dear,
    When she did starve the general world beside
    And prodigally gave them all to you.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Good Lord Boyet, my beauty, though but
mean,
    Needs not the painted flourish of your praise.
    Beauty is bought by judgment of the eye,
    Not utt'red 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-visag'd suitors, his high will.
  BOYET. Proud of employment, willingly I go.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. 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 OF FRANCE. 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, peerless 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 match'd 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 OF FRANCE. Some merry mocking lord, belike; is't so?
  MARIA. They say so most that most his humours know.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Such short-liv'd wits do wither as they
grow.
    Who are the rest?
  KATHARINE. The young Dumain, a well-accomplish'd 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.
    Berowne 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 OF FRANCE. 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 OF FRANCE. 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.
                                    [The LADIES-IN-WAITING mask]

             Enter KING, LONGAVILLE, DUMAIN, BEROWNE,
                         and ATTENDANTS

    Here comes Navarre.
  KING. Fair Princess, welcome to the court of Navarre.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. '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.
  KING. You shall be welcome, madam, to my court.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. I will be welcome then; conduct me thither.
  KING. Hear me, dear lady: I have sworn an oath-
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Our Lady help my lord! He'll be forsworn.
  KING. Not for the world, fair madam, by my will.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Why, will shall break it; will, and nothing
    else.
  KING. Your ladyship is ignorant what it is.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. 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. [Giving a paper]
  KING. Madam, I will, if suddenly I may.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. YOU Will the sooner that I were away,
    For you'll prove perjur'd if you make me stay.
  BEROWNE. Did not I dance with you in Brabant once?
  KATHARINE. Did not I dance with you in Brabant once?
  BEROWNE. I know you did.
  KATHARINE. How needless was it then to ask the question!
  BEROWNE. You must not be so quick.
  KATHARINE. 'Tis long of you, that spur me with such questions.
  BEROWNE. Your wit 's too hot, it speeds too fast, 'twill tire.
  KATHARINE. Not till it leave the rider in the mire.
  BEROWNE. What time o' day?
  KATHARINE. The hour that fools should ask.
  BEROWNE. Now fair befall your mask!
  KATHARINE. Fair fall the face it covers!
  BEROWNE. And send you many lovers!
  KATHARINE. Amen, so you be none.
  BEROWNE. Nay, then will I be gone.
  KING. 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,
    Receiv'd 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