Early Modern English second person present tense when verb ends with ‑st

In Early Modern English you normally would add ‑st or ‑est to verbs to conjugate them to the second person singular indicative tense (past and present), but what do you do for verbs that already end in ‑st or ‑est? Would you just add another ‑est?

For example:

• you jest > thou jestest





• you jested > thou jestedst




• you rest > thou restest




• you rested > thou restedst

Doing this makes the words really hard to say, especially with the past tense, so is there an exception for words like these?

Answer

Try "thou dost jest", "thou didst jest" etc. These are equally correct but not so hard on the unaccustomed tongue.