<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE PLAY SYSTEM "play.dtd">

<PLAY>
<TITLE>The Two Gentlemen of Verona</TITLE>

<FM>
<P>Text placed in the public domain by Moby Lexical Tools, 1992.</P>
<P>SGML markup by Jon Bosak, 1992-1994.</P>
<P>XML version by Jon Bosak, 1996-1998.</P>
<P>This work may be freely copied and distributed worldwide.</P>
</FM>


<PERSONAE>
<TITLE>Dramatis Personae</TITLE>

<PERSONA>DUKE OF MILAN, Father to Silvia. </PERSONA>

<PGROUP>
<PERSONA>VALENTINE</PERSONA>
<PERSONA>PROTEUS</PERSONA>
<GRPDESCR>the two Gentlemen.</GRPDESCR>
</PGROUP>

<PERSONA>ANTONIO, Father to Proteus.</PERSONA>
<PERSONA>THURIO, a foolish rival to Valentine.</PERSONA>
<PERSONA>EGLAMOUR, Agent for Silvia in her escape.</PERSONA>
<PERSONA>HOST, where Julia lodges. </PERSONA>
<PERSONA>OUTLAWS, with Valentine.</PERSONA>
<PERSONA>SPEED, a clownish servant to Valentine.</PERSONA>
<PERSONA>LAUNCE, the like to Proteus.</PERSONA>
<PERSONA>PANTHINO, Servant to Antonio.</PERSONA>
<PERSONA>JULIA, beloved of Proteus.</PERSONA>
<PERSONA>SILVIA, beloved of Valentine.</PERSONA>
<PERSONA>LUCETTA, waiting-woman to Julia.</PERSONA>
<PERSONA>Servants, Musicians.</PERSONA>
</PERSONAE>

<SCNDESCR>SCENE  Verona; Milan; the frontiers of Mantua.</SCNDESCR>

<PLAYSUBT>THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA</PLAYSUBT>

<ACT><TITLE>ACT I</TITLE>

<SCENE><TITLE>SCENE I.  Verona. An open place.</TITLE>
<STAGEDIR>Enter VALENTINE and PROTEUS</STAGEDIR>

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

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>And on a love-book pray for my success?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Upon some book I love I'll pray for thee.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>That's on some shallow story of deep love:</LINE>
<LINE>How young Leander cross'd the Hellespont.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>That's a deep story of a deeper love:</LINE>
<LINE>For he was more than over shoes in love.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>'Tis true; for you are over boots in love,</LINE>
<LINE>And yet you never swum the Hellespont.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Over the boots? nay, give me not the boots.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>No, I will not, for it boots thee not.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>What?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>So, by your circumstance, you call me fool.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>So, by your circumstance, I fear you'll prove.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>'Tis love you cavil at: I am not Love.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Yet writers say, as in the sweetest bud</LINE>
<LINE>The eating canker dwells, so eating love</LINE>
<LINE>Inhabits in the finest wits of all.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>And thither will I bring thee, Valentine.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>All happiness bechance to thee in Milan!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>As much to you at home! and so, farewell.</LINE>
</SPEECH>


