The Complete Works of William Shakespeare/The Complete Works of William Shakespeare.iso/shakespr/2gents.txt

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    THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA


    DRAMATIS PERSONAE


DUKE OF MILAN    Father to Silvia. (DUKE:)


VALENTINE    |
    |  the two Gentlemen.
PROTEUS    |


ANTONIO    Father to Proteus.

THURIO    a foolish rival to Valentine.

EGLAMOUR    Agent for Silvia in her escape.

HOST    where Julia lodges. (Host:)

OUTLAWS    with Valentine.
    (First Outlaw:)
    (Second Outlaw:)
    (Third Outlaw:)

SPEED    a clownish servant to Valentine.

LAUNCE    the like to Proteus.

PANTHINO    Servant to Antonio.

JULIA    beloved of Proteus.

SILVIA    beloved of Valentine.

LUCETTA    waiting-woman to Julia.

    Servants, Musicians.


SCENE    Verona; Milan; the frontiers of Mantua.




    THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA


ACT I



SCENE I    Verona. An open place.


    [Enter VALENTINE and PROTEUS]

VALENTINE    Cease to persuade, my loving Proteus:
    Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits.
    Were't not affection chains thy tender days
    To the sweet glances of thy honour'd love,
    I rather would entreat thy company
    To see the wonders of the world abroad,
    Than, living dully sluggardized at home,
    Wear out thy youth with shapeless idleness.
    But since thou lovest, love still and thrive therein,
    Even as I would when I to love begin.

PROTEUS    Wilt thou be gone? Sweet Valentine, adieu!
    Think on thy Proteus, when thou haply seest
    Some rare note-worthy object in thy travel:
    Wish me partaker in thy happiness
    When thou dost meet good hap; and in thy danger,
    If ever danger do environ thee,
    Commend thy grievance to my holy prayers,
    For I will be thy beadsman, Valentine.

VALENTINE    And on a love-book pray for my success?

PROTEUS    Upon some book I love I'll pray for thee.

VALENTINE    That's on some shallow story of deep love:
    How young Leander cross'd the Hellespont.

PROTEUS    That's a deep story of a deeper love:
    For he was more than over shoes in love.

VALENTINE    'Tis true; for you are over boots in love,
    And yet you never swum the Hellespont.

PROTEUS    Over the boots? nay, give me not the boots.

VALENTINE    No, I will not, for it boots thee not.

PROTEUS    What?

VALENTINE    To be in love, where scorn is bought with groans;
    Coy looks with heart-sore sighs; one fading moment's mirth
    With twenty watchful, weary, tedious nights:
    If haply won, perhaps a hapless gain;
    If lost, why then a grievous labour won;
    However, but a folly bought with wit,
    Or else a wit by folly vanquished.

PROTEUS    So, by your circumstance, you call me fool.

VALENTINE    So, by your circumstance, I fear you'll prove.

PROTEUS    'Tis love you cavil at: I am not Love.

VALENTINE    Love is your master, for he masters you:
    And he that is so yoked by a fool,
    Methinks, should not be chronicled for wise.

PROTEUS    Yet writers say, as in the sweetest bud
    The eating canker dwells, so eating love
    Inhabits in the finest wits of all.

VALENTINE    And writers say, as the most forward bud
    Is eaten by the canker ere it blow,
    Even so by love the young and tender wit
    Is turn'd to folly, blasting in the bud,
    Losing his verdure even in the prime
    And all the fair effects of future hopes.
    But wherefore waste I time to counsel thee,
    That art a votary to fond desire?
    Once more adieu! my father at the road
    Expects my coming, there to see me shipp'd.

PROTEUS    And thither will I bring thee, Valentine.

VALENTINE    Sweet Proteus, no; now let us take our leave.
    To Milan let me hear from thee by letters
    Of thy success in love, and what news else
    Betideth here in absence of thy friend;
    And likewise will visit thee with mine.

PROTEUS    All happiness bechance to thee in Milan!

VALENTINE    As much to you at home! and so, farewell.

    [Exit]

PROTEUS    He after honour hunts, I after love:
    He leaves his friends to dignify them more,
    I leave myself, my friends and all, for love.
    Thou, Julia, thou hast metamorphosed me,
    Made me neglect my studies, lose my time,
    War with good counsel, set the world at nought;
    Made wit with musing weak, heart sick with thought.

    [Enter SPEED]

SPEED    Sir Proteus, save you! Saw you my master?

PROTEUS    But now he parted hence, to embark for Milan.

SPEED    Twenty to one then he is shipp'd already,
    And I have play'd the sheep in losing him.

PROTEUS    Indeed, a sheep doth very often stray,
    An if the shepherd be a while away.

SPEED    You conclude that my master is a shepherd, then,
    and I a sheep?

PROTEUS    I do.

SPEED    Why then, my horns are his horns, whether I wake or sleep.

PROTEUS    A silly answer and fitting well a sheep.

SPEED    This proves me still a sheep.

PROTEUS    True; and thy master a shepherd.

SPEED    Nay, that I can deny by a circumstance.

PROTEUS    It shall go hard but I'll prove it by another.

SPEED    The shepherd seeks the sheep, and not the sheep the
    shepherd; but I seek my master, and my master seeks
    not me: therefore I am no sheep.

PROTEUS    The sheep for fodder follow the shepherd; the
    shepherd for food follows not the sheep: thou for
    wages followest thy master; thy master for wages
    follows not thee: therefore thou art a sheep.

SPEED    Such another proof will make me cry 'baa.'

PROTEUS    But, dost thou hear? gavest thou my letter to Julia?

SPEED    Ay sir: I, a lost mutton, gave your letter to her,
    a laced mutton, and she, a laced mutton, gave me, a
    lost mutton, nothing for my labour.

PROTEUS    Here's too small a pasture for such store of muttons.

SPEED    If the ground be overcharged, you were best stick her.

PROTEUS    Nay: in that you are astray, 'twere best pound you.

SPEED    Nay, sir, less than a pound shall serve me for
    carrying your letter.

PROTEUS    You mistake; I mean the pound,--a pinfold.

SPEED    From a pound to a pin? fold it over and over,
    'Tis threefold too little for carrying a letter to
    your lover.

PROTEUS    But what said she?

SPEED    [First nodding]  Ay.

PROTEUS    Nod--Ay--why, that's noddy.

SPEED    You mistook, sir; I say, she did nod: and you ask
    me if she did nod; and I say, 'Ay.'

PROTEUS    And that set together is noddy.

SPEED    Now you have taken the pains to set it together,
    take it for your pains.

PROTEUS    No, no; you shall have it for bearing the letter.

SPEED    Well, I perceive I must be fain to bear with you.

PROTEUS    Why sir, how do you bear with me?

SPEED    Marry, sir, the letter, very orderly; having nothing
    but the word 'noddy' for my pains.

PROTEUS    Beshrew me, but you have a quick wit.

SPEED    And yet it cannot overtake your slow purse.

PROTEUS    Come come, open the matter in brief: what said she?

SPEED    Open your purse, that the money and the matter may
    be both at once delivered.

PROTEUS    Well, sir, here is for your pains. What said she?

SPEED    Truly, sir, I think you'll hardly win her.

PROTEUS    Why, couldst thou perceive so much from her?

SPEED    Sir, I could perceive nothing at all from her; no,
    not so much as a ducat for delivering your letter:
    and being so hard to me that brought your mind, I
    fear she'll prove as hard to you in telling your
    mind. Give her no token but stones; for she's as
    hard as steel.

PROTEUS    What said she? nothing?

SPEED    No, not so much as 'Take this for thy pains.' To
    testify your bounty, I thank you, you have testerned
    me; in requital whereof, henceforth carry your
    letters yourself: and so, sir, I'll commend you to my master.

PROTEUS    Go, go, be gone, to save your ship from wreck,
    Which cannot perish having thee aboard,
    Being destined to a drier death on shore.

    [Exit SPEED]

    I must go send some better messenger:
    I fear my Julia would not deign my lines,
    Receiving them from such a worthless post.

    [Exit]




    THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA


ACT I



SCENE II    The same. Garden of JULIA's house.


    [Enter JULlA and LUCETTA]

JULIA    But say, Lucetta, now we are alone,
    Wouldst thou then counsel me to fall in love?

LUCETTA    Ay, madam, so you stumble not unheedfully.

JULIA    Of all the fair resort of gentlemen
    That every day with parle encounter me,
    In thy opinion which is worthiest love?

LUCETTA    Please you repeat their names, I'll show my mind
    According to my shallow simple skill.

JULIA    What think'st thou of the fair Sir Eglamour?

LUCETTA    As of a knight well-spoken, neat and fine;
    But, were I you, he never should be mine.

JULIA    What think'st thou of the rich Mercatio?

LUCETTA    Well of his wealth; but of himself, so so.

JULIA    What think'st thou of the gentle Proteus?

LUCETTA    Lord, Lord! to see what folly reigns in us!

JULIA    How now! what means this passion at his name?

LUCETTA    Pardon, dear madam: 'tis a passing shame
    That I, unworthy body as I am,
    Should censure thus on lovely gentlemen.

JULIA    Why not on Proteus, as of all the rest?

LUCETTA    Then thus: of many good I think him best.

JULIA    Your reason?

LUCETTA    I have no other, but a woman's reason;
    I think him so because I think him so.

JULIA    And wouldst thou have me cast my love on him?

LUCETTA    Ay, if you thought your love not cast away.

JULIA    Why he, of all the rest, hath never moved me.

LUCETTA    Yet he, of all the rest, I think, best loves ye.

JULIA    His little speaking shows his love but small.

LUCETTA    Fire that's closest kept burns most of all.

JULIA    They do not love that do not show their love.

LUCETTA    O, they love least that let men know their love.

JULIA    I would I knew his mind.

LUCETTA    Peruse this paper, madam.

JULIA    'To Julia.' Say, from whom?

LUCETTA    That the contents will show.

JULIA    Say, say, who gave it thee?

LUCETTA    Valentine's page; and sent, I think, from Proteus.
    He would have given it you; but I, being in the way,
    Did in your name receive it: pardon the
    fault I pray.

JULIA    Now, by my modesty, a goodly broker!
    Dare you presume to harbour wanton lines?
    To whisper and conspire against my youth?
    Now, trust me, 'tis an office of great worth
    And you an officer fit for the place.
    Or else return no more into my sight.

LUCETTA    To plead for love deserves more fee than hate.

JULIA    Will ye be gone?

LUCETTA                      That you may ruminate.

    [Exit]

JULIA    And yet I would I had o'erlooked the letter:
    It were a shame to call her back again
    And pray her to a fault for which I chid her.
    What a fool is she, that knows I am a maid,
    And would not force the letter to my view!
    Since maids, in modesty, say 'no' to that
    Which they would have the profferer construe 'ay.'
    Fie, fie, how wayward is this foolish love
    That, like a testy babe, will scratch the nurse
    And presently all humbled kiss the rod!
    How churlishly I chid Lucetta hence,
    When willingly I would have had her here!
    How angerly I taught my brow to frown,
    When inward joy enforced my heart to smile!
    My penance is to call Lucetta back
    And ask remission for my folly past.
    What ho! Lucetta!

    [Re-enter LUCETTA]

LUCETTA                      What would your ladyship?

JULIA    Is't near dinner-time?

LUCETTA    I would it were,
    That you might kill your stomach on your meat
    And not upon your maid.

JULIA    What is't that you took up so gingerly?

LUCETTA    Nothing.

JULIA    Why didst thou stoop, then?

LUCETTA    To take a paper up that I let fall.

JULIA    And is that paper nothing?

LUCETTA    Nothing concerning me.

JULIA    Then let it lie for those that it concerns.

LUCETTA    Madam, it will not lie where it concerns
    Unless it have a false interpeter.

JULIA    Some love of yours hath writ to you in rhyme.

LUCETTA    That I might sing it, madam, to a tune.
    Give me a note: your ladyship can set.

JULIA    As little by such toys as may be possible.
    Best sing it to the tune of 'Light o' love.'

LUCETTA    It is too heavy for so light a tune.

JULIA    Heavy! belike it hath some burden then?

LUCETTA    Ay, and melodious were it, would you sing it.

JULIA    And why not you?

LUCETTA                      I cannot reach so high.

JULIA    Let's see your song. How now, minion!

LUCETTA    Keep tune there still, so you will sing it out:
    And yet methinks I do not like this tune.

JULIA    You do not?

LUCETTA              No, madam; it is too sharp.

JULIA    You, minion, are too saucy.

LUCETTA    Nay, now you are too flat
    And mar the concord with too harsh a descant:
    There wanteth but a mean to fill your song.

JULIA    The mean is drown'd with your unruly bass.

LUCETTA    Indeed, I bid the base for Proteus.

JULIA    This babble shall not henceforth trouble me.
    Here is a coil with protestation!

    [Tears the letter]

    Go get you gone, and let the papers lie:
    You would be fingering them, to anger me.

LUCETTA    She makes it strange; but she would be best pleased
    To be so anger'd with another letter.

