Page:Love's Labour's Lost (1925) Yale.djvu/18

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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 bed-rid 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 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 others 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?

King. Ay, that there is. Our court, you know, is haunted

 147 lie: lodge

mere: absolute

150 affects: affections, passions

151 special grace: divine help

156 in attainder: convicted

157 Suggestions: temptations

160 quick: lively

