Yet if you were not so severe 15
To pass your doom before you hear,
You’d find, upon my just defence,
How much y’ have wrong’d my innocence. 
That once I made a vow to you,
Which yet is unperformed, ’tis true:  20
But not because it is unpaid,
’Tis violated, though delay’d;
Or, if it were, it is no fau’t,
So heinous as you’d have it thought;
To undergo the loss of ears, 25
Like vulgar hackney perjurers
For there’s a diff’rence in the case,
Between the noble and the base,
Who always are observ’d t’ have done’t
Upon as different an account:  30
The one for great and weighty cause,
To salve in honour ugly flaws;
For none are like to do it sooner
Than those who are nicest of their honour: 
The other, for base gain and pay, 35
Forswear, and perjure by the day;
And make th’ exposing and retailing
Their souls and consciences a calling.

It is no scandal, nor aspersion,
Upon a great and noble person, 40
To say he nat’rally abhorr’d
Th’ old-fashion’d trick, To keep his word;
Though ’tis perfidiousness and shame
In meaner men to do the same: 
For to be able to forget, 45
Is found more useful to the great,
Than gout, or deafness, or bad eyes,
To make ’em pass for wond’rous wise. 
But though the law on perjurers
Inflicts the forfeiture of ears, 50
It is not just that does exempt
The guilty, and punish th’ innocent;
To make the ears repair the wrong
Committed by th’ ungovern’d tongue;
And when one member is forsworn, 55
Another to be cropt or torn. 
And if you shou’d, as you design,
By course of law, recover mine,
You’re like, if you consider right,
To gain but little honour by’t. 60
For he that for his lady’s sake
Lays down his life or limbs at stake,
Does not so much deserve her favour,
As he that pawns his soul to have her,
This y’ have acknowledg’d I have done, 65
Although you now disdain to own;
But sentence what you rather ought
T’ esteem good service than a fau’t. 
Besides, oaths are not bound to bear
That literal sense the words infer, 70
But, by the practice of the age,
Are to be judg’d how far th’ engage;
And, where the sense by custom’s checkt,
Are found void, and of none effect. 
For no man takes or keeps a vow 75
But just as he sees others do;
Nor are th’ oblig’d to be so brittle,
As not to yield and bow a little: 
For as best-temper’d blades are found,
Before they break, to bend quite round,