    [Exit]

JULIA     Nay, would I were so anger'd with the same!
    O hateful hands, to tear such loving words!
    Injurious wasps, to feed on such sweet honey
    And kill the bees that yield it with your stings!
    I'll kiss each several paper for amends.
    Look, here is writ 'kind Julia.' Unkind Julia!
    As in revenge of thy ingratitude,
    I throw thy name against the bruising stones,
    Trampling contemptuously on thy disdain.
    And here is writ 'love-wounded Proteus.'
    Poor wounded name! my bosom as a bed
    Shall lodge thee till thy wound be thoroughly heal'd;
    And thus I search it with a sovereign kiss.
    But twice or thrice was 'Proteus' written down.
    Be calm, good wind, blow not a word away
    Till I have found each letter in the letter,
    Except mine own name: that some whirlwind bear
    Unto a ragged fearful-hanging rock
    And throw it thence into the raging sea!
    Lo, here in one line is his name twice writ,
    'Poor forlorn Proteus, passionate Proteus,
    To the sweet Julia:' that I'll tear away.
    And yet I will not, sith so prettily
    He couples it to his complaining names.
    Thus will I fold them one on another:
    Now kiss, embrace, contend, do what you will.

    [Re-enter LUCETTA]

LUCETTA    Madam,
    Dinner is ready, and your father stays.

JULIA    Well, let us go.

LUCETTA    What, shall these papers lie like tell-tales here?

JULIA    If you respect them, best to take them up.

LUCETTA    Nay, I was taken up for laying them down:
    Yet here they shall not lie, for catching cold.

JULIA    I see you have a month's mind to them.

LUCETTA    Ay, madam, you may say what sights you see;
    I see things too, although you judge I wink.

JULIA    Come, come; will't please you go?

    [Exeunt]




    THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA


ACT I



SCENE III    The same. ANTONIO's house.


    [Enter ANTONIO and PANTHINO]

ANTONIO    Tell me, Panthino, what sad talk was that
    Wherewith my brother held you in the cloister?

PANTHINO    'Twas of his nephew Proteus, your son.

ANTONIO    Why, what of him?

PANTHINO                      He wonder'd that your lordship
    Would suffer him to spend his youth at home,
    While other men, of slender reputation,
    Put forth their sons to seek preferment out:
    Some to the wars, to try their fortune there;
    Some to discover islands far away;
    Some to the studious universities.
    For any or for all these exercises,
    He said that Proteus your son was meet,
    And did request me to importune you
    To let him spend his time no more at home,
    Which would be great impeachment to his age,
    In having known no travel in his youth.

ANTONIO    Nor need'st thou much importune me to that
    Whereon this month I have been hammering.
    I have consider'd well his loss of time
    And how he cannot be a perfect man,
    Not being tried and tutor'd in the world:
    Experience is by industry achieved
    And perfected by the swift course of time.
    Then tell me, whither were I best to send him?

PANTHINO    I think your lordship is not ignorant
    How his companion, youthful Valentine,
    Attends the emperor in his royal court.

ANTONIO    I know it well.

PANTHINO    'Twere good, I think, your lordship sent him thither:
    There shall he practise tilts and tournaments,
    Hear sweet discourse, converse with noblemen.
    And be in eye of every exercise
    Worthy his youth and nobleness of birth.

ANTONIO    I like thy counsel; well hast thou advised:
    And that thou mayst perceive how well I like it,
    The execution of it shall make known.
    Even with the speediest expedition
    I will dispatch him to the emperor's court.

PANTHINO    To-morrow, may it please you, Don Alphonso,
    With other gentlemen of good esteem,
    Are journeying to salute the emperor
    And to commend their service to his will.

ANTONIO    Good company; with them shall Proteus go:
    And, in good time! now will we break with him.

    [Enter PROTEUS]

PROTEUS    Sweet love! sweet lines! sweet life!
    Here is her hand, the agent of her heart;
    Here is her oath for love, her honour's pawn.
    O, that our fathers would applaud our loves,
    To seal our happiness with their consents!
    O heavenly Julia!

ANTONIO    How now! what letter are you reading there?

PROTEUS    May't please your lordship, 'tis a word or two
    Of commendations sent from Valentine,
    Deliver'd by a friend that came from him.

ANTONIO    Lend me the letter; let me see what news.

PROTEUS    There is no news, my lord, but that he writes
    How happily he lives, how well beloved
    And daily graced by the emperor;
    Wishing me with him, partner of his fortune.

ANTONIO    And how stand you affected to his wish?

PROTEUS    As one relying on your lordship's will
    And not depending on his friendly wish.

ANTONIO    My will is something sorted with his wish.
    Muse not that I thus suddenly proceed;
    For what I will, I will, and there an end.
    I am resolved that thou shalt spend some time
    With Valentinus in the emperor's court:
    What maintenance he from his friends receives,
    Like exhibition thou shalt have from me.
    To-morrow be in readiness to go:
    Excuse it not, for I am peremptory.

PROTEUS    My lord, I cannot be so soon provided:
    Please you, deliberate a day or two.

ANTONIO    Look, what thou want'st shall be sent after thee:
    No more of stay! to-morrow thou must go.
    Come on, Panthino: you shall be employ'd
    To hasten on his expedition.

    [Exeunt ANTONIO and PANTHINO]

PROTEUS    Thus have I shunn'd the fire for fear of burning,
    And drench'd me in the sea, where I am drown'd.
    I fear'd to show my father Julia's letter,
    Lest he should take exceptions to my love;
    And with the vantage of mine own excuse
    Hath he excepted most against my love.
    O, how this spring of love resembleth
    The uncertain glory of an April day,
    Which now shows all the beauty of the sun,
    And by and by a cloud takes all away!

    [Re-enter PANTHINO]

PANTHINO    Sir Proteus, your father calls for you:
    He is in haste; therefore, I pray you to go.

PROTEUS    Why, this it is: my heart accords thereto,
    And yet a thousand times it answers 'no.'

    [Exeunt]




    THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA


ACT II



SCENE I    Milan. The DUKE's palace.


    [Enter VALENTINE and SPEED]

SPEED    Sir, your glove.

VALENTINE                      Not mine; my gloves are on.

SPEED    Why, then, this may be yours, for this is but one.

VALENTINE    Ha! let me see: ay, give it me, it's mine:
    Sweet ornament that decks a thing divine!
    Ah, Silvia, Silvia!

SPEED    Madam Silvia! Madam Silvia!

VALENTINE    How now, sirrah?

SPEED    She is not within hearing, sir.

VALENTINE    Why, sir, who bade you call her?

SPEED    Your worship, sir; or else I mistook.

VALENTINE    Well, you'll still be too forward.

SPEED    And yet I was last chidden for being too slow.

VALENTINE    Go to, sir: tell me, do you know Madam Silvia?

SPEED    She that your worship loves?

VALENTINE    Why, how know you that I am in love?

SPEED    Marry, by these special marks: first, you have
    learned, like Sir Proteus, to wreathe your arms,
    like a malecontent; to relish a love-song, like a
    robin-redbreast; to walk alone, like one that had
    the pestilence; to sigh, like a school-boy that had
    lost his A B C; to weep, like a young wench that had
    buried her grandam; to fast, like one that takes
    diet; to watch like one that fears robbing; to
    speak puling, like a beggar at Hallowmas. You were
    wont, when you laughed, to crow like a cock; when you
    walked, to walk like one of the lions; when you
    fasted, it was presently after dinner; when you
    looked sadly, it was for want of money: and now you
    are metamorphosed with a mistress, that, when I look
    on you, I can hardly think you my master.

VALENTINE    Are all these things perceived in me?

SPEED    They are all perceived without ye.

VALENTINE    Without me? they cannot.

SPEED    Without you? nay, that's certain, for, without you
    were so simple, none else would: but you are so
    without these follies, that these follies are within
    you and shine through you like the water in an
    urinal, that not an eye that sees you but is a
    physician to comment on your malady.

VALENTINE    But tell me, dost thou know my lady Silvia?

SPEED    She that you gaze on so as she sits at supper?

VALENTINE    Hast thou observed that? even she, I mean.

SPEED    Why, sir, I know her not.

VALENTINE    Dost thou know her by my gazing on her, and yet
    knowest her not?

SPEED    Is she not hard-favoured, sir?

VALENTINE    Not so fair, boy, as well-favoured.

SPEED    Sir, I know that well enough.

VALENTINE    What dost thou know?

SPEED    That she is not so fair as, of you, well-favoured.

VALENTINE    I mean that her beauty is exquisite, but her favour infinite.

SPEED    That's because the one is painted and the other out
    of all count.

VALENTINE    How painted? and how out of count?

SPEED    Marry, sir, so painted, to make her fair, that no
    man counts of her beauty.

VALENTINE    How esteemest thou me? I account of her beauty.

SPEED    You never saw her since she was deformed.

VALENTINE    How long hath she been deformed?

SPEED    Ever since you loved her.

VALENTINE    I have loved her ever since I saw her; and still I
    see her beautiful.

SPEED    If you love her, you cannot see her.

VALENTINE    Why?

SPEED    Because Love is blind. O, that you had mine eyes;
    or your own eyes had the lights they were wont to
    have when you chid at Sir Proteus for going
    ungartered!

VALENTINE    What should I see then?

SPEED    Your own present folly and her passing deformity:
    for he, being in love, could not see to garter his
    hose, and you, being in love, cannot see to put on your hose.

VALENTINE    Belike, boy, then, you are in love; for last
    morning you could not see to wipe my shoes.

SPEED    True, sir; I was in love with my bed: I thank you,
    you swinged me for my love, which makes me the
    bolder to chide you for yours.

VALENTINE    In conclusion, I stand affected to her.

SPEED    I would you were set, so your affection would cease.

VALENTINE    Last night she enjoined me to write some lines to
    one she loves.

SPEED    And have you?

VALENTINE    I have.

SPEED    Are they not lamely writ?

VALENTINE    No, boy, but as well as I can do them. Peace!
    here she comes.

SPEED    [Aside]  O excellent motion! O exceeding puppet!
    Now will he interpret to her.

    [Enter SILVIA]

VALENTINE    Madam and mistress, a thousand good-morrows.

SPEED    [Aside]  O, 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 enjoin'd 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.

SILVIA    I thank you gentle servant: 'tis very clerkly done.

VALENTINE    Now trust me, madam, it came hardly off;
    For being ignorant to whom it goes
    I writ at random, very doubtfully.

SILVIA    Perchance you think too much of so much pains?

VALENTINE    No, madam; so it stead you, I will write
    Please you command, a thousand times as much; And yet--

SILVIA    A pretty period! Well, I guess the sequel;
    And yet I will not name it; and yet I care not;
    And yet take this again; and yet I thank you,
    Meaning henceforth to trouble you no more.

SPEED    [Aside]  And yet you will; and yet another 'yet.'

VALENTINE    What means your ladyship? do you not like it?

SILVIA    Yes, yes; the lines are very quaintly writ;
    But since unwillingly, take them again.
    Nay, take them.

VALENTINE    Madam, they are for you.

SILVIA    Ay, ay: you writ them, sir, at my request;
    But I will none of them; they are for you;
    I would have had them writ more movingly.

VALENTINE    Please you, I'll write your ladyship another.

SILVIA    And when it's writ, for my sake read it over,
    And if it please you, so; if not, why, so.

VALENTINE    If it please me, madam, what then?

SILVIA    Why, if it please you, take it for your labour:
    And so, good morrow, servant.

    [Exit]

SPEED    O jest unseen, inscrutable, invisible,
    As a nose on a man's face, or a weathercock on a steeple!
    My master sues to her, and she hath
    taught her suitor,
    He being her pupil, to become her tutor.
    O excellent device! was there ever heard a better,
    That my master, being scribe, to himself should write
    the letter?

VALENTINE    How now, sir? what are you reasoning with yourself?

SPEED    Nay, I was rhyming: 'tis you that have the reason.

VALENTINE    To do what?

SPEED    To be a spokesman for Madam Silvia.

VALENTINE    To whom?

SPEED    To yourself: why, she wooes you by a figure.

VALENTINE    What figure?

SPEED    By a letter, I should say.

VALENTINE    Why, she hath not writ to me?

SPEED    What need she, when she hath made you write to
    yourself? Why, do you not perceive the jest?

VALENTINE    No, believe me.

SPEED    No believing you, indeed, sir. But did you perceive
    her earnest?

VALENTINE    She gave me none, except an angry word.

SPEED    Why, she hath given you a letter.

VALENTINE    That's the letter I writ to her friend.

SPEED    And that letter hath she delivered, and there an end.

VALENTINE    I would it were no worse.

SPEED    I'll warrant you, 'tis as well:
    For often have you writ to her, and she, in modesty,
    Or else for want of idle time, could not again reply;
    Or fearing else some messenger that might her mind discover,
    Herself hath taught her love himself to write unto her lover.
    All this I speak in print, for in print I found it.
    Why muse you, sir? 'tis dinner-time.

VALENTINE    I have dined.

