This guy is pretty funny. He says he's all precaution in the tone everyone has ever used to address the lads when they're about to be very deliberately incautious, then patiently explains to the dignitaries (suitors? ladies in waiting? there's some 11th century french inside baseball going on all over these that I'm new to) charged with guarding this lady's virtues that by stifling her they're just making it inevitable that she shrugs and hooks up with a 3rd rate dishwater scoundrel like himself because they're keeping the chivalrous options unavailable.
And I tell you jailkeepers, I warn you— and it would be very stupid to disbelieve me— that you will be hard put to it to find a sentry who will not sleep for a crucial half-hour now and again
delightfully casual and dusty-boots-credible threat/boast.
