By my troth, and in good earnest, and so God mend me, and by all pretty oaths that are not dangerous, if you break one jot of your promise, or come one minute behind your hour, I will think you the most pathetical break-promise, and the most hollow lover, and the most unworthy of her you call Rosalind, that may be chosen out of the gross band of the unfaithful: therefore beware my censure, and keep your promise.

-Rosalind

As You Like It                      Act IV scene i, line 185

Well that’s a bit of a mouthful. Talk about run-on sentences!

Without going into context, there are a couple of things to note. One is ‘jot’. That’s a interesting little word. It means a tiny bit, an iota. If you break one tiny little piece of your promise... Interestingly, you can find this word in MW online, and yet it’s not in my Shakespeare glossary. Perhaps it’s not in the glossary because it’s in MW. But certainly it got more usage in Will’s works than it does these days. Nonetheless, a great little word. And I don’t really care one jot whether you agree or not. 

And how about break-promise? This is apparently a word, a noun, for someone who is a promise breaker. You don’t see this type of word construction too much. So if I make a lot of noise, I’m not a noisemaker, I am a make-noise. If I write books I’m not a book writer, I’m a write-book. And if I keep the books (accounting), I’m a keep-books instead of a bookkeeper. Well we could go on and on with this one, but you get the picture. It’s interesting. Perhaps I’ll be a trendsetter and start using this particular construction. Wait, then I’d be a set-trend. Yes, that’s right; a set-trend. Well, to be fair, I’ve always considered myself a bit of a set-trend anyway.

Here I am demonstrating the proper way to wear a pirate bandana. Oh what a set-trend am I!

Come o’er the bourn, Bessy to me.

 Her boat hath a leak,

And she must not speak

Why she dares not come over to thee.

-Edgar/Fool

King Lear                            Act III, scene vi, line 25

The first line above is Edgar’s and the next three belong to the Fool. So, to be clear, Edgar is playing a bit of a madman right now, and the Fool is supposedly a fool, but in truth neither is mad or a fool. Both are quite sane and know exactly what they're saying.

This is the scene where Lear and the others are in a farmhouse and they are holding a mock trial of Goneril and Regan. These latter two are not present, and there’s a lot of ramblings of the Fool, of Edgar, and of Lear.

I wasn’t sure what ‘bourn’ was, so I googled it and found it to be a stream or brook. But I also used my Shakespeare glossary which told me that it’s a frontier, destination, or boundary. But given that the fool talks about a leaky boat, the water definition seems to make more sense. 

 

Come o'er the bourn, Bessy to me. Wait a tic, neither one of those is Bessy, and they're already on my side of the bourn. Not to mention that's a pretty big bourn. But you get the idea.

This very night; for Love is like a child,

That longs for everything that he can come    by.

-Duke of Milan

The Two Gentlemen Of Verona          Act III, scene i, line 124

Well there are a few interesting facts here. For starters, here is the Duke of Milan in one of Will’s earliest plays. And of course, in one of his last plays the Duke of Milan shows up again in the person of Prospero in The Tempest. So that’s mildly interesting. I’m not sure if the Duke shows up in any of the thirty-odd plays in between. 

Perhaps more interesting is the capitalization, personification and description of Love. I guess the capitalization is our clue that we’re going to be personifying it. And the description? Well, he’s like a child that wants everything he can possibly get. Does that sound like the guy (Love) that you know? Yeah, I think it kind of does.

Here's an example of a child who's not getting what he wants (a swim in the hotel pool). But he still wants it.