PRINCESS
I have not much experience. But my father told me, and I have gathered from books, that in the wives of princes, such gifts are often thrown away; that other women, supplying them, seem to supply them better. Look at my cousin's mother. I can remember her still beautiful, young, and most tenderly loving. Yet the Duke, my uncle, disdained her, and all she got was loneliness and heartbreak. An honourable woman, a princess, cannot compete with those who study to please and to please only. She must either submit to being ousted from her husband's love, or soar above it into other regions.
DIEGO (interested)
Other regions?
PRINCESS
Higher ones. She must be fit to be her husband's help, and to nurse his sons to valour and wisdom.
DIEGO
I see. The Prince must know that besides all the knights that he summons to battle, and all the wise men whom he hears in council, there is another knight, in rather lighter armour and quicker tired, another counsellor, less experienced and of less steady temper, ready for use. Is this great gain?
PRINCESS
It is strange that being a man, you should conceive of women from——