Val. As you enjoin’d me, I have writ your letter
Unto the secret nameless friend of yours;
95 Which I was much unwilling to proceed in,
But for my duty to your ladyship.
Sil. I thank you, gentle servant: ’tis very clerkly done.
Val. Now trust me, madam, it came hardly off;
For, being ignorant to whom it goes,
II. 1.
100
I writ at random, very doubtfully.
Sil. Perchance you think too much of so much pains?
Val. No, madam; so it stead you, I will write,
Please you command, a thousand times as much;
And yet—
105 Sil. 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.’
110 Val. What means your ladyship? do you not like it?
Sil. Yes, yes: the lines are very quaintly writ;
But since unwillingly, take them again.
Nay, take them.
Val. Madam, they are for you.
115 Sil. 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.
Val. Please you, I’ll write your ladyship another.
Sil. And when it’s writ, for my sake read it over,
120 And if it please you, so; if not, why, so.
Val. If it please me, madam, what then?
Sil. Why, if it please you, take it for your labour:
And so, good morrow, servant. Exit.
Speed. O jest unseen, inscrutable, invisible,
II. 1.
125
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?
130 Val. How now, sir? what are you reasoning with yourself?
Speed. Nay. I was rhyming: ’tis you that have the reason.
Val. To do what?
135 Speed. To be a spokesman for Madam Silvia.
Val. To whom?
Speed. To yourself: why, she wooes you by a figure.
Val. What figure?
Speed. By a letter, I should say.
140 Val. 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?
Val. No, believe me.
Speed. No believing you, indeed, sir. But did you perceive 145 her earnest?
Val. She gave me none, except an angry word.
Speed. Why, she hath given you a letter.
Val. That’s the letter I writ to her friend.
Speed. And that letter hath she delivered, and there
II. 1.
150
an end.
Val. 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;
155 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.
Val. I have dined.
160 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.
II. 2 Scene II. Verona. Julia’s house.
Enter Proteus and Julia.
Pro. Have patience, gentle Julia.
Jul. I must, where is no remedy.
Pro. When possibly I can, I will return.
Jul. If you turn not, you will return the sooner.
5 Keep this remembrance for thy Julia’s sake. Giving a ring.
Pro. Why, then, we’ll make exchange; here, take you this.
Jul. And seal the bargain with a holy kiss.
Pro. Here is my hand for my true constancy;
And when that hour o’erslips me in the day
10 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;
15 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.
Pan. Sir Proteus, you are stay’d for.
20 Pro. Go; I come, I come.
Alas! this parting strikes poor lovers dumb. Exeunt.
II. 3 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
5
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
10
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 shew 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
15
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, sir, 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:
20
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
II. 3.
25
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.
30 Pan. 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 35 the unkindest tied that ever any man tied.
Pan. What’s the unkindest tide?
Launce. Why, he that’s tied here, Crab, my dog.
Pan. Tut, man, I mean thou’lt lose the flood: and, in losing the flood, lose thy voyage, and, in losing thy voyage, 40 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.
Pan. Where should I lose my tongue?
Launce. In thy tale.
45 Pan. 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.
II. 3.
50
Pan. Come, come away, man; I was sent to call thee.
Launce. Sir, call me what thou darest.
Pan. Wilt thou go?
Launce. Well, I will go. Exeunt.
II. 4 Scene IV. Milan. The Duke’s palace.
Enter Silvia, Valentine, Thurio, and Speed.
Sil. Servant!
Val. Mistress?
Speed. Master, Sir Thurio frowns on you.
Val. Ay, boy, it’s for love.
5 Speed. Not of you.
Val. Of my mistress, then.
Speed. ’Twere good you knocked him. Exit.
Sil. Servant, you are sad.
Val. Indeed, madam, I seem so.
10 Thu. Seem you that you are not?
Val. Haply I do.
Thu. So do counterfeits.
Val. So do you.
Thu. What seem I that I am not?
15 Val. Wise.
Thu. What instance of the contrary?
Val. Your folly.
Thu. And how quote you my folly?
Val. I quote it in your jerkin.
20 Thu. My jerkin is a doublet.
Val. Well, then, I’ll double your folly.
Thu. How?
Sil. What, angry, Sir Thurio! do you change colour?
Val. Give him leave, madam; he is a kind of chameleon.
II. 4.
25
Thu. That hath more mind to feed on your blood than live in your
air.
Val. You have said, sir.
Thu. Ay, sir, and done too, for this time.
Val. I know it well, sir; you always end ere you begin.
30 Sil. A fine volley of words, gentlemen, and quickly shot off.
Val. ’Tis indeed, madam; we thank the giver.
Sil. Who is that, servant?
Val. Yourself, sweet lady; for you gave the fire. Sir 35 Thurio borrows his wit from your ladyship’s looks, and spends what he borrows kindly in your company.
Thu. Sir, if you spend word for word with me, I shall make your wit bankrupt.
Val. I know it well, sir; you have an exchequer of 40 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.
Sil. No more, gentlemen, no more:—here comes my father.
Enter Duke.
45 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?
II. 4.
50
Duke. Know ye Don Antonio, your countryman?
Val. 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?
55 Val. Ay, my good lord; a son that well deserves
The honour and regard of such a father.
