Page:Love's Labour's Lost (1925) Yale.djvu/21

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Love's Labour's Lost, I. i
9

King. [Reads.] 'Great deputy, the welkin's vice-
gerent, and sole dominator of Navarre, my soul's 220
earth's God, and body's fostering patron,β€”'

Cost. Not a word of Costard yet.

King. [Reads.] 'So it isβ€”'

Cost. It may be so; but if he say it is so, he 224
is, in telling true, but so.β€”

King. Peace!

Cost. Be to me and every man that dares not
fight. 228

King. No words!

Cost. Of other men's secrets, I beseech you.

King. [Reads.] 'So it is, besieged with sable-col-
oured melancholy, I did commend the black-op- 232
pressing humour to the most wholesome physic of
thy health-giving air; and, as I am a gentle-
man, betook myself to walk. The time when?
About the sixth hour; when beasts most graze, 236
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 walked upon: it is ycleped 240
thy park. Then for the place where; where, I
mean, I did encounter that most obscene and
preposterous event, that draweth from my snow-
white pen the ebon-coloured ink, which here thou 244
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 248
swain, that base minnow of thy mirth,β€”'

Cost. Me?


240 ycleped: called
247 curious-knotted: fancifully laid out in intricate beds