"Behold a very gentle knight, Sir Palamon of Tong, A gentle knight in sorry plight, That loveth love and hateth fight, A knight than fight had rather write, And strophes to fair dames indite, Or sing a sighful song.
"By divers braggarts I'm abused, 'Tis so as I've heard tell, Because, since I'm to fight unused, I many a fight have bold refused, And, thereby, saved my bones unbruised, Which pleaseth me right well.
"No joy have I in steed that prances, True gentle man am I To tread to lutes slow, stately dances. 'Stead of your brutish swords and lances, I love love's lureful looks and glances, When hand to hand, unseen, advances, And eye caresseth eye."
"And how a plague, Sir Gentleness," questioned Robin, "may eye caress eye?"
"E'en as lips voiceless may wooing speak, Sir Roguery, and tongue unwagging tell tales o' love, Sir Ferocity."
ROBIN: Then had I the trick o' voiceless speech, now would I, with silly tongue, tell thee thou art our prisoner to ransom, Sir Silken Softness.
SIR PALAMON: And I joy therefore, Sir Forest Fiend.
SIR PALAMON: For that therefore I need not to the joust, to that bone-shattering sport of boastful, brutal braggadocios, but here, lapped soft in the gentle green, woo the fair Yolande--
JOCELYN: How, knight, the fair lady Yolande, say'st thou?
JOCELYN: But here she is not and thou art, how then may one that is, woo one is not?
SIR PALAMON: Gross mountebank, by thought--I woo in thought, breathe my thought upon the balmy air and air beareth it to her feet.
ROBIN: And she treadeth on't, so there's an end o' thy love! But pray you, Sir Downy Daintiness, how come ye that are so gentle so ungently dight? Discourse, Sir Dove!
SIR PALAMON: In two words then, thou lewd lurcher o' the thickets; I ride thus in steely panoply--the which doth irk me sore--by reason of the tongue of my mother (good soul!) the which doth irk me more. For she (worthy lady!) full-fed o' fatuous fantasies and fables fond, fuddled i' faith o' faddling fictions as--gestes of jongleurs, tales told by tramping troubadours, ballades of babbling braggarts, romances of roysterous rhymers, she (good gossip!) as I say, having hearkened to and perused the works of such-like pelting, paltry prosers and poets wherein sweep of sword and lunge o' lance is accompted of worthier repute than the penning of dainty distich and pretty poesies pleasingly passionate. She, I say--my mother (God rest her!), e'en she with tongue most harsh, most bitter and most unwearying, hath enforced me, her son (whom Venus bless!)--e'en I that am soul most transcendental--I that am a very wing-ed Mercury--me, I say she hath, by torrential tongueful tumult (gentle lady!), constrained to don the habit of a base, brawling, beefy and most material Mars! Wherefore at my mother's behest (gracious dame!) I ride nothing joyful to be bruised and battered by any base, brutal braggart that hath the mind to try a tilt with me. Moreover--