POMP.
Thou only mild and courteous sir, vouchsafe
To grant our suit, and set those ladies free.
NEMO.
What is your purpose in this earnest suit?
PLEASURE.
To marry them, and make them honest wives.
NEMO.
But may it be, that men of your regard,
Lords of such fortune and so famous place,
Will link yourselves with ladies so forlorn,
And so distained with more than common crimes?
POLICY.
Marriage doth make amends for many a miss.
POMP.
And love doth cover heaps of cumbrous evils.
PLEASURE.
And doth forget the faults that were before.
NEMO.
Mean as you say: you need to say no more.
POLICY.
In token that we mean what we have said,
Lo, here our shields, the prizes of our love,
To challenge all, except thyself, that dare
Deny those ladies to be ours by right.
NEMO.
Woo them and win them, win them and wear them too:
I shall both comfort and discourage you, my lords.
The comfort's this: of all those former crimes,
Wherewith the world was wont these dames to charge,
I have them clear'd, and made them all as free
As they were born, no blemish left to see.
But the discourage, gentle lords, is this:
The time of their endurance hath been long,
Whereby their clothes of cost and curious stuff
Are worn to rags, and give them much disgrace.