Have you perused my plans? Answer, I pray,
Those questions I demand of you, and then
Be silent more. Despite the waxing moon
(As shipmen tell, contingent to their craft)
We still have time, if all is done with haste
To scourge the infidel's unholy lands
And quell the warring easterner's revolt.

(in a thick foreign accent) I seek the King. Pray tell me, sir, where I
May crenelate ...

                Get hence! A traitor's come!
The murd'rous easterner will rue this day
He came to earn his mercenary coin.
But soft! Tell I the King, a hero I,
Of what my sword has wrought; O, lustrous steel!

Touch not thy sword – hostile am I not.
I come to bargain. See you now this jewel ...

Fie, 'tis a wonder! Had I that, I woot,
My gallows could decay and I could laugh,
Tripping my way through gardens fair, to sing
To maidens myriad!

                           (aside) (Aha, he falls!)
My doleful sir, I'll buy you tears of joy
If but the unshipped loam that resting now
Be cast about the harbour, fed to cats,
And lost – and if your bus to me accrue
That now doth linger on the loamy shore:
For I must 'scape, once all my work is done.

When work is done, the labourer dismays
And racks his brain; but I, grown rich sans toil,
Shall welcome now the pause which leads to lust.

What ho? Fair maid, beknownst of neither wight
We may enjoy, unsaid nor known; although ...

Good, sir, you needs must come.

                                      But I'll remain,
And all shall know what thrives in Blakkon's brain.
Put not before their blood this scarf doth stain.

Good maid, I needs must stay. A second pact
Shall soon be sealed – perchance then may I flee
To distant Basibode, where now the moon
Upholds her face as yours of late to mine
Has been revealed.

                           But in this exigent
(Whate'er the term may mean) I kick the chain
And quit such graces as your honesty
May offer me: I pray you now depart.

This foreign man, this negro of the pole,
(Although his smell and gait offend me) is
Of noble deed, and wealth unknown to them
Who ply this loamy shore and hawk the press
For rough-hewn bargains.

                           Sir, I beg to know
How long I must await your coming?

                                      Wretch!
My advent is unknown to all save one,
And he a pauper.

                           Now, my friend, we see
The final terms of this our treaty ... but
In care see well you hold this document
Five times entwined about with sturdy cord,
And in the boot of this my bus enclosed.

I cannot trade with whoring thieves.

                                      Not I!
This man ...

                Be still! Good sir, you know me not
And I am glad to know no whit of you!
Until you've paid me eighty groats in zinc,
The loam that rightly lies on yonder tilth
Is mine!

                No trade! You are a doppish oaf!
I shun you!

                Spare my haunts! I go. Goodday.