SPEED    Ay, but hearken, sir; though the chameleon Love can
    feed on the air, I am one that am nourished by my
    victuals, and would fain have meat. O, be not like
    your mistress; be moved, be moved.

    [Exeunt]




    THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA


ACT II



SCENE II    Verona. JULIA'S house.


    [Enter PROTEUS and JULIA]

PROTEUS    Have patience, gentle Julia.

JULIA    I must, where is no remedy.

PROTEUS    When possibly I can, I will return.

JULIA    If you turn not, you will return the sooner.
    Keep this remembrance for thy Julia's sake.

    [Giving a ring]

PROTEUS    Why then, we'll make exchange; here, take you this.

JULIA    And seal the bargain with a holy kiss.

PROTEUS    Here is my hand for my true constancy;
    And when that hour o'erslips me in the day
    Wherein I sigh not, Julia, for thy sake,
    The next ensuing hour some foul mischance
    Torment me for my love's forgetfulness!
    My father stays my coming; answer not;
    The tide is now: nay, not thy tide of tears;
    That tide will stay me longer than I should.
    Julia, farewell!

    [Exit JULIA]

    What, gone without a word?
    Ay, so true love should do: it cannot speak;
    For truth hath better deeds than words to grace it.

    [Enter PANTHINO]

PANTHINO    Sir Proteus, you are stay'd for.

PROTEUS    Go; I come, I come.
    Alas! this parting strikes poor lovers dumb.

    [Exeunt]




    THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA


ACT II



SCENE III    The same. A street.


    [Enter LAUNCE, leading a dog]

LAUNCE    Nay, 'twill be this hour ere I have done weeping;
    all the kind of the Launces have this very fault. I
    have received my proportion, like the prodigious
    son, and am going with Sir Proteus to the Imperial's
    court. I think Crab, my dog, be the sourest-natured
    dog that lives: my mother weeping, my father
    wailing, my sister crying, our maid howling, our cat
    wringing her hands, and all our house in a great
    perplexity, yet did not this cruel-hearted cur shed
    one tear: he is a stone, a very pebble stone, and
    has no more pity in him than a dog: a Jew would have
    wept to have seen our parting; why, my grandam,
    having no eyes, look you, wept herself blind at my
    parting. Nay, I'll show you the manner of it. This
    shoe is my father: no, this left shoe is my father:
    no, no, this left shoe is my mother: nay, that
    cannot be so neither: yes, it is so, it is so, it
    hath the worser sole. This shoe, with the hole in
    it, is my mother, and this my father; a vengeance
    on't! there 'tis: now, sit, this staff is my
    sister, for, look you, she is as white as a lily and
    as small as a wand: this hat is Nan, our maid: I
    am the dog: no, the dog is himself, and I am the
    dog--Oh! the dog is me, and I am myself; ay, so,
    so. Now come I to my father; Father, your blessing:
    now should not the shoe speak a word for weeping:
    now should I kiss my father; well, he weeps on. Now
    come I to my mother: O, that she could speak now
    like a wood woman! Well, I kiss her; why, there
    'tis; here's my mother's breath up and down. Now
    come I to my sister; mark the moan she makes. Now
    the dog all this while sheds not a tear nor speaks a
    word; but see how I lay the dust with my tears.

    [Enter PANTHINO]

PANTHINO    Launce, away, away, aboard! thy master is shipped
    and thou art to post after with oars. What's the
    matter? why weepest thou, man? Away, ass! You'll
    lose the tide, if you tarry any longer.

LAUNCE    It is no matter if the tied were lost; for it is the
    unkindest tied that ever any man tied.

PANTHINO    What's the unkindest tide?

LAUNCE    Why, he that's tied here, Crab, my dog.

PANTHINO    Tut, man, I mean thou'lt lose the flood, and, in
    losing the flood, lose thy voyage, and, in losing
    thy voyage, lose thy master, and, in losing thy
    master, lose thy service, and, in losing thy
    service,--Why dost thou stop my mouth?

LAUNCE    For fear thou shouldst lose thy tongue.

PANTHINO    Where should I lose my tongue?

LAUNCE    In thy tale.

PANTHINO    In thy tail!

LAUNCE    Lose the tide, and the voyage, and the master, and
    the service, and the tied! Why, man, if the river
    were dry, I am able to fill it with my tears; if the
    wind were down, I could drive the boat with my sighs.

PANTHINO    Come, come away, man; I was sent to call thee.

LAUNCE    Sir, call me what thou darest.

PANTHINO    Wilt thou go?

LAUNCE    Well, I will go.

    [Exeunt]




    THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA


ACT II



SCENE IV    Milan. The DUKE's palace.


    [Enter SILVIA, VALENTINE, THURIO, and SPEED]

SILVIA    Servant!

VALENTINE    Mistress?

SPEED    Master, Sir Thurio frowns on you.

VALENTINE    Ay, boy, it's for love.

SPEED    Not of you.

VALENTINE    Of my mistress, then.

SPEED    'Twere good you knocked him.

    [Exit]

SILVIA    Servant, you are sad.

VALENTINE    Indeed, madam, I seem so.

THURIO    Seem you that you are not?

VALENTINE    Haply I do.

THURIO    So do counterfeits.

VALENTINE    So do you.

THURIO    What seem I that I am not?

VALENTINE    Wise.

THURIO    What instance of the contrary?

VALENTINE    Your folly.

THURIO    And how quote you my folly?

VALENTINE    I quote it in your jerkin.

THURIO    My jerkin is a doublet.

VALENTINE    Well, then, I'll double your folly.

THURIO    How?

SILVIA    What, angry, Sir Thurio! do you change colour?

VALENTINE    Give him leave, madam; he is a kind of chameleon.

THURIO    That hath more mind to feed on your blood than live
    in your air.

VALENTINE    You have said, sir.

THURIO    Ay, sir, and done too, for this time.

VALENTINE    I know it well, sir; you always end ere you begin.

SILVIA    A fine volley of words, gentlemen, and quickly shot off.

VALENTINE    'Tis indeed, madam; we thank the giver.

SILVIA    Who is that, servant?

VALENTINE    Yourself, sweet lady; for you gave the fire. Sir
    Thurio borrows his wit from your ladyship's looks,
    and spends what he borrows kindly in your company.

THURIO    Sir, if you spend word for word with me, I shall
    make your wit bankrupt.

VALENTINE    I know it well, sir; you have an exchequer of words,
    and, I think, no other treasure to give your
    followers, for it appears by their bare liveries,
    that they live by your bare words.

SILVIA    No more, gentlemen, no more:--here comes my father.

    [Enter DUKE]

DUKE    Now, daughter Silvia, you are hard beset.
    Sir Valentine, your father's in good health:
    What say you to a letter from your friends
    Of much good news?

VALENTINE                      My lord, I will be thankful.
    To any happy messenger from thence.

DUKE    Know ye Don Antonio, your countryman?

VALENTINE    Ay, my good lord, I know the gentleman
    To be of worth and worthy estimation
    And not without desert so well reputed.

DUKE    Hath he not a son?

VALENTINE    Ay, my good lord; a son that well deserves
    The honour and regard of such a father.

DUKE    You know him well?

VALENTINE    I know him as myself; for from our infancy
    We have conversed and spent our hours together:
    And though myself have been an idle truant,
    Omitting the sweet benefit of time
    To clothe mine age with angel-like perfection,
    Yet hath Sir Proteus, for that's his name,
    Made use and fair advantage of his days;
    His years but young, but his experience old;
    His head unmellow'd, but his judgment ripe;
    And, in a word, for far behind his worth
    Comes all the praises that I now bestow,
    He is complete in feature and in mind
    With all good grace to grace a gentleman.

DUKE    Beshrew me, sir, but if he make this good,
    He is as worthy for an empress' love
    As meet to be an emperor's counsellor.
    Well, sir, this gentleman is come to me,
    With commendation from great potentates;
    And here he means to spend his time awhile:
    I think 'tis no unwelcome news to you.

VALENTINE    Should I have wish'd a thing, it had been he.

DUKE    Welcome him then according to his worth.
    Silvia, I speak to you, and you, Sir Thurio;
    For Valentine, I need not cite him to it:
    I will send him hither to you presently.

    [Exit]

VALENTINE    This is the gentleman I told your ladyship
    Had come along with me, but that his mistress
    Did hold his eyes lock'd in her crystal looks.

SILVIA    Belike that now she hath enfranchised them
    Upon some other pawn for fealty.

VALENTINE    Nay, sure, I think she holds them prisoners still.

SILVIA    Nay, then he should be blind; and, being blind
    How could he see his way to seek out you?

VALENTINE    Why, lady, Love hath twenty pair of eyes.

THURIO    They say that Love hath not an eye at all.

VALENTINE    To see such lovers, Thurio, as yourself:
    Upon a homely object Love can wink.

SILVIA    Have done, have done; here comes the gentleman.

    [Exit THURIO]

    [Enter PROTEUS]

VALENTINE    Welcome, dear Proteus! Mistress, I beseech you,
    Confirm his welcome with some special favour.

SILVIA    His worth is warrant for his welcome hither,
    If this be he you oft have wish'd to hear from.

VALENTINE    Mistress, it is: sweet lady, entertain him
    To be my fellow-servant to your ladyship.

SILVIA    Too low a mistress for so high a servant.

PROTEUS    Not so, sweet lady: but too mean a servant
    To have a look of such a worthy mistress.

VALENTINE    Leave off discourse of disability:
    Sweet lady, entertain him for your servant.

PROTEUS    My duty will I boast of; nothing else.

SILVIA    And duty never yet did want his meed:
    Servant, you are welcome to a worthless mistress.

PROTEUS    I'll die on him that says so but yourself.

SILVIA    That you are welcome?

PROTEUS    That you are worthless.

    [Re-enter THURIO]

THURIO    Madam, my lord your father would speak with you.

SILVIA    I wait upon his pleasure. Come, Sir Thurio,
    Go with me. Once more, new servant, welcome:
    I'll leave you to confer of home affairs;
    When you have done, we look to hear from you.

PROTEUS    We'll both attend upon your ladyship.

    [Exeunt SILVIA and THURIO]

VALENTINE    Now, tell me, how do all from whence you came?

PROTEUS    Your friends are well and have them much commended.

VALENTINE    And how do yours?

PROTEUS                      I left them all in health.

VALENTINE    How does your lady? and how thrives your love?

PROTEUS    My tales of love were wont to weary you;
    I know you joy not in a love discourse.

VALENTINE    Ay, Proteus, but that life is alter'd now:
    I have done penance for contemning Love,
    Whose high imperious thoughts have punish'd me
    With bitter fasts, with penitential groans,
    With nightly tears and daily heart-sore sighs;
    For in revenge of my contempt of love,
    Love hath chased sleep from my enthralled eyes
    And made them watchers of mine own heart's sorrow.
    O gentle Proteus, Love's a mighty lord,
    And hath so humbled me, as, I confess,
    There is no woe to his correction,
    Nor to his service no such joy on earth.
    Now no discourse, except it be of love;
    Now can I break my fast, dine, sup and sleep,
    Upon the very naked name of love.

PROTEUS    Enough; I read your fortune in your eye.
    Was this the idol that you worship so?

VALENTINE    Even she; and is she not a heavenly saint?

PROTEUS    No; but she is an earthly paragon.

VALENTINE    Call her divine.

PROTEUS                      I will not flatter her.

VALENTINE    O, flatter me; for love delights in praises.

PROTEUS    When I was sick, you gave me bitter pills,
    And I must minister the like to you.

VALENTINE    Then speak the truth by her; if not divine,
    Yet let her be a principality,
    Sovereign to all the creatures on the earth.

PROTEUS    Except my mistress.

VALENTINE    Sweet, except not any;
    Except thou wilt except against my love.

PROTEUS    Have I not reason to prefer mine own?

VALENTINE    And I will help thee to prefer her too:
    She shall be dignified with this high honour--
    To bear my lady's train, lest the base earth
    Should from her vesture chance to steal a kiss
    And, of so great a favour growing proud,
    Disdain to root the summer-swelling flower
    And make rough winter everlastingly.

PROTEUS    Why, Valentine, what braggardism is this?

VALENTINE    Pardon me, Proteus: all I can is nothing
    To her whose worth makes other worthies nothing;
    She is alone.

PROTEUS                      Then let her alone.

VALENTINE    Not for the world: why, man, she is mine own,
    And I as rich in having such a jewel
    As twenty seas, if all their sand were pearl,
    The water nectar and the rocks pure gold.
    Forgive me that I do not dream on thee,
    Because thou see'st me dote upon my love.
    My foolish rival, that her father likes
    Only for his possessions are so huge,
    Is gone with her along, and I must after,
    For love, thou know'st, is full of jealousy.

PROTEUS    But she loves you?

VALENTINE    Ay, and we are betroth'd: nay, more, our,
    marriage-hour,
    With all the cunning manner of our flight,
    Determined of; how I must climb her window,
    The ladder made of cords, and all the means
    Plotted and 'greed on for my happiness.
    Good Proteus, go with me to my chamber,
    In these affairs to aid me with thy counsel.

