Who are the votaries, my loving lords,

That are vow-fellows with this virtuous duke?

A LORD

Lord Longueville is one.

PRINCESS Know you the man?

MARIA

I know him, madam. At a marriage feast

Between Lord Perigord and the beauteous heir

Of Jaques Fauconbridge solemnized

In Normandy saw I this Longueville.

A man of sovereign parts he is esteemed,

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 matched 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

Some merry mocking lord, belike-is’t so?

MARIA

They say so most that most his humours know.

PRINCESS

Such short-lived wits do wither as they grow.

Who are the rest?

CATHERINE

The young Dumaine, a well-accomplished 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 Alençon’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.

Biron 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

God bless my ladies, are they all in love,

That every one her own hath garnished

With such bedecking ornaments of praise?

A LORD

Here comes Boyet.

Enter Boyet

PRINCESS

Now, what admittance, lord?

BOYET

Navarre had notice of your fair approach,

And he and his competitors in oath

Were all addressed 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.

Enter Navarre, Longueville, Dumaine, and Biron

Here comes Navarre.

KING Fair Princess, welcome to the court of Navarre.

PRINCESS ‘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

I will be welcome, then. Conduct me thither.

KING

Hear me, dear lady. I have sworn an oath—

PRINCESS

Our Lady help my lord He’ll be forsworn.

KING

Not for the world, fair madam, by my will.

PRINCESS

Why, will shall break it—will and nothing else.

KING

Your ladyship is ignorant what it is.

PRINCESS

Were my lord so his ignorance were wise,

Where now his knowledge must prove ignorance.

I hear your grace hath sworn out housekeeping.

’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.

She gives him a paper

KING

Madam, I will, if suddenly I may.

PRINCESS

You will the sooner that I were away,

For you’ll prove perjured if you make me stay.

Navarre reads the paper

BIRON (to Rosaline)

Did not I dance with you in Brabant once?

⌈FROSALINE⌉

Did not I dance with you in Brabant once?

BIRON

I know you did.

⌈ROSALINE⌉

How needless was it then

To ask the question!

BIRON

You must not be so quick.

⌈ROSALINE⌉

‘Tis ’long of you, that spur me with such questions.

BIRON

Your wit’s too hot, it speeds too fast, ’twill tire.

⌈ROSALINE⌉

Not till it leave the rider in the mire.

BIRON

What time o’ day?

⌈ROSALINE⌉

The hour that fools should ask.

BIRON

Now fair befall your mask.

⌈ROSALINE⌉

Fair fall the face it covers.

BIRON

And send you many lovers.

⌈ROSALINE⌉

Amen, so you be none.

BIRON

Nay, then will I be gone.

KING (to the Princess)

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—

Received 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 hundred thousand crowns, and not demands,

On payment of a hundred thousand crowns,