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A maid of grace and complete majesty—

About surrender up of Aquitaine

To her decrepit, sick, and bedred father;

Therefore this article is made in vain,

Or vainly comes th’ admired Princess hither.

King.

What say you, lords? Why, this was quite forgot.

Ber.

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.

King.

We must of force dispense with this decree,

She must lie here on mere necessity.

Ber.

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 mast’red, 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,

[Subscribes.]

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,