COSTARD.
Be to me, and every man that dares not fight.
KING.
No words!
COSTARD.
Of other men’s secrets, I beseech you.
KING.
[Reads.] So it is, besieged with sable-coloured melancholy, I did commend the black-oppressing humour 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 sixth 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 walked upon. It is ycleped thy park. Then for the place, where? Where, I mean, I did encounter that obscene and most preposterous event that draweth from my snow-white pen the ebon-coloured 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—
COSTARD.
Me?
KING.
[Reads.] That unlettered small-knowing soul—
COSTARD.
Me?
KING.
[Reads.] That shallow vassal—
COSTARD.
Still me?
KING.
[Reads.] Which, as I remember, hight Costard—