<STAGEDIR>Exit</STAGEDIR>

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


<STAGEDIR>Enter SPEED</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Sir Proteus, save you! Saw you my master?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>But now he parted hence, to embark for Milan.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Twenty to one then he is shipp'd already,</LINE>
<LINE>And I have play'd the sheep in losing him.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Indeed, a sheep doth very often stray,</LINE>
<LINE>An if the shepherd be a while away.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>You conclude that my master is a shepherd, then,</LINE>
<LINE>and I a sheep?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I do.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Why then, my horns are his horns, whether I wake or sleep.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>A silly answer and fitting well a sheep.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>This proves me still a sheep.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>True; and thy master a shepherd.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Nay, that I can deny by a circumstance.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>It shall go hard but I'll prove it by another.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>The shepherd seeks the sheep, and not the sheep the</LINE>
<LINE>shepherd; but I seek my master, and my master seeks</LINE>
<LINE>not me: therefore I am no sheep.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>The sheep for fodder follow the shepherd; the</LINE>
<LINE>shepherd for food follows not the sheep: thou for</LINE>
<LINE>wages followest thy master; thy master for wages</LINE>
<LINE>follows not thee: therefore thou art a sheep.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Such another proof will make me cry 'baa.'</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>But, dost thou hear? gavest thou my letter to Julia?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Ay sir: I, a lost mutton, gave your letter to her,</LINE>
<LINE>a laced mutton, and she, a laced mutton, gave me, a</LINE>
<LINE>lost mutton, nothing for my labour.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Here's too small a pasture for such store of muttons.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>If the ground be overcharged, you were best stick her.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Nay: in that you are astray, 'twere best pound you.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Nay, sir, less than a pound shall serve me for</LINE>
<LINE>carrying your letter.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>You mistake; I mean the pound,--a pinfold.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>From a pound to a pin? fold it over and over,</LINE>
<LINE>'Tis threefold too little for carrying a letter to</LINE>
<LINE>your lover.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>But what said she?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE><STAGEDIR>First nodding</STAGEDIR>  Ay.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Nod--Ay--why, that's noddy.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>You mistook, sir; I say, she did nod: and you ask</LINE>
<LINE>me if she did nod; and I say, 'Ay.'</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>And that set together is noddy.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Now you have taken the pains to set it together,</LINE>
<LINE>take it for your pains.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>No, no; you shall have it for bearing the letter.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Well, I perceive I must be fain to bear with you.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Why sir, how do you bear with me?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Marry, sir, the letter, very orderly; having nothing</LINE>
<LINE>but the word 'noddy' for my pains.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Beshrew me, but you have a quick wit.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>And yet it cannot overtake your slow purse.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Come come, open the matter in brief: what said she?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Open your purse, that the money and the matter may</LINE>
<LINE>be both at once delivered.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Well, sir, here is for your pains. What said she?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Truly, sir, I think you'll hardly win her.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Why, couldst thou perceive so much from her?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>What said she? nothing?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Go, go, be gone, to save your ship from wreck,</LINE>
<LINE>Which cannot perish having thee aboard,</LINE>
<LINE>Being destined to a drier death on shore.</LINE>
<STAGEDIR>Exit SPEED</STAGEDIR>
<LINE>I must go send some better messenger:</LINE>
<LINE>I fear my Julia would not deign my lines,</LINE>
<LINE>Receiving them from such a worthless post.</LINE>
</SPEECH>


<STAGEDIR>Exit</STAGEDIR>
</SCENE>

<SCENE><TITLE>SCENE II.  The same. Garden of JULIA's house.</TITLE>
<STAGEDIR>Enter JULlA and LUCETTA</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>But say, Lucetta, now we are alone,</LINE>
<LINE>Wouldst thou then counsel me to fall in love?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LUCETTA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Ay, madam, so you stumble not unheedfully.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LUCETTA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Please you repeat their names, I'll show my mind</LINE>
<LINE>According to my shallow simple skill.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>What think'st thou of the fair Sir Eglamour?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LUCETTA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>As of a knight well-spoken, neat and fine;</LINE>
<LINE>But, were I you, he never should be mine.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>What think'st thou of the rich Mercatio?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LUCETTA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Well of his wealth; but of himself, so so.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>What think'st thou of the gentle Proteus?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LUCETTA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Lord, Lord! to see what folly reigns in us!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>How now! what means this passion at his name?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Why not on Proteus, as of all the rest?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LUCETTA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Then thus: of many good I think him best.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Your reason?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LUCETTA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I have no other, but a woman's reason;</LINE>
<LINE>I think him so because I think him so.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>And wouldst thou have me cast my love on him?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LUCETTA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Ay, if you thought your love not cast away.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Why he, of all the rest, hath never moved me.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LUCETTA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Yet he, of all the rest, I think, best loves ye.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>His little speaking shows his love but small.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LUCETTA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Fire that's closest kept burns most of all.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>They do not love that do not show their love.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LUCETTA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>O, they love least that let men know their love.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I would I knew his mind.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LUCETTA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Peruse this paper, madam.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>'To Julia.' Say, from whom?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LUCETTA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>That the contents will show.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Say, say, who gave it thee?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LUCETTA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>To plead for love deserves more fee than hate.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Will ye be gone?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LUCETTA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>That you may ruminate.</LINE>
</SPEECH>


