in my suit.
FERDINAND:
- Madam, I will, if suddenly I may.
PRINCESS:
- You will the sooner, that I were away;
- For you'll prove perjured if you make me stay.
BIRON:
- Did not I dance with you in Brabant once?
ROSALINE:
- Did not I dance with you in Brabant once?
ROSALINE:
- How needless was it then to ask the question!
BIRON:
- You must not be so quick.
ROSALINE:
- 'Tis 'long of you that spur me with such questions.
BIRON:
- Your wit's too hot, it speeds too fast, 'twill tire.
ROSALINE:
- Not till it leave the rider in the mire.
ROSALINE:
- The hour that fools should ask.
BIRON:
- Now fair befall your mask!
ROSALINE:
- Fair fall the face it covers!
BIRON:
- And send you many lovers!
ROSALINE:
- Amen, so you be none.
BIRON:
- Nay, then will I be gone.
FERDINAND:
- Madam, your father here doth intimate
- The payment of a hundred thousand crowns;
- Being but the one half of an entire sum
- Disbursed by my father in his wars.
- But say that he or we, as neither have,
- Received that sum, yet there remains unpaid
- A hundred thousand more; in surety of the which,
- One part of Aquitaine is bound to us,
- Although not valued to the money's worth.
- If then the king your father will restore
- But that one half which is unsatisfied,
- We will give up our right in Aquitaine,
- And hold fair friendship with his majesty.
- But that, it seems, he little purposeth,
- For here he doth demand to have repaid
- A hundred thousand crowns; and not demands,
- On payment of a hundred thousand crowns,
- To have his title live in Aquitaine;
- Which we much rather had depart withal
- And have the money by our father lent
- Than Aquitaine so gelded as it is.
- Dear Princess, were not his requests so far
- From reason's yielding, your fair self should make
- A yielding 'gainst some reason in my breast
- And go well satisfied to France again.
PRINCESS:
- You do the king my father too much wrong
- And wrong the reputation of your name,
- In so unseeming to confess receipt
- Of that which hath so faithfully been paid.
FERDINAND:
- I do protest I never heard of it;
- And if you prove it, I'll repay it back
- Or yield up Aquitaine.
PRINCESS:
- We arrest your word.
- Boyet, you can produce acquittances
- For such a sum from special officers
- Of Charles his father.
FERDINAND:
- Satisfy me so.
BOYET:
- So please your grace, the packet is not come
- Where that and other specialties are bound:
- To-morrow you shall have a sight of them.
FERDINAND:
- It shall suffice me: at which interview
- All liberal reason I will yield unto.
- Meantime receive such welcome at my hand
- As honour without breach of honour may
- Make tender of to thy true worthiness:
- You may not come, fair princess, in my gates;
- But here without you shall be so received
- As you shall deem yourself lodged in my heart,
- Though so denied fair harbour in my house.
- Your own good thoughts excuse me, and farewell:
- To-morrow shall we visit you again.
PRINCESS:
- Sweet health and fair desires consort your grace!
FERDINAND:
- Thy own wish wish I thee in every place!
-
[Exit]
BIRON:
- Lady, I will commend you to mine own heart.
ROSALINE:
- Pray you, do my commendations; I would be glad to see it.
BIRON:
- I would you heard it groan.
ROSALINE:
- Is the fool sick?
BIRON:
- Sick at the heart.
ROSALINE:
- Alack, let it blood.
BIRON:
- Would that do it good?
ROSALINE:
- My physic says 'ay.'
BIRON:
- Will you prick't with your eye?
ROSALINE:
- No point, with my knife.
BIRON:
- Now, God save thy life!
ROSALINE:
- And yours from long living!
BIRON:
- I cannot stay thanksgiving.
-
[Retiring]
DUMAIN:
- Sir, I pray you, a word: what lady is that same?
BOYET:
- The heir of Alencon, Katharine her name.
DUMAIN:
- A gallant lady. Monsieur, fare you well.
-
[Exit]
LONGAVILLE:
- I beseech you a word: what is she in the white?
BOYET:
- A woman sometimes, an you saw her in the light.
LONGAVILLE:
- Perchance light in the light. I desire her name.
BOYET:
- She hath but one for herself; to desire that were a shame.
LONGAVILLE:
- Pray you, sir, whose daughter?
BOYET:
- Her mother's, I have heard.
LONGAVILLE:
- God's blessing on your beard!
BOYET:
- Good sir, be not offended.
- She is an heir of Falconbridge.
LONGAVILLE:
- Nay, my choler is ended.
- She is a most sweet lady.
BOYET:
- Not unlike, sir, that may be.
-
[Exit LONGAVILLE]
BIRON:
- What's her name in the cap?
BOYET:
- Rosaline, by good hap.
BIRON:
- Is she wedded or no?
BOYET:
- To her will, sir, or so.
BIRON:
- You are welcome, sir: adieu.
BOYET:
- Farewell to me, sir, and welcome to you.
-
[Exit BIRON]
MARIA:
- That last is Biron, the merry madcap lord:
- Not a word with him but a jest.
BOYET:
- And every jest but a word.
PRINCESS:
- It was well done of you to take him at his word.
BOYET:
- I was as willing to grapple as he was to board.
MARIA:
- Two hot sheeps, marry.
BOYET:
- And wherefore not ships?
- No sheep, sweet lamb, unless we feed on your lips.
MARIA:
- You sheep, and I pasture: shall that finish the jest?
BOYET:
- So you grant pasture for me.
-
[Offering to kiss her]
MARIA:
- Not so, gentle beast:
- My lips are no common, though several they be.
BOYET:
- Belonging to whom?
MARIA:
- To my fortunes and me.
PRINCESS:
- Good wits will be jangling; but, gentles, agree:
- This civil war of wits were much better used
- On Navarre and his book-men; for here 'tis abused.
BOYET:
- If my observation, which very seldom lies,
- By the heart's still rhetoric disclosed with eyes,
- Deceive me not now, Navarre is infected.
BOYET:
- With that which we lovers entitle affected.
BOYET:
- Why, all his behaviors did make their retire
- To the court of his eye, peeping thorough desire:
- His heart, like an agate, with your print impress'd,
- Proud with his form, in his eye pride express'd:
- His tongue, all impatient to speak and not see,
- Did stumble with haste in his eyesight to be;
- All senses to that sense did make their repair,
- To feel only looking on fairest of fair:
- Methought all his senses were lock'd in his eye,
- As jewels in crystal for some prince to buy;
- Who, tendering their own worth from where they were glass'd,
- Did point you to buy them, along as you pass'd:
- His face's own margent did quote such amazes
- That all eyes saw his eyes enchanted with gazes.
- I'll give you Aquitaine and all that is his,
- An you give him for my sake but one loving kiss.
PRINCESS:
- Come to our pavilion: Boyet is disposed.
BOYET:
- But to speak that in words which his eye hath
- disclosed.
- I only have made a mouth of his eye,
- By adding a tongue which I know will not lie.
ROSALINE:
- Thou art an old love-monger and speakest skilfully.
MARIA:
- He is Cupid's grandfather and learns news of him.
ROSALINE:
- Then was Venus like her mother, for her father is but grim.
BOYET:
- Do you hear, my mad wenches?
BOYET:
- What then, do you see?
ROSALINE:
- Ay, our way to be gone.
BOYET:
- You are too hard for me.
-
[Exeunt]