VALENTINE    Madam and mistress, a thousand good-morrows.

SPEED            [aside] O God give ye good even! Here’s a million of manners.

SILVIA Sir Valentine and servant, to you two thousand.

SPEED [aside] He should give her interest, and she gives it him.

VALENTINE As you enjoined me, I have writ your letter

Unto the secret, nameless friend of yours;

Which I was much unwilling to proceed in

But for my duty to your ladyship.

[Valentine gives Silvia a letter]          (2.1.81-88)

Valentine’s greeting is effusive: madam and mistress, a thousand good-morrows. Hello! (And there must surely be a bow.) Somewhat lame, not least in metrical terms. And Speed is unimpressed with this excessive courtesy, responding in a jog-trot hexameter: O God give ye good even! evening rather than morning, and a rather more colloquial salutation (an idiom shared by the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet). Here’s a million of manners, multiplying Valentine’s thousand and mocking his excess, concludes Speed. Silvia is more precise, and wittier: Sir Valentine and servant (that is Valentine, her servant, not Speed) to you two thousand, doubling his thousand so as to demonstrate that she’s registered it, but not going over the top. Speed is at least mildly impressed: he should give her interest, show her that he’s keen, and yet she gives it him, by doubling his original sum. Ha!

But Valentine tries to take the initiative: as you enjoined me—just as you asked me to do—I have writ your letter unto the secret, nameless friend of yours. I’ve written the damn letter to your mysterious anonymous lover. I didn’t want to! It was against my will! Indeed I was much unwilling to proceed in it, but for my duty to your ladyship. I only did it because it was you asking, because I’d do anything you asked, anything at all! I’d do anything for you! So, here it is.