<STAGEDIR>Exit</STAGEDIR>

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


<STAGEDIR>Re-enter LUCETTA</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LUCETTA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>What would your ladyship?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Is't near dinner-time?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LUCETTA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I would it were,</LINE>
<LINE>That you might kill your stomach on your meat</LINE>
<LINE>And not upon your maid.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>What is't that you took up so gingerly?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LUCETTA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Nothing.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Why didst thou stoop, then?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LUCETTA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>To take a paper up that I let fall.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>And is that paper nothing?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LUCETTA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Nothing concerning me.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Then let it lie for those that it concerns.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LUCETTA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Madam, it will not lie where it concerns</LINE>
<LINE>Unless it have a false interpeter.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Some love of yours hath writ to you in rhyme.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LUCETTA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>That I might sing it, madam, to a tune.</LINE>
<LINE>Give me a note: your ladyship can set.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>As little by such toys as may be possible.</LINE>
<LINE>Best sing it to the tune of 'Light o' love.'</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LUCETTA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>It is too heavy for so light a tune.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Heavy! belike it hath some burden then?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LUCETTA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Ay, and melodious were it, would you sing it.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>And why not you?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LUCETTA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I cannot reach so high.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Let's see your song. How now, minion!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LUCETTA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Keep tune there still, so you will sing it out:</LINE>
<LINE>And yet methinks I do not like this tune.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>You do not?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LUCETTA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>No, madam; it is too sharp.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>You, minion, are too saucy.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>The mean is drown'd with your unruly bass.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LUCETTA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Indeed, I bid the base for Proteus.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>This babble shall not henceforth trouble me.</LINE>
<LINE>Here is a coil with protestation!</LINE>
<STAGEDIR>Tears the letter</STAGEDIR>
<LINE>Go get you gone, and let the papers lie:</LINE>
<LINE>You would be fingering them, to anger me.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LUCETTA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>She makes it strange; but she would be best pleased</LINE>
<LINE>To be so anger'd with another letter.</LINE>
</SPEECH>


<STAGEDIR>Exit</STAGEDIR>

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


<STAGEDIR>Re-enter LUCETTA</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LUCETTA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Madam,</LINE>
<LINE>Dinner is ready, and your father stays.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Well, let us go.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LUCETTA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>What, shall these papers lie like tell-tales here?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>If you respect them, best to take them up.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LUCETTA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Nay, I was taken up for laying them down:</LINE>
<LINE>Yet here they shall not lie, for catching cold.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I see you have a month's mind to them.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LUCETTA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Ay, madam, you may say what sights you see;</LINE>
<LINE>I see things too, although you judge I wink.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Come, come; will't please you go?</LINE>
</SPEECH>


<STAGEDIR>Exeunt</STAGEDIR>
</SCENE>

<SCENE><TITLE>SCENE III.  The same. ANTONIO's house.</TITLE>
<STAGEDIR>Enter ANTONIO and PANTHINO</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ANTONIO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Tell me, Panthino, what sad talk was that</LINE>
<LINE>Wherewith my brother held you in the cloister?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PANTHINO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>'Twas of his nephew Proteus, your son.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ANTONIO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Why, what of him?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PANTHINO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I think your lordship is not ignorant</LINE>
<LINE>How his companion, youthful Valentine,</LINE>
<LINE>Attends the emperor in his royal court.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ANTONIO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I know it well.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

