COSTARD	Sir, the contempts thereof are as touching me.

FERDINAND	A letter from the magnificent Armado.

BIRON	How low soever the matter, I hope in God for high words.

LONGAVILLE	A high hope for a low heaven: God grant us patience!

BIRON	To hear? or forbear laughing?

LONGAVILLE	To hear meekly, sir, and to laugh moderately; or to
	forbear both.

BIRON	Well, sir, be it as the style shall give us cause to
	climb in the merriness.

COSTARD	The matter is to me, sir, as concerning Jaquenetta.
	The manner of it is, I was taken with the manner.

BIRON	In what manner?

COSTARD	In manner and form following, sir; all those three:
	I was seen with her in the manor-house, sitting with
	her upon the form, and taken following her into the
	park; which, put together, is in manner and form
	following. Now, sir, for the manner,--it is the
	manner of a man to speak to a woman: for the form,--
	in some form.

BIRON	For the following, sir?

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

FERDINAND	Will you hear this letter with attention?

BIRON	As we would hear an oracle.

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

FERDINAND	[Reads]  'Great deputy, the welkin's vicegerent and
	sole dominator of Navarre, my soul's earth's god,
	and body's fostering patron.'

COSTARD	Not a word of Costard yet.

FERDINAND	[Reads]  'So it is,'--

COSTARD	It may be so: but if he say it is so, he is, in
	telling true, but so.

FERDINAND	Peace!

COSTARD	Be to me and every man that dares not fight!

FERDINAND	No words!

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

FERDINAND	[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 y-cleped thy park. Then
	for the place where; where, I mean, I did encounter
	that obscene and 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?

FERDINAND	[Reads]  'that unlettered small-knowing soul,'--

COSTARD	Me?

FERDINAND	[Reads]  'that shallow vassal,'--

COSTARD	Still me?

FERDINAND	[Reads]  'which, as I remember, hight Costard,'--

COSTARD	O, me!

FERDINAND	[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,--

COSTARD	With a wench.

FERDINAND	[Reads]  'with a child of our grandmother Eve, a
	female; or, for thy more sweet understanding, a