Regent of love-rhymes, lord of folded arms, The anointed sovereign of sighs and groans, Liege of all loiterers and malcontents, Dread prince of plackets, king of codpieces, Sole imperator and great general Of trotting 'paritors:--O my little heart:-- And I to be a corporal of his field, And wear his colours like a tumbler's hoop! What, I! I love! I sue! I seek a wife! A woman, that is like a German clock, Still a-repairing, ever out of frame, And never going aright, being a watch, But being watch'd that it may still go right! Nay, to be perjured, which is worst of all; And, among three, to love the worst of all; A wightly wanton with a velvet brow, With two pitch-balls stuck in her face for eyes; Ay, and by heaven, one that will do the deed Though Argus were her eunuch and her guard: And I to sigh for her! to watch for her! To pray for her! Go to; it is a plague That Cupid will impose for my neglect Of his almighty dreadful little might. Well, I will love, write, sigh, pray, sue and groan: Some men must love my lady and some Joan. Was that the king, that spurred his horse so hard Against the steep uprising of the hill? I know not; but I think it was not he. Whoe'er a' was, a' show'd a mounting mind. Well, lords, to-day we shall have our dispatch: On Saturday we will return to France. Then, forester, my friend, where is the bush That we must stand and play the murderer in? Hereby, upon the edge of yonder coppice; A stand where you may make the fairest shoot. I thank my beauty, I am fair that shoot, And thereupon thou speak'st the fairest shoot. Pardon me, madam, for I meant not so. What, what? first praise me and again say no? O short-lived pride! Not fair? alack for woe! Yes, madam, fair. Nay, never paint me now: Where fair is not, praise cannot mend the brow. Here, good my glass, take this for telling true: Fair payment for foul words is more than due. Nothing but fair is that which you inherit. See see, my beauty will be saved by merit! O heresy in fair, fit for these days! A giving hand, though foul, shall have fair praise. But come, the bow: now mercy goes to kill, And shooting well is then accounted ill. Thus will I save my credit in the shoot: Not wounding, pity would