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

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ANTONIO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Good company; with them shall Proteus go:</LINE>
<LINE>And, in good time! now will we break with him.</LINE>
</SPEECH>


<STAGEDIR>Enter PROTEUS</STAGEDIR>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ANTONIO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>How now! what letter are you reading there?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ANTONIO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Lend me the letter; let me see what news.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>ANTONIO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>And how stand you affected to his wish?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>As one relying on your lordship's will</LINE>
<LINE>And not depending on his friendly wish.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>My lord, I cannot be so soon provided:</LINE>
<LINE>Please you, deliberate a day or two.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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


<STAGEDIR>Exeunt ANTONIO and PANTHINO</STAGEDIR>

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


<STAGEDIR>Re-enter PANTHINO</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PANTHINO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Sir Proteus, your father calls for you:</LINE>
<LINE>He is in haste; therefore, I pray you to go.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Why, this it is: my heart accords thereto,</LINE>
<LINE>And yet a thousand times it answers 'no.'</LINE>
</SPEECH>


<STAGEDIR>Exeunt</STAGEDIR>
</SCENE>

</ACT>

<ACT><TITLE>ACT II</TITLE>

<SCENE><TITLE>SCENE I.  Milan. The DUKE's palace.</TITLE>
<STAGEDIR>Enter VALENTINE and SPEED</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Sir, your glove.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Not mine; my gloves are on.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Why, then, this may be yours, for this is but one.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Ha! let me see: ay, give it me, it's mine:</LINE>
<LINE>Sweet ornament that decks a thing divine!</LINE>
<LINE>Ah, Silvia, Silvia!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Madam Silvia! Madam Silvia!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>How now, sirrah?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>She is not within hearing, sir.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Why, sir, who bade you call her?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Your worship, sir; or else I mistook.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Well, you'll still be too forward.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>And yet I was last chidden for being too slow.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Go to, sir: tell me, do you know Madam Silvia?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>She that your worship loves?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Why, how know you that I am in love?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Are all these things perceived in me?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>They are all perceived without ye.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Without me? they cannot.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>But tell me, dost thou know my lady Silvia?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>She that you gaze on so as she sits at supper?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Hast thou observed that? even she, I mean.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Why, sir, I know her not.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Dost thou know her by my gazing on her, and yet</LINE>
<LINE>knowest her not?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Is she not hard-favoured, sir?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Not so fair, boy, as well-favoured.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Sir, I know that well enough.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>What dost thou know?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>That she is not so fair as, of you, well-favoured.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I mean that her beauty is exquisite, but her favour infinite.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>That's because the one is painted and the other out</LINE>
<LINE>of all count.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>How painted? and how out of count?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Marry, sir, so painted, to make her fair, that no</LINE>
<LINE>man counts of her beauty.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>How esteemest thou me? I account of her beauty.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>You never saw her since she was deformed.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>How long hath she been deformed?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Ever since you loved her.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I have loved her ever since I saw her; and still I</LINE>
<LINE>see her beautiful.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>If you love her, you cannot see her.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Why?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>What should I see then?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Belike, boy, then, you are in love; for last</LINE>
<LINE>morning you could not see to wipe my shoes.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>In conclusion, I stand affected to her.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I would you were set, so your affection would cease.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Last night she enjoined me to write some lines to</LINE>
<LINE>one she loves.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>And have you?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I have.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Are they not lamely writ?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>No, boy, but as well as I can do them. Peace!</LINE>
<LINE>here she comes.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE><STAGEDIR>Aside</STAGEDIR>  O excellent motion! O exceeding puppet!</LINE>
<LINE>Now will he interpret to her.</LINE>
</SPEECH>