PROTEUS    Go on before; I shall inquire you forth:
    I must unto the road, to disembark
    Some necessaries that I needs must use,
    And then I'll presently attend you.

VALENTINE    Will you make haste?

PROTEUS    I will.

    [Exit VALENTINE]

    Even as one heat another heat expels,
    Or as one nail by strength drives out another,
    So the remembrance of my former love
    Is by a newer object quite forgotten.
    Is it mine, or Valentine's praise,
    Her true perfection, or my false transgression,
    That makes me reasonless to reason thus?
    She is fair; and so is Julia that I love--
    That I did love, for now my love is thaw'd;
    Which, like a waxen image, 'gainst a fire,
    Bears no impression of the thing it was.
    Methinks my zeal to Valentine is cold,
    And that I love him not as I was wont.
    O, but I love his lady too too much,
    And that's the reason I love him so little.
    How shall I dote on her with more advice,
    That thus without advice begin to love her!
    'Tis but her picture I have yet beheld,
    And that hath dazzled my reason's light;
    But when I look on her perfections,
    There is no reason but I shall be blind.
    If I can cheque my erring love, I will;
    If not, to compass her I'll use my skill.

    [Exit]




    THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA


ACT II



SCENE V    The same. A street.


    [Enter SPEED and LAUNCE severally]

SPEED    Launce! by mine honesty, welcome to Milan!

LAUNCE    Forswear not thyself, sweet youth, for I am not
    welcome. I reckon this always, that a man is never
    undone till he be hanged, nor never welcome to a
    place till some certain shot be paid and the hostess
    say 'Welcome!'

SPEED    Come on, you madcap, I'll to the alehouse with you
    presently; where, for one shot of five pence, thou
    shalt have five thousand welcomes. But, sirrah, how
    did thy master part with Madam Julia?

LAUNCE    Marry, after they closed in earnest, they parted very
    fairly in jest.

SPEED    But shall she marry him?

LAUNCE    No.

SPEED    How then? shall he marry her?

LAUNCE    No, neither.

SPEED    What, are they broken?

LAUNCE    No, they are both as whole as a fish.

SPEED    Why, then, how stands the matter with them?

LAUNCE    Marry, thus: when it stands well with him, it
    stands well with her.

SPEED    What an ass art thou! I understand thee not.

LAUNCE    What a block art thou, that thou canst not! My
    staff understands me.

SPEED    What thou sayest?

LAUNCE    Ay, and what I do too: look thee, I'll but lean,
    and my staff understands me.

SPEED    It stands under thee, indeed.

LAUNCE    Why, stand-under and under-stand is all one.

SPEED    But tell me true, will't be a match?

LAUNCE    Ask my dog: if he say ay, it will! if he say no,
    it will; if he shake his tail and say nothing, it will.

SPEED    The conclusion is then that it will.

LAUNCE    Thou shalt never get such a secret from me but by a parable.

SPEED    'Tis well that I get it so. But, Launce, how sayest
    thou, that my master is become a notable lover?

LAUNCE    I never knew him otherwise.

SPEED    Than how?

LAUNCE    A notable lubber, as thou reportest him to be.

SPEED    Why, thou whoreson ass, thou mistakest me.

LAUNCE    Why, fool, I meant not thee; I meant thy master.

SPEED    I tell thee, my master is become a hot lover.

LAUNCE    Why, I tell thee, I care not though he burn himself
    in love. If thou wilt, go with me to the alehouse;
    if not, thou art an Hebrew, a Jew, and not worth the
    name of a Christian.

SPEED    Why?

LAUNCE    Because thou hast not so much charity in thee as to
    go to the ale with a Christian. Wilt thou go?

SPEED    At thy service.

    [Exeunt]




    THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA


ACT II



SCENE VI    The same. The DUKE'S palace.


    [Enter PROTEUS]

PROTEUS    To leave my Julia, shall I be forsworn;
    To love fair Silvia, shall I be forsworn;
    To wrong my friend, I shall be much forsworn;
    And even that power which gave me first my oath
    Provokes me to this threefold perjury;
    Love bade me swear and Love bids me forswear.
    O sweet-suggesting Love, if thou hast sinned,
    Teach me, thy tempted subject, to excuse it!
    At first I did adore a twinkling star,
    But now I worship a celestial sun.
    Unheedful vows may heedfully be broken,
    And he wants wit that wants resolved will
    To learn his wit to exchange the bad for better.
    Fie, fie, unreverend tongue! to call her bad,
    Whose sovereignty so oft thou hast preferr'd
    With twenty thousand soul-confirming oaths.
    I cannot leave to love, and yet I do;
    But there I leave to love where I should love.
    Julia I lose and Valentine I lose:
    If I keep them, I needs must lose myself;
    If I lose them, thus find I by their loss
    For Valentine myself, for Julia Silvia.
    I to myself am dearer than a friend,
    For love is still most precious in itself;
    And Silvia--witness Heaven, that made her fair!--
    Shows Julia but a swarthy Ethiope.
    I will forget that Julia is alive,
    Remembering that my love to her is dead;
    And Valentine I'll hold an enemy,
    Aiming at Silvia as a sweeter friend.
    I cannot now prove constant to myself,
    Without some treachery used to Valentine.
    This night he meaneth with a corded ladder
    To climb celestial Silvia's chamber-window,
    Myself in counsel, his competitor.
    Now presently I'll give her father notice
    Of their disguising and pretended flight;
    Who, all enraged, will banish Valentine;
    For Thurio, he intends, shall wed his daughter;
    But, Valentine being gone, I'll quickly cross
    By some sly trick blunt Thurio's dull proceeding.
    Love, lend me wings to make my purpose swift,
    As thou hast lent me wit to plot this drift!

    [Exit]




    THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA


ACT II



SCENE VII    Verona. JULIA'S house.


    [Enter JULIA and LUCETTA]

JULIA    Counsel, Lucetta; gentle girl, assist me;
    And even in kind love I do conjure thee,
    Who art the table wherein all my thoughts
    Are visibly character'd and engraved,
    To lesson me and tell me some good mean
    How, with my honour, I may undertake
    A journey to my loving Proteus.

LUCETTA    Alas, the way is wearisome and long!

JULIA    A true-devoted pilgrim is not weary
    To measure kingdoms with his feeble steps;
    Much less shall she that hath Love's wings to fly,
    And when the flight is made to one so dear,
    Of such divine perfection, as Sir Proteus.

LUCETTA    Better forbear till Proteus make return.

JULIA    O, know'st thou not his looks are my soul's food?
    Pity the dearth that I have pined in,
    By longing for that food so long a time.
    Didst thou but know the inly touch of love,
    Thou wouldst as soon go kindle fire with snow
    As seek to quench the fire of love with words.

LUCETTA    I do not seek to quench your love's hot fire,
    But qualify the fire's extreme rage,
    Lest it should burn above the bounds of reason.

JULIA    The more thou damm'st it up, the more it burns.
    The current that with gentle murmur glides,
    Thou know'st, being stopp'd, impatiently doth rage;
    But when his fair course is not hindered,
    He makes sweet music with the enamell'ed stones,
    Giving a gentle kiss to every sedge
    He overtaketh in his pilgrimage,
    And so by many winding nooks he strays
    With willing sport to the wild ocean.
    Then let me go and hinder not my course
    I'll be as patient as a gentle stream
    And make a pastime of each weary step,
    Till the last step have brought me to my love;
    And there I'll rest, as after much turmoil
    A blessed soul doth in Elysium.

LUCETTA    But in what habit will you go along?

JULIA    Not like a woman; for I would prevent
    The loose encounters of lascivious men:
    Gentle Lucetta, fit me with such weeds
    As may beseem some well-reputed page.

LUCETTA    Why, then, your ladyship must cut your hair.

JULIA    No, girl, I'll knit it up in silken strings
    With twenty odd-conceited true-love knots.
    To be fantastic may become a youth
    Of greater time than I shall show to be.

LUCETTA    What fashion, madam shall I make your breeches?

JULIA    That fits as well as 'Tell me, good my lord,
    What compass will you wear your farthingale?'
    Why even what fashion thou best likest, Lucetta.

LUCETTA    You must needs have them with a codpiece, madam.

JULIA    Out, out, Lucetta! that would be ill-favour'd.

LUCETTA    A round hose, madam, now's not worth a pin,
    Unless you have a codpiece to stick pins on.

JULIA    Lucetta, as thou lovest me, let me have
    What thou thinkest meet and is most mannerly.
    But tell me, wench, how will the world repute me
    For undertaking so unstaid a journey?
    I fear me, it will make me scandalized.

LUCETTA    If you think so, then stay at home and go not.

JULIA    Nay, that I will not.

LUCETTA    Then never dream on infamy, but go.
    If Proteus like your journey when you come,
    No matter who's displeased when you are gone:
    I fear me, he will scarce be pleased withal.

JULIA    That is the least, Lucetta, of my fear:
    A thousand oaths, an ocean of his tears
    And instances of infinite of love
    Warrant me welcome to my Proteus.

LUCETTA    All these are servants to deceitful men.

JULIA    Base men, that use them to so base effect!
    But truer stars did govern Proteus' birth
    His words are bonds, his oaths are oracles,
    His love sincere, his thoughts immaculate,
    His tears pure messengers sent from his heart,
    His heart as far from fraud as heaven from earth.

LUCETTA    Pray heaven he prove so, when you come to him!

JULIA    Now, as thou lovest me, do him not that wrong
    To bear a hard opinion of his truth:
    Only deserve my love by loving him;
    And presently go with me to my chamber,
    To take a note of what I stand in need of,
    To furnish me upon my longing journey.
    All that is mine I leave at thy dispose,
    My goods, my lands, my reputation;
    Only, in lieu thereof, dispatch me hence.
    Come, answer not, but to it presently!
    I am impatient of my tarriance.

    [Exeunt]




    THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA


ACT III



SCENE I    Milan. The DUKE's palace.


    [Enter DUKE, THURIO, and PROTEUS]

DUKE    Sir Thurio, give us leave, I pray, awhile;
    We have some secrets to confer about.

    [Exit THURIO]

    Now, tell me, Proteus, what's your will with me?

PROTEUS    My gracious lord, that which I would discover
    The law of friendship bids me to conceal;
    But when I call to mind your gracious favours
    Done to me, undeserving as I am,
    My duty pricks me on to utter that
    Which else no worldly good should draw from me.
    Know, worthy prince, Sir Valentine, my friend,
    This night intends to steal away your daughter:
    Myself am one made privy to the plot.
    I know you have determined to bestow her
    On Thurio, whom your gentle daughter hates;
    And should she thus be stol'n away from you,
    It would be much vexation to your age.
    Thus, for my duty's sake, I rather chose
    To cross my friend in his intended drift
    Than, by concealing it, heap on your head
    A pack of sorrows which would press you down,
    Being unprevented, to your timeless grave.

DUKE    Proteus, I thank thee for thine honest care;
    Which to requite, command me while I live.
    This love of theirs myself have often seen,
    Haply when they have judged me fast asleep,
    And oftentimes have purposed to forbid
    Sir Valentine her company and my court:
    But fearing lest my jealous aim might err
    And so unworthily disgrace the man,
    A rashness that I ever yet have shunn'd,
    I gave him gentle looks, thereby to find
    That which thyself hast now disclosed to me.
    And, that thou mayst perceive my fear of this,
    Knowing that tender youth is soon suggested,
    I nightly lodge her in an upper tower,
    The key whereof myself have ever kept;
    And thence she cannot be convey'd away.

PROTEUS    Know, noble lord, they have devised a mean
    How he her chamber-window will ascend
    And with a corded ladder fetch her down;
    For which the youthful lover now is gone
    And this way comes he with it presently;
    Where, if it please you, you may intercept him.
    But, good my Lord, do it so cunningly
    That my discovery be not aimed at;
    For love of you, not hate unto my friend,
    Hath made me publisher of this pretence.

DUKE    Upon mine honour, he shall never know
    That I had any light from thee of this.

PROTEUS    Adieu, my Lord; Sir Valentine is coming.

    [Exit]

    [Enter VALENTINE]

DUKE    Sir Valentine, whither away so fast?

VALENTINE    Please it your grace, there is a messenger
    That stays to bear my letters to my friends,
    And I am going to deliver them.

DUKE    Be they of much import?

VALENTINE    The tenor of them doth but signify
    My health and happy being at your court.

DUKE    Nay then, no matter; stay with me awhile;
    I am to break with thee of some affairs
    That touch me near, wherein thou must be secret.
    'Tis not unknown to thee that I have sought
    To match my friend Sir Thurio to my daughter.

VALENTINE    I know it well, my Lord; and, sure, the match
    Were rich and honourable; besides, the gentleman
    Is full of virtue, bounty, worth and qualities
    Beseeming such a wife as your fair daughter:
    Cannot your Grace win her to fancy him?

