• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 19650 0

Kate. KATHERINE. Den it sall also content me. KING HENRY. Upon that I kiss your hand, and I can you my queen. KATHERINE. Laissez, mon seigneur, laissez, laissez! Ma foi, je ne veux point que vous abaissiez votre grandeur en baisant la main d'une, notre seigneur, indigne serviteur; excusez-moi, je vous supplie, mon tres puissant seigneur. KING HENRY. Then I will kiss your lips, Kate. KATHERINE. Les dames et demoiselles pour etre baisees devant leur noces, il n'est pas la coutume de France. KING HENRY. Madame my interpreter, what says she? ALICE. Dat it is not be de fashion pour le ladies of France- I cannot tell vat is baiser en Anglish. KING HENRY. To kiss. ALICE. Your Majestee entendre bettre que moi. KING HENRY. It is not a fashion for the maids in France to kiss before they are married, would she say? ALICE. Oui, vraiment. KING HENRY. O Kate, nice customs curtsy to great kings. Dear Kate, you and I cannot be confin'd within the weak list of a country's fashion; we are the makers of manners, Kate; and the liberty that follows our places stops the mouth of all find-faults- as I will do yours for upholding the nice fashion of your country in denying me a kiss; therefore, patiently and yielding. [Kissing her] You have witchcraft in your lips, Kate: there is more eloquence in a sugar touch of them than in the tongues of the

French council; and they should sooner persuade Henry of England

than a general petition of monarchs. Here comes your father.

Enter the FRENCH POWER and the ENGLISH LORDS

BURGUNDY.

God save your Majesty! My royal cousin,

Teach you our princess English?

KING HENRY.

I would have her learn, my fair cousin, how

perfectly I

love her; and that is good English.

BURGUNDY.

Is she not apt?

KING HENRY.

Our tongue is rough, coz, and my condition is not

smooth; so that, having neither the voice nor the heart of

flattery about me, I cannot so conjure up the spirit of love in

her that he will appear in his true likeness.

BURGUNDY.

Pardon the frankness of my mirth, if I answer you for

that. If you would conjure in her, you must make a circle; if

conjure up love in her in his true likeness, he must appear naked

and blind. Can you blame her, then, being a maid yet ros'd over

with the virgin crimson of modesty, if she deny the appearance of

a naked blind boy in her naked seeing self? It were, my lord, a

hard condition for a maid to consign to.

KING HENRY.

Yet they do wink and yield, as love is blind and enforces.

BURGUNDY.

They are then excus'd, my lord, when they see not what they do.

KING HENRY.

Then, good my lord, teach your cousin to consent winking.

BURGUNDY.

I will wink on her to consent, my lord, if you will teach

her to know my meaning; for maids well summer'd and warm kept are

like flies at Bartholomew-tide, blind, though they have their

eyes; and then they will endure handling, which before would not

abide looking on.

KING HENRY.

This moral ties me over to time and a hot summer; and

so I shall catch the fly, your cousin, in the latter end, and she

must be blind too.

BURGUNDY.

As love is, my lord, before it loves.

KING HENRY.

It is so; and you may, some of you, thank love for my

blindness, who cannot see many a fair French city for one fair

French maid that stands in my way.

FRENCH KING.

Yes, my lord, you see them perspectively, the cities

turned into a maid; for they are all girdled with maiden walls

that war hath never ent'red.

KING HENRY.

Shall Kate be my wife?

FRENCH KING.

So please you.

KING HENRY.

I am content, so the maiden cities you talk of may wait

on her; so the maid that stood in the way for my wish shall show

me the way to my will.

FRENCH KING.

We have consented to all terms of reason.

KING HENRY.

Is't so, my lords of England?

WESTMORELAND.

The king hath granted every article:

His daughter first; and then in sequel, all,

According to their firm proposed natures.

EXETER.

Only he hath not yet subscribed this:

Where your Majesty demands that the King of France, having any

occasion to write for