Being thus be-netted round with villainies⁠— Ere I could make a prologue to my brains, They had begun the play⁠—I sat me down, Devised a new commission, wrote it fair: I once did hold it, as our statists do, A baseness to write fair and labour’d much How to forget that learning, but, sir, now It did me yeoman’s service: wilt thou know The effect of what I wrote?

An earnest conjuration from the king, As England was his faithful tributary, As love between them like the palm might flourish, As peace should still her wheaten garland wear And stand a comma ’tween their amities, And many such-like “As”es of great charge, That, on the view and knowing of these contents, Without debatement further, more or less, He should the bearers put to sudden death, Not shriving-time allow’d.