DUKE    No, trust me; she is peevish, sullen, froward,
    Proud, disobedient, stubborn, lacking duty,
    Neither regarding that she is my child
    Nor fearing me as if I were her father;
    And, may I say to thee, this pride of hers,
    Upon advice, hath drawn my love from her;
    And, where I thought the remnant of mine age
    Should have been cherish'd by her child-like duty,
    I now am full resolved to take a wife
    And turn her out to who will take her in:
    Then let her beauty be her wedding-dower;
    For me and my possessions she esteems not.

VALENTINE    What would your Grace have me to do in this?

DUKE    There is a lady in Verona here
    Whom I affect; but she is nice and coy
    And nought esteems my aged eloquence:
    Now therefore would I have thee to my tutor--
    For long agone I have forgot to court;
    Besides, the fashion of the time is changed--
    How and which way I may bestow myself
    To be regarded in her sun-bright eye.

VALENTINE    Win her with gifts, if she respect not words:
    Dumb jewels often in their silent kind
    More than quick words do move a woman's mind.

DUKE    But she did scorn a present that I sent her.

VALENTINE    A woman sometimes scorns what best contents her.
    Send her another; never give her o'er;
    For scorn at first makes after-love the more.
    If she do frown, 'tis not in hate of you,
    But rather to beget more love in you:
    If she do chide, 'tis not to have you gone;
    For why, the fools are mad, if left alone.
    Take no repulse, whatever she doth say;
    For 'get you gone,' she doth not mean 'away!'
    Flatter and praise, commend, extol their graces;
    Though ne'er so black, say they have angels' faces.
    That man that hath a tongue, I say, is no man,
    If with his tongue he cannot win a woman.

DUKE    But she I mean is promised by her friends
    Unto a youthful gentleman of worth,
    And kept severely from resort of men,
    That no man hath access by day to her.

VALENTINE    Why, then, I would resort to her by night.

DUKE    Ay, but the doors be lock'd and keys kept safe,
    That no man hath recourse to her by night.

VALENTINE    What lets but one may enter at her window?

DUKE    Her chamber is aloft, far from the ground,
    And built so shelving that one cannot climb it
    Without apparent hazard of his life.

VALENTINE    Why then, a ladder quaintly made of cords,
    To cast up, with a pair of anchoring hooks,
    Would serve to scale another Hero's tower,
    So bold Leander would adventure it.

DUKE    Now, as thou art a gentleman of blood,
    Advise me where I may have such a ladder.

VALENTINE    When would you use it? pray, sir, tell me that.

DUKE    This very night; for Love is like a child,
    That longs for every thing that he can come by.

VALENTINE    By seven o'clock I'll get you such a ladder.

DUKE    But, hark thee; I will go to her alone:
    How shall I best convey the ladder thither?

VALENTINE    It will be light, my lord, that you may bear it
    Under a cloak that is of any length.

DUKE    A cloak as long as thine will serve the turn?

VALENTINE    Ay, my good lord.

DUKE                      Then let me see thy cloak:
    I'll get me one of such another length.

VALENTINE    Why, any cloak will serve the turn, my lord.

DUKE    How shall I fashion me to wear a cloak?
    I pray thee, let me feel thy cloak upon me.
    What letter is this same? What's here? 'To Silvia'!
    And here an engine fit for my proceeding.
    I'll be so bold to break the seal for once.

    [Reads]

    'My thoughts do harbour with my Silvia nightly,
    And slaves they are to me that send them flying:
    O, could their master come and go as lightly,
    Himself would lodge where senseless they are lying!
    My herald thoughts in thy pure bosom rest them:
    While I, their king, that hither them importune,
    Do curse the grace that with such grace hath bless'd them,
    Because myself do want my servants' fortune:
    I curse myself, for they are sent by me,
    That they should harbour where their lord would be.'
    What's here?
    'Silvia, this night I will enfranchise thee.'
    'Tis so; and here's the ladder for the purpose.
    Why, Phaeton,--for thou art Merops' son,--
    Wilt thou aspire to guide the heavenly car
    And with thy daring folly burn the world?
    Wilt thou reach stars, because they shine on thee?
    Go, base intruder! overweening slave!
    Bestow thy fawning smiles on equal mates,
    And think my patience, more than thy desert,
    Is privilege for thy departure hence:
    Thank me for this more than for all the favours
    Which all too much I have bestow'd on thee.
    But if thou linger in my territories
    Longer than swiftest expedition
    Will give thee time to leave our royal court,
    By heaven! my wrath shall far exceed the love
    I ever bore my daughter or thyself.
    Be gone! I will not hear thy vain excuse;
    But, as thou lovest thy life, make speed from hence.

    [Exit]

VALENTINE    And why not death rather than living torment?
    To die is to be banish'd from myself;
    And Silvia is myself: banish'd from her
    Is self from self: a deadly banishment!
    What light is light, if Silvia be not seen?
    What joy is joy, if Silvia be not by?
    Unless it be to think that she is by
    And feed upon the shadow of perfection
    Except I be by Silvia in the night,
    There is no music in the nightingale;
    Unless I look on Silvia in the day,
    There is no day for me to look upon;
    She is my essence, and I leave to be,
    If I be not by her fair influence
    Foster'd, illumined, cherish'd, kept alive.
    I fly not death, to fly his deadly doom:
    Tarry I here, I but attend on death:
    But, fly I hence, I fly away from life.

    [Enter PROTEUS and LAUNCE]

PROTEUS    Run, boy, run, run, and seek him out.

LAUNCE    Soho, soho!

PROTEUS    What seest thou?

LAUNCE    Him we go to find: there's not a hair on's head
    but 'tis a Valentine.

PROTEUS    Valentine?

VALENTINE    No.

PROTEUS    Who then? his spirit?

VALENTINE    Neither.

PROTEUS    What then?

VALENTINE    Nothing.

LAUNCE    Can nothing speak? Master, shall I strike?

PROTEUS    Who wouldst thou strike?

LAUNCE    Nothing.

PROTEUS    Villain, forbear.

LAUNCE    Why, sir, I'll strike nothing: I pray you,--

PROTEUS    Sirrah, I say, forbear. Friend Valentine, a word.

VALENTINE    My ears are stopt and cannot hear good news,
    So much of bad already hath possess'd them.

PROTEUS    Then in dumb silence will I bury mine,
    For they are harsh, untuneable and bad.

VALENTINE    Is Silvia dead?

PROTEUS    No, Valentine.

VALENTINE    No Valentine, indeed, for sacred Silvia.
    Hath she forsworn me?

PROTEUS    No, Valentine.

VALENTINE    No Valentine, if Silvia have forsworn me.
    What is your news?

LAUNCE    Sir, there is a proclamation that you are vanished.

PROTEUS    That thou art banished--O, that's the news!--
    From hence, from Silvia and from me thy friend.

VALENTINE    O, I have fed upon this woe already,
    And now excess of it will make me surfeit.
    Doth Silvia know that I am banished?

PROTEUS    Ay, ay; and she hath offer'd to the doom--
    Which, unreversed, stands in effectual force--
    A sea of melting pearl, which some call tears:
    Those at her father's churlish feet she tender'd;
    With them, upon her knees, her humble self;
    Wringing her hands, whose whiteness so became them
    As if but now they waxed pale for woe:
    But neither bended knees, pure hands held up,
    Sad sighs, deep groans, nor silver-shedding tears,
    Could penetrate her uncompassionate sire;
    But Valentine, if he be ta'en, must die.
    Besides, her intercession chafed him so,
    When she for thy repeal was suppliant,
    That to close prison he commanded her,
    With many bitter threats of biding there.

VALENTINE    No more; unless the next word that thou speak'st
    Have some malignant power upon my life:
    If so, I pray thee, breathe it in mine ear,
    As ending anthem of my endless dolour.

PROTEUS    Cease to lament for that thou canst not help,
    And study help for that which thou lament'st.
    Time is the nurse and breeder of all good.
    Here if thou stay, thou canst not see thy love;
    Besides, thy staying will abridge thy life.
    Hope is a lover's staff; walk hence with that
    And manage it against despairing thoughts.
    Thy letters may be here, though thou art hence;
    Which, being writ to me, shall be deliver'd
    Even in the milk-white bosom of thy love.
    The time now serves not to expostulate:
    Come, I'll convey thee through the city-gate;
    And, ere I part with thee, confer at large
    Of all that may concern thy love-affairs.
    As thou lovest Silvia, though not for thyself,
    Regard thy danger, and along with me!

VALENTINE    I pray thee, Launce, an if thou seest my boy,
    Bid him make haste and meet me at the North-gate.

PROTEUS    Go, sirrah, find him out. Come, Valentine.

VALENTINE    O my dear Silvia! Hapless Valentine!

    [Exeunt VALENTINE and PROTEUS]

LAUNCE    I am but a fool, look you; and yet I have the wit to
    think my master is a kind of a knave: but that's
    all one, if he be but one knave. He lives not now
    that knows me to be in love; yet I am in love; but a
    team of horse shall not pluck that from me; nor who
    'tis I love; and yet 'tis a woman; but what woman, I
    will not tell myself; and yet 'tis a milkmaid; yet
    'tis not a maid, for she hath had gossips; yet 'tis
    a maid, for she is her master's maid, and serves for
    wages. She hath more qualities than a water-spaniel;
    which is much in a bare Christian.

    [Pulling out a paper]

    Here is the cate-log of her condition.
    'Imprimis: She can fetch and carry.' Why, a horse
    can do no more: nay, a horse cannot fetch, but only
    carry; therefore is she better than a jade. 'Item:
    She can milk;' look you, a sweet virtue in a maid
    with clean hands.

    [Enter SPEED]

SPEED    How now, Signior Launce! what news with your
    mastership?

LAUNCE    With my master's ship? why, it is at sea.

SPEED    Well, your old vice still; mistake the word. What
    news, then, in your paper?

LAUNCE    The blackest news that ever thou heardest.

SPEED    Why, man, how black?

LAUNCE    Why, as black as ink.

SPEED    Let me read them.

LAUNCE    Fie on thee, jolt-head! thou canst not read.

SPEED    Thou liest; I can.

LAUNCE    I will try thee. Tell me this: who begot thee?

SPEED    Marry, the son of my grandfather.

LAUNCE    O illiterate loiterer! it was the son of thy
    grandmother: this proves that thou canst not read.

SPEED    Come, fool, come; try me in thy paper.

LAUNCE    There; and St. Nicholas be thy speed!

SPEED    [Reads]  'Imprimis: She can milk.'

LAUNCE    Ay, that she can.

SPEED    'Item: She brews good ale.'

LAUNCE    And thereof comes the proverb: 'Blessing of your
    heart, you brew good ale.'

SPEED    'Item: She can sew.'

LAUNCE    That's as much as to say, Can she so?

SPEED    'Item: She can knit.'

LAUNCE    What need a man care for a stock with a wench, when
    she can knit him a stock?

SPEED    'Item: She can wash and scour.'

LAUNCE    A special virtue: for then she need not be washed
    and scoured.

SPEED    'Item: She can spin.'

LAUNCE    Then may I set the world on wheels, when she can
    spin for her living.

SPEED    'Item: She hath many nameless virtues.'

LAUNCE    That's as much as to say, bastard virtues; that,
    indeed, know not their fathers and therefore have no names.

SPEED    'Here follow her vices.'

LAUNCE    Close at the heels of her virtues.

SPEED    'Item: She is not to be kissed fasting in respect
    of her breath.'

LAUNCE    Well, that fault may be mended with a breakfast. Read on.

SPEED    'Item: She hath a sweet mouth.'

LAUNCE    That makes amends for her sour breath.

SPEED    'Item: She doth talk in her sleep.'

LAUNCE    It's no matter for that, so she sleep not in her talk.

SPEED    'Item: She is slow in words.'

LAUNCE    O villain, that set this down among her vices! To
    be slow in words is a woman's only virtue: I pray
    thee, out with't, and place it for her chief virtue.

SPEED    'Item: She is proud.'

LAUNCE    Out with that too; it was Eve's legacy, and cannot
    be ta'en from her.

SPEED    'Item: She hath no teeth.'

LAUNCE    I care not for that neither, because I love crusts.

SPEED    'Item: She is curst.'

LAUNCE    Well, the best is, she hath no teeth to bite.

SPEED    'Item: She will often praise her liquor.'

LAUNCE    If her liquor be good, she shall: if she will not, I
    will; for good things should be praised.

SPEED    'Item: She is too liberal.'

LAUNCE    Of her tongue she cannot, for that's writ down she
    is slow of; of her purse she shall not, for that
    I'll keep shut: now, of another thing she may, and
    that cannot I help. Well, proceed.

SPEED    'Item: She hath more hair than wit, and more faults
    than hairs, and more wealth than faults.'

LAUNCE    Stop there; I'll have her: she was mine, and not
    mine, twice or thrice in that last article.
    Rehearse that once more.

SPEED    'Item: She hath more hair than wit,'--

LAUNCE    More hair than wit? It may be; I'll prove it. The
    cover of the salt hides the salt, and therefore it
    is more than the salt; the hair that covers the wit
    is more than the wit, for the greater hides the
    less. What's next?

SPEED    'And more faults than hairs,'--

LAUNCE    That's monstrous: O, that that were out!