<STAGEDIR>Enter SILVIA</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Madam and mistress, a thousand good-morrows.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE><STAGEDIR>Aside</STAGEDIR>  O, give ye good even! here's a million of manners.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SILVIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Sir Valentine and servant, to you two thousand.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE><STAGEDIR>Aside</STAGEDIR>  He should give her interest and she gives it him.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>As you enjoin'd me, I have writ your letter</LINE>
<LINE>Unto the secret nameless friend of yours;</LINE>
<LINE>Which I was much unwilling to proceed in</LINE>
<LINE>But for my duty to your ladyship.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SILVIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I thank you gentle servant: 'tis very clerkly done.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SILVIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Perchance you think too much of so much pains?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>No, madam; so it stead you, I will write</LINE>
<LINE>Please you command, a thousand times as much; And yet--</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE><STAGEDIR>Aside</STAGEDIR>  And yet you will; and yet another 'yet.'</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>What means your ladyship? do you not like it?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SILVIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Yes, yes; the lines are very quaintly writ;</LINE>
<LINE>But since unwillingly, take them again.</LINE>
<LINE>Nay, take them.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Madam, they are for you.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Please you, I'll write your ladyship another.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SILVIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>And when it's writ, for my sake read it over,</LINE>
<LINE>And if it please you, so; if not, why, so.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>If it please me, madam, what then?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SILVIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Why, if it please you, take it for your labour:</LINE>
<LINE>And so, good morrow, servant.</LINE>
</SPEECH>


<STAGEDIR>Exit</STAGEDIR>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>How now, sir? what are you reasoning with yourself?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Nay, I was rhyming: 'tis you that have the reason.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>To do what?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>To be a spokesman for Madam Silvia.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>To whom?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>To yourself: why, she wooes you by a figure.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>What figure?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>By a letter, I should say.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Why, she hath not writ to me?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>What need she, when she hath made you write to</LINE>
<LINE>yourself? Why, do you not perceive the jest?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>No, believe me.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>No believing you, indeed, sir. But did you perceive</LINE>
<LINE>her earnest?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>She gave me none, except an angry word.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Why, she hath given you a letter.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>That's the letter I writ to her friend.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>And that letter hath she delivered, and there an end.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I would it were no worse.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I have dined.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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


<STAGEDIR>Exeunt</STAGEDIR>
</SCENE>

<SCENE><TITLE>SCENE II.  Verona. JULIA'S house.</TITLE>
<STAGEDIR>Enter PROTEUS and JULIA</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Have patience, gentle Julia.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I must, where is no remedy.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>When possibly I can, I will return.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>If you turn not, you will return the sooner.</LINE>
<LINE>Keep this remembrance for thy Julia's sake.</LINE>
</SPEECH>


<STAGEDIR>Giving a ring</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Why then, we'll make exchange; here, take you this.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>And seal the bargain with a holy kiss.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Here is my hand for my true constancy;</LINE>
<LINE>And when that hour o'erslips me in the day</LINE>
<LINE>Wherein I sigh not, Julia, for thy sake,</LINE>
<LINE>The next ensuing hour some foul mischance</LINE>
<LINE>Torment me for my love's forgetfulness!</LINE>
<LINE>My father stays my coming; answer not;</LINE>
<LINE>The tide is now: nay, not thy tide of tears;</LINE>
<LINE>That tide will stay me longer than I should.</LINE>
<LINE>Julia, farewell!</LINE>
<STAGEDIR>Exit JULIA</STAGEDIR>
<LINE>What, gone without a word?</LINE>
<LINE>Ay, so true love should do: it cannot speak;</LINE>
<LINE>For truth hath better deeds than words to grace it.</LINE>
</SPEECH>


<STAGEDIR>Enter PANTHINO</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PANTHINO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Sir Proteus, you are stay'd for.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Go; I come, I come.</LINE>
<LINE>Alas! this parting strikes poor lovers dumb.</LINE>
</SPEECH>


<STAGEDIR>Exeunt</STAGEDIR>
</SCENE>

<SCENE><TITLE>SCENE III.  The same. A street.</TITLE>
<STAGEDIR>Enter LAUNCE, leading a dog</STAGEDIR>

