As it shall follow in my correction, and God defend the right!

KING. Will you hear this letter with attention?

BER. As we would hear an oracle.

COST. Such is the simplicity of man to hearken after the flesh.

KING [Reads.] »Great deputy, the welkin's vicegerent, and sole dominator of Navarre, my soul's earth's god, and body's fost'ring patron« –

COST. Not a word of Costard yet.

KING [Reads.] »So it is« –

COST. It may be so; but if he say it is so, he is, in telling true – but so.

KING. Peace!

COST. – be to me, and every man that dares not fight!

KING. No words!

COST. – of other men's secrets, I beseech you.

KING [Reads.] »So it is, besieged with sable-colored melancholy, I did commend the black oppressing humor to the most wholesome physic of thy health- giving air; and as I am a gentleman, betook myself to walk: the time When? about the sixt hour, when beasts most graze, birds best peck, and men sit down to that nourishment which is called supper: so much for the time When. Now for the ground Which? which, I mean, I walk'd upon: it is ycliped thy park. Then for the place Where? where, I mean, I did encounter that obscene and most prepost'rous event that draweth from my snow-white pen the ebon-colored ink which here thou viewest, beholdest, surveyest, or seest. But to the place Where? It standeth north-north-east and by east from the west corner of thy curious-knotted garden. There did I see that low-spirited swain, that base minnow of thy mirth« –

COST. Me?

KING [Reads.] »that unlettered small-knowing soul« –

COST. Me?

KING [Reads.] »that shallow vassal« –

COST. Still me?

KING [Reads.] »which, as I remember, hight Costard« –

COST. O! me.

KING [Reads.] »sorted and consorted, contrary to thy established proclaimed edict and continent canon; which with – O, with – but with this I passion to say wherewith« –

COST. With a wench.

KING [Reads.] »with a child of our grandmother Eve, a female; or for thy more sweet understanding, a woman. Him I (as my ever-esteemed duty pricks me on) have sent to thee, to receive the meed of punishment, by thy sweet Grace's officer, Anthony Dull, a man of good repute, carriage, bearing, and estimation.«

DULL. Me, an't shall please you: I am Anthony Dull.

KING [Reads.] »For Jaquenetta (so is the weaker vessel called), which I apprehended with the aforesaid swain, I keep her as a vessel of thy law's fury, and shall, at the least of thy sweet notice, bring her to trial. Thine, in all complements of devoted and heart-burning heat of duty,

Don Adriano de Armado.«

BER. This is not so well as I look'd for, but the best that ever I heard.

KING. Ay, the best for the worst. But, sirrah, what say you to this?

COST. Sir, I confess the wench.

KING. Did you hear the proclamation?

COST. I do confess much of the hearing it, but little of the marking of it.

KING. It was proclaim'd a year's imprisonment to be taken with a wench.

COST. I was taken with none, sir, I was taken with a damsel.

KING.