SPEED    'And more wealth than faults.'

LAUNCE    Why, that word makes the faults gracious. Well,
    I'll have her; and if it be a match, as nothing is
    impossible,--

SPEED    What then?

LAUNCE    Why, then will I tell thee--that thy master stays
    for thee at the North-gate.

SPEED    For me?

LAUNCE    For thee! ay, who art thou? he hath stayed for a
    better man than thee.

SPEED    And must I go to him?

LAUNCE    Thou must run to him, for thou hast stayed so long
    that going will scarce serve the turn.

SPEED    Why didst not tell me sooner? pox of your love letters!

    [Exit]

LAUNCE    Now will he be swinged for reading my letter; an
    unmannerly slave, that will thrust himself into
    secrets! I'll after, to rejoice in the boy's correction.

    [Exit]




    THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA


ACT III



SCENE II    The same. The DUKE's palace.


    [Enter DUKE and THURIO]

DUKE    Sir Thurio, fear not but that she will love you,
    Now Valentine is banish'd from her sight.

THURIO    Since his exile she hath despised me most,
    Forsworn my company and rail'd at me,
    That I am desperate of obtaining her.

DUKE    This weak impress of love is as a figure
    Trenched in ice, which with an hour's heat
    Dissolves to water and doth lose his form.
    A little time will melt her frozen thoughts
    And worthless Valentine shall be forgot.

    [Enter PROTEUS]

    How now, Sir Proteus! Is your countryman
    According to our proclamation gone?

PROTEUS    Gone, my good lord.

DUKE    My daughter takes his going grievously.

PROTEUS    A little time, my lord, will kill that grief.

DUKE    So I believe; but Thurio thinks not so.
    Proteus, the good conceit I hold of thee--
    For thou hast shown some sign of good desert--
    Makes me the better to confer with thee.

PROTEUS    Longer than I prove loyal to your grace
    Let me not live to look upon your grace.

DUKE    Thou know'st how willingly I would effect
    The match between Sir Thurio and my daughter.

PROTEUS    I do, my lord.

DUKE    And also, I think, thou art not ignorant
    How she opposes her against my will

PROTEUS    She did, my lord, when Valentine was here.

DUKE    Ay, and perversely she persevers so.
    What might we do to make the girl forget
    The love of Valentine and love Sir Thurio?

PROTEUS    The best way is to slander Valentine
    With falsehood, cowardice and poor descent,
    Three things that women highly hold in hate.

DUKE    Ay, but she'll think that it is spoke in hate.

PROTEUS    Ay, if his enemy deliver it:
    Therefore it must with circumstance be spoken
    By one whom she esteemeth as his friend.

DUKE    Then you must undertake to slander him.

PROTEUS    And that, my lord, I shall be loath to do:
    'Tis an ill office for a gentleman,
    Especially against his very friend.

DUKE    Where your good word cannot advantage him,
    Your slander never can endamage him;
    Therefore the office is indifferent,
    Being entreated to it by your friend.

PROTEUS    You have prevail'd, my lord; if I can do it
    By ought that I can speak in his dispraise,
    She shall not long continue love to him.
    But say this weed her love from Valentine,
    It follows not that she will love Sir Thurio.

THURIO    Therefore, as you unwind her love from him,
    Lest it should ravel and be good to none,
    You must provide to bottom it on me;
    Which must be done by praising me as much
    As you in worth dispraise Sir Valentine.

DUKE    And, Proteus, we dare trust you in this kind,
    Because we know, on Valentine's report,
    You are already Love's firm votary
    And cannot soon revolt and change your mind.
    Upon this warrant shall you have access
    Where you with Silvia may confer at large;
    For she is lumpish, heavy, melancholy,
    And, for your friend's sake, will be glad of you;
    Where you may temper her by your persuasion
    To hate young Valentine and love my friend.

PROTEUS    As much as I can do, I will effect:
    But you, Sir Thurio, are not sharp enough;
    You must lay lime to tangle her desires
    By wailful sonnets, whose composed rhymes
    Should be full-fraught with serviceable vows.

DUKE    Ay,
    Much is the force of heaven-bred poesy.

PROTEUS    Say that upon the altar of her beauty
    You sacrifice your tears, your sighs, your heart:
    Write till your ink be dry, and with your tears
    Moist it again, and frame some feeling line
    That may discover such integrity:
    For Orpheus' lute was strung with poets' sinews,
    Whose golden touch could soften steel and stones,
    Make tigers tame and huge leviathans
    Forsake unsounded deeps to dance on sands.
    After your dire-lamenting elegies,
    Visit by night your lady's chamber-window
    With some sweet concert; to their instruments
    Tune a deploring dump: the night's dead silence
    Will well become such sweet-complaining grievance.
    This, or else nothing, will inherit her.

DUKE    This discipline shows thou hast been in love.

THURIO    And thy advice this night I'll put in practise.
    Therefore, sweet Proteus, my direction-giver,
    Let us into the city presently
    To sort some gentlemen well skill'd in music.
    I have a sonnet that will serve the turn
    To give the onset to thy good advice.

DUKE    About it, gentlemen!

PROTEUS    We'll wait upon your grace till after supper,
    And afterward determine our proceedings.

DUKE    Even now about it! I will pardon you.

    [Exeunt]




    THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA


ACT IV



SCENE I    The frontiers of Mantua. A forest.


    [Enter certain Outlaws]

First Outlaw    Fellows, stand fast; I see a passenger.

Second Outlaw    If there be ten, shrink not, but down with 'em.

    [Enter VALENTINE and SPEED]

Third Outlaw    Stand, sir, and throw us that you have about ye:
    If not: we'll make you sit and rifle you.

SPEED    Sir, we are undone; these are the villains
    That all the travellers do fear so much.

VALENTINE    My friends,--

First Outlaw    That's not so, sir: we are your enemies.

Second Outlaw    Peace! we'll hear him.

Third Outlaw    Ay, by my beard, will we, for he's a proper man.

VALENTINE    Then know that I have little wealth to lose:
    A man I am cross'd with adversity;
    My riches are these poor habiliments,
    Of which if you should here disfurnish me,
    You take the sum and substance that I have.

Second Outlaw    Whither travel you?

VALENTINE    To Verona.

First Outlaw    Whence came you?

VALENTINE    From Milan.

Third Outlaw    Have you long sojourned there?

VALENTINE    Some sixteen months, and longer might have stay'd,
    If crooked fortune had not thwarted me.

First Outlaw    What, were you banish'd thence?

VALENTINE    I was.

Second Outlaw    For what offence?

VALENTINE    For that which now torments me to rehearse:
    I kill'd a man, whose death I much repent;
    But yet I slew him manfully in fight,
    Without false vantage or base treachery.

First Outlaw    Why, ne'er repent it, if it were done so.
    But were you banish'd for so small a fault?

VALENTINE    I was, and held me glad of such a doom.

Second Outlaw    Have you the tongues?

VALENTINE    My youthful travel therein made me happy,
    Or else I often had been miserable.

Third Outlaw    By the bare scalp of Robin Hood's fat friar,
    This fellow were a king for our wild faction!

First Outlaw    We'll have him. Sirs, a word.

SPEED    Master, be one of them; it's an honourable kind of thievery.

VALENTINE    Peace, villain!

Second Outlaw    Tell us this: have you any thing to take to?

VALENTINE    Nothing but my fortune.

Third Outlaw    Know, then, that some of us are gentlemen,
    Such as the fury of ungovern'd youth
    Thrust from the company of awful men:
    Myself was from Verona banished
    For practising to steal away a lady,
    An heir, and near allied unto the duke.

Second Outlaw    And I from Mantua, for a gentleman,
    Who, in my mood, I stabb'd unto the heart.

First Outlaw    And I for such like petty crimes as these,
    But to the purpose--for we cite our faults,
    That they may hold excus'd our lawless lives;
    And partly, seeing you are beautified
    With goodly shape and by your own report
    A linguist and a man of such perfection
    As we do in our quality much want--

Second Outlaw    Indeed, because you are a banish'd man,
    Therefore, above the rest, we parley to you:
    Are you content to be our general?
    To make a virtue of necessity
    And live, as we do, in this wilderness?

Third Outlaw    What say'st thou? wilt thou be of our consort?
    Say ay, and be the captain of us all:
    We'll do thee homage and be ruled by thee,
    Love thee as our commander and our king.

First Outlaw    But if thou scorn our courtesy, thou diest.

Second Outlaw    Thou shalt not live to brag what we have offer'd.

VALENTINE    I take your offer and will live with you,
    Provided that you do no outrages
    On silly women or poor passengers.

Third Outlaw    No, we detest such vile base practises.
    Come, go with us, we'll bring thee to our crews,
    And show thee all the treasure we have got,
    Which, with ourselves, all rest at thy dispose.

    [Exeunt]




    THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA


ACT IV



SCENE II    Milan. Outside the DUKE's palace, under SILVIA's chamber.


    [Enter PROTEUS]

PROTEUS    Already have I been false to Valentine
    And now I must be as unjust to Thurio.
    Under the colour of commending him,
    I have access my own love to prefer:
    But Silvia is too fair, too true, too holy,
    To be corrupted with my worthless gifts.
    When I protest true loyalty to her,
    She twits me with my falsehood to my friend;
    When to her beauty I commend my vows,
    She bids me think how I have been forsworn
    In breaking faith with Julia whom I loved:
    And notwithstanding all her sudden quips,
    The least whereof would quell a lover's hope,
    Yet, spaniel-like, the more she spurns my love,
    The more it grows and fawneth on her still.
    But here comes Thurio: now must we to her window,
    And give some evening music to her ear.

    [Enter THURIO and Musicians]

THURIO    How now, Sir Proteus, are you crept before us?

PROTEUS    Ay, gentle Thurio: for you know that love
    Will creep in service where it cannot go.

THURIO    Ay, but I hope, sir, that you love not here.

PROTEUS    Sir, but I do; or else I would be hence.

THURIO    Who? Silvia?

PROTEUS                      Ay, Silvia; for your sake.

THURIO    I thank you for your own. Now, gentlemen,
    Let's tune, and to it lustily awhile.

    [Enter, at a distance, Host, and JULIA in boy's clothes]

Host    Now, my young guest, methinks you're allycholly: I
    pray you, why is it?

JULIA    Marry, mine host, because I cannot be merry.

Host    Come, we'll have you merry: I'll bring you where
    you shall hear music and see the gentleman that you asked for.

JULIA    But shall I hear him speak?

Host    Ay, that you shall.

JULIA    That will be music.

    [Music plays]

Host    Hark, hark!

JULIA    Is he among these?

Host    Ay: but, peace! let's hear 'em.

    SONG.
    Who is Silvia? what is she,
    That all our swains commend her?
    Holy, fair and wise is she;
    The heaven such grace did lend her,
    That she might admired be.

    Is she kind as she is fair?
    For beauty lives with kindness.
    Love doth to her eyes repair,
    To help him of his blindness,
    And, being help'd, inhabits there.

    Then to Silvia let us sing,
    That Silvia is excelling;
    She excels each mortal thing
    Upon the dull earth dwelling:
    To her let us garlands bring.

Host    How now! are you sadder than you were before? How
    do you, man? the music likes you not.

JULIA    You mistake; the musician likes me not.

Host    Why, my pretty youth?

JULIA    He plays false, father.

Host    How? out of tune on the strings?

JULIA    Not so; but yet so false that he grieves my very
    heart-strings.

Host    You have a quick ear.

JULIA    Ay, I would I were deaf; it makes me have a slow heart.

Host    I perceive you delight not in music.

JULIA    Not a whit, when it jars so.

Host    Hark, what fine change is in the music!

JULIA    Ay, that change is the spite.

Host    You would have them always play but one thing?

JULIA    I would always have one play but one thing.
    But, host, doth this Sir Proteus that we talk on
    Often resort unto this gentlewoman?

Host    I tell you what Launce, his man, told me: he loved
    her out of all nick.

JULIA    Where is Launce?

Host    Gone to seek his dog; which tomorrow, by his
    master's command, he must carry for a present to his lady.

JULIA    Peace! stand aside: the company parts.

PROTEUS    Sir Thurio, fear not you: I will so plead
    That you shall say my cunning drift excels.

THURIO    Where meet we?

PROTEUS                      At Saint Gregory's well.

THURIO    Farewell.

    [Exeunt THURIO and Musicians]

    [Enter SILVIA above]

PROTEUS    Madam, good even to your ladyship.

SILVIA    I thank you for your music, gentlemen.
    Who is that that spake?

PROTEUS    One, lady, if you knew his pure heart's truth,
    You would quickly learn to know him by his voice.

SILVIA    Sir Proteus, as I take it.

PROTEUS    Sir Proteus, gentle lady, and your servant.

SILVIA    What's your will?

PROTEUS                      That I may compass yours.

SILVIA    You have your wish; my will is even this:
    That presently you hie you home to bed.
    Thou subtle, perjured, false, disloyal man!
    Think'st thou I am so shallow, so conceitless,
    To be seduced by thy flattery,
    That hast deceived so many with thy vows?
    Return, return, and make thy love amends.
    For me, by this pale queen of night I swear,
    I am so far from granting thy request
    That I despise thee for thy wrongful suit,
    And by and by intend to chide myself
    Even for this time I spend in talking to thee.

