in season grows.
So you, to study now it is too late,
Climb o'er the house to unlock the little gate.
Well, sit you out: go home, Biron: adieu.
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.
Give me the paper; let me read the same;
And to the strict'st decrees I'll write my name.
How well this yielding rescues thee from shame!
'Item, That no woman shall come within a
mile of my court:' Hath this been proclaimed?
Four days ago.
Let's see the penalty.
'On pain of losing her tongue.' Who devised this penalty?
Marry, that did I.
Sweet lord, and why?
To fright them hence with that dread penalty.
A dangerous law against gentility!
'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.'
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
To her decrepit, sick and bedrid father:
Therefore this article is made in vain,
Or vainly comes the admired princess hither.
What say you, lords? Why, this was quite forgot.
So study evermore is overshot:
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.
We must of force dispense with this decree;
She must lie here on mere necessity.
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:
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:
And he that breaks them in the least degree
Stands in attainder of eternal shame:
Suggestions are to other as to me;
But I believe, although I seem so loath,
I am the last that will last keep his oath.
But is there no quick recreation granted?
Ay, that there is. Our court, you know, is haunted
With a refined traveller of Spain;
A man in all