Of what your reverence shall incite us to. 20
Therefore take heed how you impawn our person,
How you awake our sleeping sword of war:
We charge you in the name of God, take heed;
For never two such kingdoms did contend 24
Without much fall of blood; whose guiltless drops
Are every one a woe, a sore complaint,
'Gainst him whose wrongs give edge unto the swords
That make such waste in brief mortality. 28
Under this conjuration speak, my lord,
For we will hear, note, and believe in heart,
That what you speak is in your conscience wash'd
As pure as sin with baptism. 32
Cant. Then hear me, gracious sovereign, and you peers,
That owe yourselves, your lives, and services
To this imperial throne. There is no bar
To make against your highness' claim to France 36
But this, which they produce from Pharamond,
In terram Salicam mulieres ne succedant,
'No woman shall succeed in Salique land':
Which Salique land the French unjustly gloze 40
To be the realm of France, and Pharamond -
The founder of this law and female bar.
Yet their own authors faithfully affirm
That the land Salique is in Germany, 44
Between the floods of Sala and of Elbe;
Where Charles the Great, having subdu'd the Saxons,
There left behind and settled certain French;
Who, holding in disdain the German women 48
For some dishonest manners of their life,
21 impawn: pledge
28 mortality: human life
37 Pharamond: legendary Frankish king
40 gloze: interpret
45 floods: rivers
46 Charles the Great: Charlemagne
49 dishonest: unchaste
