KING HENRY V

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 rosed 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 V

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

BURGUNDY

They are then excused, my lord, when they see not
what they do.

KING HENRY V

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
summered 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 V

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 V

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 entered.

KING HENRY V

Shall Kate be my wife?

FRENCH KING

So please you.