William Shakespeare: The Life of King Henry V

ACT FIFTH. 2. SCENE II. France. A royal palace. (continued)

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 turn'd into
a maid; for they are all girdled with maiden walls that war hath
[never] ent'red.