For well you know here comes in embassy
The French king's daughter, with yourself to speak--
A mild 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 th' admired princess hither.

KING.
What say you, lords? why, this was quite forgot.

BEROWNE.
So study evermore is over-shot:
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.

BEROWNE.
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; [Subscribes]