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


<STAGEDIR>Enter PANTHINO</STAGEDIR>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LAUNCE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>It is no matter if the tied were lost; for it is the</LINE>
<LINE>unkindest tied that ever any man tied.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PANTHINO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>What's the unkindest tide?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LAUNCE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Why, he that's tied here, Crab, my dog.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LAUNCE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>For fear thou shouldst lose thy tongue.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PANTHINO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Where should I lose my tongue?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LAUNCE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>In thy tale.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PANTHINO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>In thy tail!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PANTHINO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Come, come away, man; I was sent to call thee.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LAUNCE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Sir, call me what thou darest.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PANTHINO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Wilt thou go?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LAUNCE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Well, I will go.</LINE>
</SPEECH>


<STAGEDIR>Exeunt</STAGEDIR>
</SCENE>

<SCENE><TITLE>SCENE IV.  Milan. The DUKE's palace.</TITLE>
<STAGEDIR>Enter SILVIA, VALENTINE, THURIO, and SPEED</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SILVIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Servant!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Mistress?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Master, Sir Thurio frowns on you.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Ay, boy, it's for love.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Not of you.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Of my mistress, then.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>'Twere good you knocked him.</LINE>
</SPEECH>


<STAGEDIR>Exit</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SILVIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Servant, you are sad.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Indeed, madam, I seem so.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>THURIO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Seem you that you are not?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Haply I do.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>THURIO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>So do counterfeits.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>So do you.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>THURIO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>What seem I that I am not?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Wise.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>THURIO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>What instance of the contrary?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Your folly.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>THURIO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>And how quote you my folly?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I quote it in your jerkin.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>THURIO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>My jerkin is a doublet.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Well, then, I'll double your folly.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>THURIO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>How?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SILVIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>What, angry, Sir Thurio! do you change colour?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Give him leave, madam; he is a kind of chameleon.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>THURIO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>That hath more mind to feed on your blood than live</LINE>
<LINE>in your air.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>You have said, sir.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>THURIO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Ay, sir, and done too, for this time.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I know it well, sir; you always end ere you begin.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SILVIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>A fine volley of words, gentlemen, and quickly shot off.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>'Tis indeed, madam; we thank the giver.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SILVIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Who is that, servant?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>THURIO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Sir, if you spend word for word with me, I shall</LINE>
<LINE>make your wit bankrupt.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SILVIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>No more, gentlemen, no more:--here comes my father.</LINE>
</SPEECH>


<STAGEDIR>Enter DUKE</STAGEDIR>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>My lord, I will be thankful.</LINE>
<LINE>To any happy messenger from thence.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUKE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Know ye Don Antonio, your countryman?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUKE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Hath he not a son?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Ay, my good lord; a son that well deserves</LINE>
<LINE>The honour and regard of such a father.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUKE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>You know him well?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Should I have wish'd a thing, it had been he.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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


<STAGEDIR>Exit</STAGEDIR>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SILVIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Belike that now she hath enfranchised them</LINE>
<LINE>Upon some other pawn for fealty.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Nay, sure, I think she holds them prisoners still.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SILVIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Nay, then he should be blind; and, being blind</LINE>
<LINE>How could he see his way to seek out you?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Why, lady, Love hath twenty pair of eyes.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>THURIO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>They say that Love hath not an eye at all.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>To see such lovers, Thurio, as yourself:</LINE>
<LINE>Upon a homely object Love can wink.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SILVIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Have done, have done; here comes the gentleman.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>Exit THURIO</STAGEDIR>
<STAGEDIR>Enter PROTEUS</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Welcome, dear Proteus! Mistress, I beseech you,</LINE>
<LINE>Confirm his welcome with some special favour.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Mistress, it is: sweet lady, entertain him</LINE>
<LINE>To be my fellow-servant to your ladyship.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SILVIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Too low a mistress for so high a servant.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Not so, sweet lady: but too mean a servant</LINE>
<LINE>To have a look of such a worthy mistress.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Leave off discourse of disability:</LINE>
<LINE>Sweet lady, entertain him for your servant.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>My duty will I boast of; nothing else.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SILVIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>And duty never yet did want his meed:</LINE>
<LINE>Servant, you are welcome to a worthless mistress.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I'll die on him that says so but yourself.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SILVIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>That you are welcome?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>That you are worthless.</LINE>
</SPEECH>