Duke. You know him well?
Val. I know him as myself; for from our infancy
We have conversed and spent our hours together:
60 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;
65 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
70 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,
II. 4.
75
With commendation from great potentates;
And here he means to spend his time awhile:
I think ’tis no unwelcome news to you.
Val. Should I have wish’d a thing, it had been he.
Duke. Welcome him, then, according to his worth.
80 Silvia, I speak to you, and you, Sir Thurio,
For Valentine, I need not cite him to it:
Val. This is the gentleman I told your ladyship
Had come along with me, but that his mistress
85 Did hold his eyes lock’d in her crystal looks.
Sil. Belike that now she hath enfranchised them,
Upon some other pawn for fealty.
Val. Nay, sure, I think she holds them prisoners still.
Sil. Nay, then, he should be blind; and, being blind,
90 How could he see his way to seek out you?
Val. Why, lady, Love hath twenty pair of eyes.
Thu. They say that Love hath not an eye at all.
Val. To see such lovers, Thurio, as yourself:
Upon a homely object Love can wink.
95 Sil. Have done, have done; here comes the gentleman.
Enter Proteus. Exit Thurio.
Val. Welcome, dear Proteus! Mistress, I beseech you,
Confirm his welcome with some special favour.
Sil. His worth is warrant for his welcome hither,
If this be he you oft have wish’d to hear from.
II. 4.
100
Val. Mistress, it is: sweet lady, entertain him
To be my fellow-servant to your ladyship.
Sil. Too low a mistress for so high a servant.
Pro. Not so, sweet lady: but too mean a servant
To have a look of such a worthy mistress.
105 Val. Leave off discourse of disability:
Sweet lady, entertain him for your servant.
Pro. My duty will I boast of; nothing else.
Sil. And duty never yet did want his meed:
Servant, you are welcome to a worthless mistress.
110 Pro. I’ll die on him that says so but yourself.
Sil. That you are welcome?
Pro.
Re-enter Thurio.
Thu. Madam, my lord your father would speak with you.
Sil. I wait upon his pleasure. Come, Sir Thurio,
Go with me. Once more, new servant, welcome:
115 I’ll leave you to confer of home affairs;
When you have done, we look to hear from you.
Pro. We’ll both attend upon your ladyship.
Val. Now, tell me, how do all from whence you came?
Pro. Your friends are well, and have them much commended.
Val. And how do yours?
120 Pro.
I left them all in health.
Val. How does your lady? and how thrives your love?
Pro. My tales of love were wont to weary you;
I know you joy not in a love-discourse.
Val. Ay, Proteus, but that life is alter’d now:
II. 4.
125
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,
130 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,
135 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.
Pro. Enough; I read your fortune in your eye.
140 Was this the idol that you worship so?
Val. Even she; and is she not a heavenly saint?
Pro. No; but she is an earthly paragon.
Val. Call her divine.
Pro.
I will not flatter her.
Val. O, flatter me; for love delights in praises.
145 Pro. When I was sick, you gave me bitter pills;
And I must minister the like to you.
Val. Then speak the truth by her; if not divine,
Yet let her be a principality,
Sovereign to all the creatures on the earth.
Pro. Except my mistress.
II. 4.
150
Val.
Sweet, except not any;
Except thou wilt except against my love.
Pro. Have I not reason to prefer mine own?
Val. And I will help thee to prefer her too:
She shall be dignified with this high honour,—
155 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.
160 Pro. Why, Valentine, what braggardism is this?
Val. Pardon me, Proteus: all I can is nothing
To her, whose worth makes other worthies nothing;
She is alone.
Pro.
Then let her alone.
Val. Not for the world: why, man, she is mine own;
165 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.
170 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.
Pro. But she loves you?
II. 4.
175
Val. 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.
180 Good Proteus, go with me to my chamber,
In these affairs to aid me with thy counsel.
Pro. Go on before; I shall inquire you forth:
I must unto the road, to disembark
Some necessaries that I needs must use;
185 And then I’ll presently attend you.
Val. Will you make haste?
Pro. I will. Exit Valentine.
Even as one heat another heat expels,
Or as one nail by strength drives out another,
190 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?
195 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,
II. 4.
200
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!
205 ’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 check my erring love, I will;
210 If not, to compass her I’ll use my skill. Exit.
II. 5 Scene V. The same. A street.
Enter Speed and Launce severally.
Speed. Launce! by mine honesty, welcome to Padua!
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 5 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?
10 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?
15 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 20 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?
II. 5.
25
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?
30 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.
35 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.
40 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 himselfin love. If thou wilt, go with me to the alehouse; 45 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?
II. 5.
50
Speed. At thy service.
Exeunt.
II. 6 Scene VI. The same. The Duke’s palace.
Enter Proteus.
Pro. 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,
5 Provokes me to this threefold perjury;
Love bade me swear, and Love bids me forswear.
O sweet-suggesting Love, if thou hast sinn’d,
Teach me, thy tempted subject, to excuse it!
At first I did adore a twinkling star,
10 But now I worship a celestial sun.
Unheedful vows may needfully 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,
15 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:
20 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;
II. 6.
25
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,
30 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;
35 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;
40 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.