PROTEUS    I grant, sweet love, that I did love a lady;
    But she is dead.

JULIA    [Aside]        'Twere false, if I should speak it;
    For I am sure she is not buried.

SILVIA    Say that she be; yet Valentine thy friend
    Survives; to whom, thyself art witness,
    I am betroth'd: and art thou not ashamed
    To wrong him with thy importunacy?

PROTEUS    I likewise hear that Valentine is dead.

SILVIA    And so suppose am I; for in his grave
    Assure thyself my love is buried.

PROTEUS    Sweet lady, let me rake it from the earth.

SILVIA    Go to thy lady's grave and call hers thence,
    Or, at the least, in hers sepulchre thine.

JULIA    [Aside]  He heard not that.

PROTEUS    Madam, if your heart be so obdurate,
    Vouchsafe me yet your picture for my love,
    The picture that is hanging in your chamber;
    To that I'll speak, to that I'll sigh and weep:
    For since the substance of your perfect self
    Is else devoted, I am but a shadow;
    And to your shadow will I make true love.

JULIA    [Aside]  If 'twere a substance, you would, sure,
    deceive it,
    And make it but a shadow, as I am.

SILVIA    I am very loath to be your idol, sir;
    But since your falsehood shall become you well
    To worship shadows and adore false shapes,
    Send to me in the morning and I'll send it:
    And so, good rest.

PROTEUS                      As wretches have o'ernight
    That wait for execution in the morn.

    [Exeunt PROTEUS and SILVIA severally]

JULIA    Host, will you go?

Host    By my halidom, I was fast asleep.

JULIA    Pray you, where lies Sir Proteus?

Host    Marry, at my house. Trust me, I think 'tis almost
    day.

JULIA    Not so; but it hath been the longest night
    That e'er I watch'd and the most heaviest.

    [Exeunt]




    THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA


ACT IV



SCENE III    The same.


    [Enter EGLAMOUR]

EGLAMOUR    This is the hour that Madam Silvia
    Entreated me to call and know her mind:
    There's some great matter she'ld employ me in.
    Madam, madam!

    [Enter SILVIA above]

SILVIA                      Who calls?

EGLAMOUR    Your servant and your friend;
    One that attends your ladyship's command.

SILVIA    Sir Eglamour, a thousand times good morrow.

EGLAMOUR    As many, worthy lady, to yourself:
    According to your ladyship's impose,
    I am thus early come to know what service
    It is your pleasure to command me in.

SILVIA    O Eglamour, thou art a gentleman--
    Think not I flatter, for I swear I do not--
    Valiant, wise, remorseful, well accomplish'd:
    Thou art not ignorant what dear good will
    I bear unto the banish'd Valentine,
    Nor how my father would enforce me marry
    Vain Thurio, whom my very soul abhors.
    Thyself hast loved; and I have heard thee say
    No grief did ever come so near thy heart
    As when thy lady and thy true love died,
    Upon whose grave thou vow'dst pure chastity.
    Sir Eglamour, I would to Valentine,
    To Mantua, where I hear he makes abode;
    And, for the ways are dangerous to pass,
    I do desire thy worthy company,
    Upon whose faith and honour I repose.
    Urge not my father's anger, Eglamour,
    But think upon my grief, a lady's grief,
    And on the justice of my flying hence,
    To keep me from a most unholy match,
    Which heaven and fortune still rewards with plagues.
    I do desire thee, even from a heart
    As full of sorrows as the sea of sands,
    To bear me company and go with me:
    If not, to hide what I have said to thee,
    That I may venture to depart alone.

EGLAMOUR    Madam, I pity much your grievances;
    Which since I know they virtuously are placed,
    I give consent to go along with you,
    Recking as little what betideth me
    As much I wish all good befortune you.
    When will you go?

SILVIA                      This evening coming.

EGLAMOUR    Where shall I meet you?

SILVIA    At Friar Patrick's cell,
    Where I intend holy confession.

EGLAMOUR    I will not fail your ladyship. Good morrow, gentle lady.

SILVIA    Good morrow, kind Sir Eglamour.

    [Exeunt severally]




    THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA


ACT IV



SCENE IV    The same.


    [Enter LAUNCE, with his his Dog]

LAUNCE    When a man's servant shall play the cur with him,
    look you, it goes hard: one that I brought up of a
    puppy; one that I saved from drowning, when three or
    four of his blind brothers and sisters went to it.
    I have taught him, even as one would say precisely,
    'thus I would teach a dog.' I was sent to deliver
    him as a present to Mistress Silvia from my master;
    and I came no sooner into the dining-chamber but he
    steps me to her trencher and steals her capon's leg:
    O, 'tis a foul thing when a cur cannot keep himself
    in all companies! I would have, as one should say,
    one that takes upon him to be a dog indeed, to be,
    as it were, a dog at all things. If I had not had
    more wit than he, to take a fault upon me that he did,
    I think verily he had been hanged for't; sure as I
    live, he had suffered for't; you shall judge. He
    thrusts me himself into the company of three or four
    gentlemanlike dogs under the duke's table: he had
    not been there--bless the mark!--a pissing while, but
    all the chamber smelt him. 'Out with the dog!' says
    one: 'What cur is that?' says another: 'Whip him
    out' says the third: 'Hang him up' says the duke.
    I, having been acquainted with the smell before,
    knew it was Crab, and goes me to the fellow that
    whips the dogs: 'Friend,' quoth I, 'you mean to whip
    the dog?' 'Ay, marry, do I,' quoth he. 'You do him
    the more wrong,' quoth I; ''twas I did the thing you
    wot of.' He makes me no more ado, but whips me out
    of the chamber. How many masters would do this for
    his servant? Nay, I'll be sworn, I have sat in the
    stocks for puddings he hath stolen, otherwise he had
    been executed; I have stood on the pillory for geese
    he hath killed, otherwise he had suffered for't.
    Thou thinkest not of this now. Nay, I remember the
    trick you served me when I took my leave of Madam
    Silvia: did not I bid thee still mark me and do as I
    do? when didst thou see me heave up my leg and make
    water against a gentlewoman's farthingale? didst
    thou ever see me do such a trick?

    [Enter PROTEUS and JULIA]

PROTEUS    Sebastian is thy name? I like thee well
    And will employ thee in some service presently.

JULIA    In what you please: I'll do what I can.

PROTEUS    I hope thou wilt.

    [To LAUNCE]

    How now, you whoreson peasant!
    Where have you been these two days loitering?

LAUNCE    Marry, sir, I carried Mistress Silvia the dog you bade me.

PROTEUS    And what says she to my little jewel?

LAUNCE    Marry, she says your dog was a cur, and tells you
    currish thanks is good enough for such a present.

PROTEUS    But she received my dog?

LAUNCE    No, indeed, did she not: here have I brought him
    back again.

PROTEUS    What, didst thou offer her this from me?

LAUNCE    Ay, sir: the other squirrel was stolen from me by
    the hangman boys in the market-place: and then I
    offered her mine own, who is a dog as big as ten of
    yours, and therefore the gift the greater.

PROTEUS    Go get thee hence, and find my dog again,
    Or ne'er return again into my sight.
    Away, I say! stay'st thou to vex me here?

    [Exit LAUNCE]

    A slave, that still an end turns me to shame!
    Sebastian, I have entertained thee,
    Partly that I have need of such a youth
    That can with some discretion do my business,
    For 'tis no trusting to yond foolish lout,
    But chiefly for thy face and thy behavior,
    Which, if my augury deceive me not,
    Witness good bringing up, fortune and truth:
    Therefore know thou, for this I entertain thee.
    Go presently and take this ring with thee,
    Deliver it to Madam Silvia:
    She loved me well deliver'd it to me.

JULIA    It seems you loved not her, to leave her token.
    She is dead, belike?

PROTEUS    Not so; I think she lives.

JULIA    Alas!

PROTEUS    Why dost thou cry 'alas'?

JULIA    I cannot choose
    But pity her.

PROTEUS                      Wherefore shouldst thou pity her?

JULIA    Because methinks that she loved you as well
    As you do love your lady Silvia:
    She dreams of him that has forgot her love;
    You dote on her that cares not for your love.
    'Tis pity love should be so contrary;
    And thinking of it makes me cry 'alas!'

PROTEUS    Well, give her that ring and therewithal
    This letter. That's her chamber. Tell my lady
    I claim the promise for her heavenly picture.
    Your message done, hie home unto my chamber,
    Where thou shalt find me, sad and solitary.

    [Exit]

JULIA    How many women would do such a message?
    Alas, poor Proteus! thou hast entertain'd
    A fox to be the shepherd of thy lambs.
    Alas, poor fool! why do I pity him
    That with his very heart despiseth me?
    Because he loves her, he despiseth me;
    Because I love him I must pity him.
    This ring I gave him when he parted from me,
    To bind him to remember my good will;
    And now am I, unhappy messenger,
    To plead for that which I would not obtain,
    To carry that which I would have refused,
    To praise his faith which I would have dispraised.
    I am my master's true-confirmed love;
    But cannot be true servant to my master,
    Unless I prove false traitor to myself.
    Yet will I woo for him, but yet so coldly
    As, heaven it knows, I would not have him speed.

    [Enter SILVIA, attended]

    Gentlewoman, good day! I pray you, be my mean
    To bring me where to speak with Madam Silvia.

SILVIA    What would you with her, if that I be she?

JULIA    If you be she, I do entreat your patience
    To hear me speak the message I am sent on.

SILVIA    From whom?

JULIA    From my master, Sir Proteus, madam.

SILVIA    O, he sends you for a picture.

JULIA    Ay, madam.

SILVIA    Ursula, bring my picture here.
    Go give your master this: tell him from me,
    One Julia, that his changing thoughts forget,
    Would better fit his chamber than this shadow.

JULIA    Madam, please you peruse this letter.--
    Pardon me, madam; I have unadvised
    Deliver'd you a paper that I should not:
    This is the letter to your ladyship.

SILVIA    I pray thee, let me look on that again.

JULIA    It may not be; good madam, pardon me.

SILVIA    There, hold!
    I will not look upon your master's lines:
    I know they are stuff'd with protestations
    And full of new-found oaths; which he will break
    As easily as I do tear his paper.

JULIA    Madam, he sends your ladyship this ring.

SILVIA    The more shame for him that he sends it me;
    For I have heard him say a thousand times
    His Julia gave it him at his departure.
    Though his false finger have profaned the ring,
    Mine shall not do his Julia so much wrong.

JULIA    She thanks you.

SILVIA    What say'st thou?

JULIA    I thank you, madam, that you tender her.
    Poor gentlewoman! my master wrongs her much.

SILVIA    Dost thou know her?

JULIA    Almost as well as I do know myself:
    To think upon her woes I do protest
    That I have wept a hundred several times.

SILVIA    Belike she thinks that Proteus hath forsook her.

JULIA    I think she doth; and that's her cause of sorrow.

SILVIA    Is she not passing fair?

JULIA    She hath been fairer, madam, than she is:
    When she did think my master loved her well,
    She, in my judgment, was as fair as you:
    But since she did neglect her looking-glass
    And threw her sun-expelling mask away,
    The air hath starved the roses in her cheeks
    And pinch'd the lily-tincture of her face,
    That now she is become as black as I.

SILVIA    How tall was she?

JULIA    About my stature; for at Pentecost,
    When all our pageants of delight were play'd,
    Our youth got me to play the woman's part,
    And I was trimm'd in Madam Julia's gown,
    Which served me as fit, by all men's judgments,
    As if the garment had been made for me:
    Therefore I know she is about my height.
    And at that time I made her weep agood,
    For I did play a lamentable part:
    Madam, 'twas Ariadne passioning
    For Theseus' perjury and unjust flight;
    Which I so lively acted with my tears
    That my poor mistress, moved therewithal,
    Wept bitterly; and would I might be dead
    If I in thought felt not her very sorrow!

SILVIA    She is beholding to thee, gentle youth.
    Alas, poor lady, desolate and left!
    I weep myself to think upon thy words.
    Here, youth, there is my purse; I give thee this
    For thy sweet mistress' sake, because thou lovest her.
    Farewell.

    [Exit SILVIA, with attendants]

JULIA    And she shall thank you for't, if e'er you know her.
    A virtuous gentlewoman, mild and beautiful
    I hope my master's suit will be but cold,
    Since she respects my mistress' love so much.
    Alas, how love can trifle with itself!
    Here is her picture: let me see; I think,
    If I had such a tire, this face of mine
    Were full as lovely as is this of hers:
    And yet the painter flatter'd her a little,
    Unless I flatter with myself too much.
    Her hair is auburn, mine is perfect yellow:
    If that be all the difference in his love,
    I'll get me such a colour'd periwig.
    Her eyes are grey as glass, and so are mine:
    Ay, but her forehead's low, and mine's as high.
    What should it be that he respects in her
    But I can make respective in myself,
    If this fond Love were not a blinded god?
    Come, shadow, come and take this shadow up,
    For 'tis thy rival. O thou senseless form,
    Thou shalt be worshipp'd, kiss'd, loved and adored!
    And, were there sense in his idolatry,
    My substance should be statue in thy stead.
    I'll use thee kindly for thy mistress' sake,
    That used me so; or else, by Jove I vow,
    I should have scratch'd out your unseeing eyes
    To make my master out of love with thee!

