_King._ Well, sit you out: go home, Biron: adieu. 110 _Biron._ No, my good lord; I have sworn to stay with you: And though I have for barbarism spoke more Than for that angel knowledge you can say, Yet confident I’ll keep what I have swore, And bide the penance of each three years’ day. 115 Give me the paper; let me read the same; And to the strict’st decrees I’ll write my name. _King._ How well this yielding rescues thee from shame! _Biron_ [_reads_]. ‘Item, That no woman shall come within a mile of my court,’—Hath this been proclaimed? 120 _Long._ Four days ago. _Biron._ Let’s see the penalty. [_Reads_] ‘on pain of losing her tongue.’ Who devised this penalty? _Long._ Marry, that did I. _Biron._ Sweet lord, and why? 125 _Long._ To fright them hence with that dread penalty. _Biron._ A dangerous law against gentility! [_Reads_] ‘Item, If any man be seen to talk with a woman within the term of three years, he shall endure such public shame as the rest of the court can possibly devise.’ 130 This article, my liege, yourself must break; For well you know here comes in embassy The French king’s daughter with yourself to speak,— A maid of grace and complete majesty,— About surrender up of Aquitaine 135 To her decrepit, sick, and bedrid father: Therefore this article is made in vain, Or vainly comes the admired princess hither. _King._ What say you, lords? why, this was quite forgot. _Biron._ So study evermore is overshot: 140 While it doth study to have what it would, It doth forget to do the thing it should; And when it hath the thing it hunteth most, ’Tis won as towns with fire, so won, so lost. _King._ We must of force dispense with this decree; 145 She must lie here on mere necessity. _Biron._ Necessity will make us all forsworn Three thousand times within this three years’ space; For every man with his affects is born, Not by might master’d, but by special grace: 150 If I break faith, this word shall speak for me, I am forsworn on ‘mere necessity.’ So to the laws at large I write my name: [_Subscribes_ And he that breaks them in the least degree Stands in attainder of eternal shame: 155 Suggestions are to other as to me; But I believe, although I seem so loth, I am the last that will last keep his oath. But is there no quick recreation granted?