Page 1636 - Shakespeare - Vol. 4

CHAMBERLAIN

Is’t possible the spells of France should juggle
Men into such strange mysteries?

SANDS
New customs,
Though they be never so ridiculous,

Nay, let ’em be unmanly, yet are followed.

CHAMBERLAIN
As far as I see, all the good our English [5]
Have got by the late voyage is but merely
A fit or two o’th’face − but they are shrewd ones;
For when they hold ’em, you would swear directly

Their very noses had been counsellors
To Pepin or Clotharius, they keep state so. [10]

SANDS
They have all new legs, and lame ones. One would take it,
That never see’em pace before, the spavin

Or springhalt reigned among ’em.

CHAMBERLAIN
Death, my lord!
Their clothes are after such a pagan cut to’t
That sure they’ve worn out Christendom. How now? [15]
Enter Sir Thomas Lovell

What news, Sir Thomas Lovell?

LOVELL
Faith, my lord,
I hear of none but the new proclamation
That’s clapped upon the court gate.

CHAMBERLAIN

What is’t for?