KING.  But he hath had in you, as it should seem,
Else would he not make sonnets of your brow,
Your eye, your lip, your hand, your thigh. 
A plague upon him! how came he so nigh? 
Nay, now you have the curs’d quean’s counterfeit: 
Through rage you shake, because you cannot rave. 
But answer me:  why should the bedlam slave
Entitle a whole poem to your kiss,
Calling it cherry, ruby, this and this? 
I tell you, I am jealous of your love,
Which makes me break into this passion. 
Here’s the kind noble Aubery de Vere
Knows what I speak is true. 
My lord, my lord!  I do appeal to you,
Are these things to be borne?

SAL.  No, by the rood: 
These love-rhymes are the tokens of small good.

HUB.  Why, my good lord, was never poetry
Offer’d unto a lady’s patronage?

SAL.  Yes, but not taken[301].

HUB.  Yes, and taken too. 
Though moody[302] slaves, whose balladising rhymes
With words unpolish’d show their brutish thoughts,
Naming their maukins[303] in each lustful line,
Let no celestial beauty look awry,
When well-writ poems, couching her rich praise,
Are offer’d to her unstain’d, virtuous eye: 
For poetry’s high-sprighted sons will raise
True beauty to all wish’d eternity. 
Therefore, my lord, your age is much to blame
To think a taken poem lady’s shame.

SAL.  You see the king, that’s better read than you,
And far more wrong’d than I, takes it not well.

KING.  Yes, but I do:  I think not Isabel
The worse for any writing of Le Brun’s.[304]

SAL.  Will you ha’ the truth, my lord, I think so too;
And though I be an old man, by my sword,
My arm shall justify my constant word.

QUEEN.  After a long storm in a troublous sea,
The pilot is no gladder of a calm,
Than Isabel to see the vexed looks
Of her lov’d lord chang’d into sweet aspects.

KING.  I will not tell thee what a world of foes
For thy love (dear love) rise against my life. 
Matilda’s love, few swords will fight for thee. [To himself. 
I will not number up the many woes
That shall be multiplied:  strife upon strife
Will follow; but to shun ensuing ills,
I’ll take such pledges as shall please me ask
Of each proud baron dwelling in the realm. 
Bruce, kinsman and the deputy to March,
Hath a high-minded lady to his wife,
An able son for arms, and a less boy,
That is the comfort of his father’s life. 
Madam, I know you love the lady well,
And of her wealth you may be bold to build[305],
By sending you four hundred white milch kine,
And ten like-colour’d bulls to serve that herd;
So fair, that every cow did Ioe seem,
And every bull Europa’s ravisher. 
To friend myself with such a subject’s truth,
Thus I command:  you and Earl Salisbury
Shall, with what speed conveniently ye may,
Hie ye to Guildford:  there the lady lies,
And her sons too, as I am told by spies. 
All that she hath, I know, she calleth yours;
All that she hath I gladly would call mine,
If she abuse ye; if she use ye well,
For ever be what she retains her own. 
Only go by, as queens in progress do,
And send me word how she receiveth you.