    [Exit]




    THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA


ACT V



SCENE I    Milan. An abbey.


    [Enter EGLAMOUR]

EGLAMOUR    The sun begins to gild the western sky;
    And now it is about the very hour
    That Silvia, at Friar Patrick's cell, should meet me.
    She will not fail, for lovers break not hours,
    Unless it be to come before their time;
    So much they spur their expedition.
    See where she comes.

    [Enter SILVIA]

        Lady, a happy evening!

SILVIA    Amen, amen! Go on, good Eglamour,
    Out at the postern by the abbey-wall:
    I fear I am attended by some spies.

EGLAMOUR    Fear not: the forest is not three leagues off;
    If we recover that, we are sure enough.

    [Exeunt]




    THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA


ACT V



SCENE II    The same. The DUKE's palace.


    [Enter THURIO, PROTEUS, and JULIA]

THURIO    Sir Proteus, what says Silvia to my suit?

PROTEUS    O, sir, I find her milder than she was;
    And yet she takes exceptions at your person.

THURIO    What, that my leg is too long?

PROTEUS    No; that it is too little.

THURIO    I'll wear a boot, to make it somewhat rounder.

JULIA    [Aside]  But love will not be spurr'd to what
    it loathes.

THURIO    What says she to my face?

PROTEUS    She says it is a fair one.

THURIO    Nay then, the wanton lies; my face is black.

PROTEUS    But pearls are fair; and the old saying is,
    Black men are pearls in beauteous ladies' eyes.

JULIA    [Aside]  'Tis true; such pearls as put out
    ladies' eyes;
    For I had rather wink than look on them.

THURIO    How likes she my discourse?

PROTEUS    Ill, when you talk of war.

THURIO    But well, when I discourse of love and peace?

JULIA    [Aside]  But better, indeed, when you hold your peace.

THURIO    What says she to my valour?

PROTEUS    O, sir, she makes no doubt of that.

JULIA    [Aside]  She needs not, when she knows it cowardice.

THURIO    What says she to my birth?

PROTEUS    That you are well derived.

JULIA    [Aside]  True; from a gentleman to a fool.

THURIO    Considers she my possessions?

PROTEUS    O, ay; and pities them.

THURIO    Wherefore?

JULIA    [Aside]  That such an ass should owe them.

PROTEUS    That they are out by lease.

JULIA    Here comes the duke.

    [Enter DUKE]

DUKE    How now, Sir Proteus! how now, Thurio!
    Which of you saw Sir Eglamour of late?

THURIO    Not I.

PROTEUS         Nor I.

DUKE              Saw you my daughter?

PROTEUS    Neither.

DUKE    Why then,
    She's fled unto that peasant Valentine;
    And Eglamour is in her company.
    'Tis true; for Friar Laurence met them both,
    As he in penance wander'd through the forest;
    Him he knew well, and guess'd that it was she,
    But, being mask'd, he was not sure of it;
    Besides, she did intend confession
    At Patrick's cell this even; and there she was not;
    These likelihoods confirm her flight from hence.
    Therefore, I pray you, stand not to discourse,
    But mount you presently and meet with me
    Upon the rising of the mountain-foot
    That leads towards Mantua, whither they are fled:
    Dispatch, sweet gentlemen, and follow me.

    [Exit]

THURIO    Why, this it is to be a peevish girl,
    That flies her fortune when it follows her.
    I'll after, more to be revenged on Eglamour
    Than for the love of reckless Silvia.

    [Exit]

PROTEUS    And I will follow, more for Silvia's love
    Than hate of Eglamour that goes with her.

    [Exit]

JULIA    And I will follow, more to cross that love
    Than hate for Silvia that is gone for love.

    [Exit]




    THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA


ACT V



SCENE III    The frontiers of Mantua. The forest.


    [Enter Outlaws with SILVIA]

First Outlaw    Come, come,
    Be patient; we must bring you to our captain.

SILVIA    A thousand more mischances than this one
    Have learn'd me how to brook this patiently.

Second Outlaw    Come, bring her away.

First Outlaw    Where is the gentleman that was with her?

Third Outlaw    Being nimble-footed, he hath outrun us,
    But Moyses and Valerius follow him.
    Go thou with her to the west end of the wood;
    There is our captain: we'll follow him that's fled;
    The thicket is beset; he cannot 'scape.

First Outlaw    Come, I must bring you to our captain's cave:
    Fear not; he bears an honourable mind,
    And will not use a woman lawlessly.

SILVIA    O Valentine, this I endure for thee!

    [Exeunt]




    THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA


ACT V



SCENE IV    Another part of the forest.


    [Enter VALENTINE]

VALENTINE    How use doth breed a habit in a man!
    This shadowy desert, unfrequented woods,
    I better brook than flourishing peopled towns:
    Here can I sit alone, unseen of any,
    And to the nightingale's complaining notes
    Tune my distresses and record my woes.
    O thou that dost inhabit in my breast,
    Leave not the mansion so long tenantless,
    Lest, growing ruinous, the building fall
    And leave no memory of what it was!
    Repair me with thy presence, Silvia;
    Thou gentle nymph, cherish thy forlorn swain!
    What halloing and what stir is this to-day?
    These are my mates, that make their wills their law,
    Have some unhappy passenger in chase.
    They love me well; yet I have much to do
    To keep them from uncivil outrages.
    Withdraw thee, Valentine: who's this comes here?

    [Enter PROTEUS, SILVIA, and JULIA]

PROTEUS    Madam, this service I have done for you,
    Though you respect not aught your servant doth,
    To hazard life and rescue you from him
    That would have forced your honour and your love;
    Vouchsafe me, for my meed, but one fair look;
    A smaller boon than this I cannot beg
    And less than this, I am sure, you cannot give.

VALENTINE    [Aside]  How like a dream is this I see and hear!
    Love, lend me patience to forbear awhile.

SILVIA    O miserable, unhappy that I am!

PROTEUS    Unhappy were you, madam, ere I came;
    But by my coming I have made you happy.

SILVIA    By thy approach thou makest me most unhappy.

JULIA    [Aside]  And me, when he approacheth to your presence.

SILVIA    Had I been seized by a hungry lion,
    I would have been a breakfast to the beast,
    Rather than have false Proteus rescue me.
    O, Heaven be judge how I love Valentine,
    Whose life's as tender to me as my soul!
    And full as much, for more there cannot be,
    I do detest false perjured Proteus.
    Therefore be gone; solicit me no more.

PROTEUS    What dangerous action, stood it next to death,
    Would I not undergo for one calm look!
    O, 'tis the curse in love, and still approved,
    When women cannot love where they're beloved!

SILVIA    When Proteus cannot love where he's beloved.
    Read over Julia's heart, thy first best love,
    For whose dear sake thou didst then rend thy faith
    Into a thousand oaths; and all those oaths
    Descended into perjury, to love me.
    Thou hast no faith left now, unless thou'dst two;
    And that's far worse than none; better have none
    Than plural faith which is too much by one:
    Thou counterfeit to thy true friend!

PROTEUS    In love
    Who respects friend?

SILVIA    All men but Proteus.

PROTEUS    Nay, if the gentle spirit of moving words
    Can no way change you to a milder form,
    I'll woo you like a soldier, at arms' end,
    And love you 'gainst the nature of love,--force ye.

SILVIA    O heaven!

PROTEUS            I'll force thee yield to my desire.

VALENTINE    Ruffian, let go that rude uncivil touch,
    Thou friend of an ill fashion!

PROTEUS    Valentine!

VALENTINE    Thou common friend, that's without faith or love,
    For such is a friend now; treacherous man!
    Thou hast beguiled my hopes; nought but mine eye
    Could have persuaded me: now I dare not say
    I have one friend alive; thou wouldst disprove me.
    Who should be trusted, when one's own right hand
    Is perjured to the bosom? Proteus,
    I am sorry I must never trust thee more,
    But count the world a stranger for thy sake.
    The private wound is deepest: O time most accurst,
    'Mongst all foes that a friend should be the worst!

PROTEUS    My shame and guilt confounds me.
    Forgive me, Valentine: if hearty sorrow
    Be a sufficient ransom for offence,
    I tender 't here; I do as truly suffer
    As e'er I did commit.

VALENTINE    Then I am paid;
    And once again I do receive thee honest.
    Who by repentance is not satisfied
    Is nor of heaven nor earth, for these are pleased.
    By penitence the Eternal's wrath's appeased:
    And, that my love may appear plain and free,
    All that was mine in Silvia I give thee.

JULIA    O me unhappy!

    [Swoons]

PROTEUS    Look to the boy.

VALENTINE    Why, boy! why, wag! how now! what's the matter?
    Look up; speak.

JULIA    O good sir, my master charged me to deliver a ring
    to Madam Silvia, which, out of my neglect, was never done.

PROTEUS    Where is that ring, boy?

JULIA    Here 'tis; this is it.

PROTEUS    How! let me see:
    Why, this is the ring I gave to Julia.

JULIA    O, cry you mercy, sir, I have mistook:
    This is the ring you sent to Silvia.

PROTEUS    But how camest thou by this ring? At my depart
    I gave this unto Julia.

JULIA    And Julia herself did give it me;
    And Julia herself hath brought it hither.

PROTEUS    How! Julia!

JULIA    Behold her that gave aim to all thy oaths,
    And entertain'd 'em deeply in her heart.
    How oft hast thou with perjury cleft the root!
    O Proteus, let this habit make thee blush!
    Be thou ashamed that I have took upon me
    Such an immodest raiment, if shame live
    In a disguise of love:
    It is the lesser blot, modesty finds,
    Women to change their shapes than men their minds.

PROTEUS    Than men their minds! 'tis true.
    O heaven! were man
    But constant, he were perfect. That one error
    Fills him with faults; makes him run through all the sins:
    Inconstancy falls off ere it begins.
    What is in Silvia's face, but I may spy
    More fresh in Julia's with a constant eye?

VALENTINE    Come, come, a hand from either:
    Let me be blest to make this happy close;
    'Twere pity two such friends should be long foes.

PROTEUS    Bear witness, Heaven, I have my wish for ever.

JULIA    And I mine.

    [Enter Outlaws, with DUKE and THURIO]

Outlaws    A prize, a prize, a prize!

VALENTINE    Forbear, forbear, I say! it is my lord the duke.
    Your grace is welcome to a man disgraced,
    Banished Valentine.

DUKE    Sir Valentine!

THURIO    Yonder is Silvia; and Silvia's mine.

VALENTINE    Thurio, give back, or else embrace thy death;
    Come not within the measure of my wrath;
    Do not name Silvia thine; if once again,
    Verona shall not hold thee. Here she stands;
    Take but possession of her with a touch:
    I dare thee but to breathe upon my love.

THURIO    Sir Valentine, I care not for her, I;
    I hold him but a fool that will endanger
    His body for a girl that loves him not:
    I claim her not, and therefore she is thine.

DUKE    The more degenerate and base art thou,
    To make such means for her as thou hast done
    And leave her on such slight conditions.
    Now, by the honour of my ancestry,
    I do applaud thy spirit, Valentine,
    And think thee worthy of an empress' love:
    Know then, I here forget all former griefs,
    Cancel all grudge, repeal thee home again,
    Plead a new state in thy unrivall'd merit,
    To which I thus subscribe: Sir Valentine,
    Thou art a gentleman and well derived;
    Take thou thy Silvia, for thou hast deserved her.

VALENTINE    I thank your grace; the gift hath made me happy.
    I now beseech you, for your daughter's sake,
    To grant one boom that I shall ask of you.

DUKE    I grant it, for thine own, whate'er it be.

VALENTINE    These banish'd men that I have kept withal
    Are men endued with worthy qualities:
    Forgive them what they have committed here
    And let them be recall'd from their exile:
    They are reformed, civil, full of good
    And fit for great employment, worthy lord.

DUKE    Thou hast prevail'd; I pardon them and thee:
    Dispose of them as thou know'st their deserts.
    Come, let us go: we will include all jars
    With triumphs, mirth and rare solemnity.

VALENTINE    And, as we walk along, I dare be bold
    With our discourse to make your grace to smile.
    What think you of this page, my lord?

DUKE    I think the boy hath grace in him; he blushes.

VALENTINE    I warrant you, my lord, more grace than boy.

DUKE    What mean you by that saying?

VALENTINE    Please you, I'll tell you as we pass along,
    That you will wonder what hath fortuned.
    Come, Proteus; 'tis your penance but to hear
    The story of your loves discovered:
    That done, our day of marriage shall be yours;
    One feast, one house, one mutual happiness.

    [Exeunt]