Comedy plays; Courts and courtiers -- Drama; Navarre (Kingdom) -- Drama; Princesses -- Drama
KING. Fair sir, God save you! Where's the Princess?
BOYET. Gone to her tent. Please it your Majesty
Command me any service to her thither?
KING. That she vouchsafe me audience for one word.
BOYET. I will; and so will she, I know, my lord. Exit
BEROWNE. This fellow pecks up wit as pigeons pease,
And utters it again when God doth please.
He is wit's pedlar, and retails his wares
At wakes, and wassails, meetings, markets, fairs;
And we that sell by gross, the Lord doth know,
Have not the grace to grace it with such show.
This gallant pins the wenches on his sleeve;
Had he been Adam, he had tempted Eve.
'A can carve too, and lisp; why this is he
That kiss'd his hand away in courtesy;
This is the ape of form, Monsieur the Nice,
That, when he plays at tables, chides the dice
In honourable terms; nay, he can sing
A mean most meanly; and in ushering,
Mend him who can. The ladies call him sweet;
The stairs, as he treads on them, kiss his feet.
This is the flow'r that smiles on every one,
To show his teeth as white as whales-bone;
And consciences that will not die in debt
Pay him the due of 'honey-tongued Boyet.'
KING. A blister on his sweet tongue, with my heart,
That put Armado's page out of his part!
Re-enter the PRINCESS, ushered by BOYET; ROSALINE,
MARIA, and KATHARINE
BEROWNE. See where it comes! Behaviour, what wert thou
Till this man show'd thee? And what art thou now?
KING. All hail, sweet madam, and fair time of day!
PRINCESS OF FRANCE. 'Fair' in 'all hail' is foul, as I
conceive.
KING. Construe my speeches better, if you may.
PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Then wish me better; I will give you leave.
KING. We came to visit you, and purpose now
To lead you to our court; vouchsafe it then.
PRINCESS OF FRANCE. This field shall hold me, and so hold your
vow:
Nor God, nor I, delights in perjur'd men.
KING. Rebuke me not for that which you provoke.
The virtue of your eye must break my oath.
PRINCESS OF FRANCE. You nickname virtue: vice you should have
spoke;
For virtue's office never breaks men's troth.
Now by my maiden honour, yet as pure
As the unsullied lily, I protest,
A world of torments though I should endure,
I would not yield to be your house's guest;
So much I hate a breaking cause to be
Of heavenly oaths, vowed with integrity.
KING. O, you have liv'd in desolation here,
Unseen, unvisited, much to our shame.
PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Not so, my lord; it is not so, I swear;
We have had pastimes here, and pleasant game;
A mess of Russians left us but of late.
KING. How, madam! Russians!
PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Ay, in truth, my lord;
Trim gallants, full of courtship and of state.
ROSALINE. Madam, speak true. It is not so, my lord.
My lady, to the manner of the days,
In courtesy gives undeserving praise.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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