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 did 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” —
What lacks from “must” and “if” and “or” I am yet to learn.
Regolamento: Let salving such bewilderment be my 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 this 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 drink deep thy countless charges will,
In obedient curtsy to this web of wonkish recipe.
Inclusivia: Slavish compliance is all good and well.
Did not the predatory fleets of contrary commerce moor their ships
At striking distance to our present comfy realm.
Complicatio: How now? Who goes there?
Not the mealy money peddlers of Luxembourg and France?
Fie upon thy windy malconfidence!
Inclusivia: The lowmen, aye, and fiercer foes who eye our lunch:
Americans from the west.
The massed wizards of the tigerish Eastern lands
o’er whom short years ago our government had colonial dominion.
Nuncle: They learned our tricks and ate our lunch.