Template:Dkt complicatio introduction

SCENE I. Venice. A street.

Enter Complicatio, Regolamento and Inclusivia, trailed by the Queens’ fool Nuncle.

Complicatio: In sooth, I know not why it is so hard:
These cursed rules confront our peaceable comportment.
But wherefore didst our meddling legislators promulgate such wordsome bluster?
Nuncle: We can only wonder.
Complicatio: What manner of man comprehends this spidery realm?
“Shall be obligated to effect this”, “in the event of that ”
“and, as the case may without limitation be, or, the other” —
Yegads! What lacks from “must” and “if” and “or” and simple fare alike?
Regolamento: Let salving such bewilderment be mine Earthly quest.
Pray, friend: toss your troubled load upon my empty lot
Whereupon shall I guide that weight —
Nuncle: — and clip thy shabby ticket as you go —
Regolamento: — o’er your sea of angry incongruity.
Aye, these are beastly rules, beset with bastard expectations
Which o’erpeer the machinations of thy scattered petty staff.
Let handling this be Complicatio’s meat and drink.
Nuncle: And deeply drink thy countless charges will,
In obedient curtsy to this web of wonkish recipe.
Inclusivia: Slavish compliance would all be good and well.
Had not the predating force of contrary commerce moored its fleet
In easy pelting distance of our present comfy realm.
Complicatio: How now? Who goes there? Which boats?
Mean you not the mewling flannel peddlers of Luxembourg and France?
Fie upon thy windy malconfidence! We shall have them for their lunch-adoring breeches.
Inclusivia: The lowmen, aye, but fiercer yet the foes who eye our patch
From ’cross the ditch. New-worldsmen make landfall beyond the city gates.
As do those doughty wizards of the tigerish Eastern lands
O’er whom short years ago this storied house had dominion
Form up their aquatic configurations. That is my hunch. Nuncle: They learned our tricks and ate our lunch.

Enter Provocatoria

Provocatoria: How now, Complicatio. How fares thy P and L?
Complicatio: Flat, my lady.