Originally transcribed by unknown, ca. 1906?; retranscribed by P.S.

It was on the thirty-first day of the eighth month of the sixth year of the seventeenth century after the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, son of God Almighty, that I, Aleph of M--- did converse with my master Thalis in [...] whileupon we [...] at the estate of the Earl of Argyll and his [...] Agnes, as recorded below:

A. My Lord, you look not well.
T. That is truly said, for I am not a well man at all.
A. What is't, sir? Thy heart?
T. Well spoke if you speak in riddles.
A. I fear I do not follow.
(Here my master paused.)
T. Is it not beautiful, all this?
(Here my master with his hand indicated the magnificent estates of the Earl of Argyll.)
A. Truly it is.
T. And yet it does in me make a melancholy [...] the saints' day tomorrow?
A. I did, my Lord.
(Here my master paused.)
T. Have you not wondered [...] I am not married?
A. My Lord, I would not have thought it seemly to ask.
T. Ah, but I did not ask the asker, I asked the wonderer. Or perhaps we are the both of us in't.
A. My Lord?
T. I will answer the question you did not ask [...] twice I might have been married. Or should, an' it [...]
A. Twice? Are these ladies [...] known, my Lord?
T. I do not know, though I suspect [...] the first [...] of such beauty [...]

(Here, the manuscript is damaged, and is missing three or more lines.)

[T.:] ...my melancholy [...] ten years since that All Hallows' Eve whereupon she and I first confessed our love, in epistles, each to the other. Do you know [...] no day of my life more joyous than the day her letter was delivered to me. I felt as though I were pure spirit, weightless, my flesh that of an angel's, treading not on the ground...is it not sad that [...] never a more happy day, [...] less burdened by trouble, in all these ten years?
(Here my master paused.)
A. My Lord, I intend no impudence --
T. Go to't, my lad.
A. My Lord, why did you not marry such a one?
T. Ah, thereby...
(Here my master laughed inexplicably.)
T. O, indeed! How meet, and how green and gated, with no serpent to be seen! Just as I like it, or might have done, were I a braver man. How he would laugh, or will't.
A. My Lord?
T. Forgive me, I am twice lunatic. Much did I love her, Aleph, and perhaps she loved me much. Nay, I believe she did, let us not [...] though she knew not how [...] of it. But [...] a cruel and bilious temper, [...] most shrewish. Were I to give her a gift, she would ask why it were not a better one; were I to swim the river for her, she would say that I ought to have done in half the time. It were not long ere --

(Here, the manuscript is again damaged, and is missing ten or more lines.)

A. Flumen usquequaque pervenio profundum [...] Umquam memor mihi, infantia?
T. That is most execrable Latin!
(Here my master laughed.)
T. It is a mob of parliamentarians, neither agreement nor sense in't! But you have the troubadour right, and the tune besides. Decem anni indeed, though of the third word I am unsure.
A. I favor the lute and tabor perhaps more than the singer, my Lord.
T. As do I.
A. Perhaps it was ne'er received.
T. O, that? Surely that it was, and one sent to Asclepius for't, the last of many I [...] though not the third. Ha! It is bootless [...] could not besides. No letter were opened, no visit received, no parley agreed to. And 'tis better thus.
(Here my master sighed.)
T. But I did love, much did I [...] beauty and wit [...] came it to be ten years? I doubt she even remembers.
A. And [...] she whom [...] now, my Lord, and why you have been thus so sick at heart?
T. O, no: that is a phantom of occasion, a ghost one [...] embraced and [...] known, and still loved [...] but 'tis spilt. For only half my tale was [...] And 'tis in the second half that my heart's riddle truly [...] summer, and fields [...]

(Here the manuscript ends.)