<STAGEDIR>Re-enter THURIO</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>THURIO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Madam, my lord your father would speak with you.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>We'll both attend upon your ladyship.</LINE>
</SPEECH>


<STAGEDIR>Exeunt SILVIA and THURIO</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Now, tell me, how do all from whence you came?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Your friends are well and have them much commended.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>And how do yours?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I left them all in health.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>How does your lady? and how thrives your love?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>My tales of love were wont to weary you;</LINE>
<LINE>I know you joy not in a love discourse.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Enough; I read your fortune in your eye.</LINE>
<LINE>Was this the idol that you worship so?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Even she; and is she not a heavenly saint?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>No; but she is an earthly paragon.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Call her divine.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I will not flatter her.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>O, flatter me; for love delights in praises.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>When I was sick, you gave me bitter pills,</LINE>
<LINE>And I must minister the like to you.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Except my mistress.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Sweet, except not any;</LINE>
<LINE>Except thou wilt except against my love.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Have I not reason to prefer mine own?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Why, Valentine, what braggardism is this?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Pardon me, Proteus: all I can is nothing</LINE>
<LINE>To her whose worth makes other worthies nothing;</LINE>
<LINE>She is alone.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Then let her alone.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>But she loves you?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Will you make haste?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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


<STAGEDIR>Exit</STAGEDIR>
</SCENE>

<SCENE><TITLE>SCENE V.  The same. A street.</TITLE>
<STAGEDIR>Enter SPEED and LAUNCE severally</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Launce! by mine honesty, welcome to Milan!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LAUNCE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Marry, after they closed in earnest, they parted very</LINE>
<LINE>fairly in jest.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>But shall she marry him?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LAUNCE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>No.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>How then? shall he marry her?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LAUNCE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>No, neither.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>What, are they broken?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LAUNCE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>No, they are both as whole as a fish.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Why, then, how stands the matter with them?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LAUNCE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Marry, thus: when it stands well with him, it</LINE>
<LINE>stands well with her.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>What an ass art thou! I understand thee not.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LAUNCE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>What a block art thou, that thou canst not! My</LINE>
<LINE>staff understands me.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>What thou sayest?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LAUNCE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Ay, and what I do too: look thee, I'll but lean,</LINE>
<LINE>and my staff understands me.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>It stands under thee, indeed.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LAUNCE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Why, stand-under and under-stand is all one.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>But tell me true, will't be a match?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LAUNCE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Ask my dog: if he say ay, it will! if he say no,</LINE>
<LINE>it will; if he shake his tail and say nothing, it will.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>The conclusion is then that it will.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LAUNCE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Thou shalt never get such a secret from me but by a parable.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LAUNCE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I never knew him otherwise.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Than how?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LAUNCE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>A notable lubber, as thou reportest him to be.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Why, thou whoreson ass, thou mistakest me.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LAUNCE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Why, fool, I meant not thee; I meant thy master.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I tell thee, my master is become a hot lover.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Why?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LAUNCE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Because thou hast not so much charity in thee as to</LINE>
<LINE>go to the ale with a Christian. Wilt thou go?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>At thy service.</LINE>
</SPEECH>


<STAGEDIR>Exeunt</STAGEDIR>
</SCENE>

<SCENE><TITLE>SCENE VI.  The same. The DUKE'S palace.</TITLE>
<STAGEDIR>Enter PROTEUS</STAGEDIR>

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


<STAGEDIR>Exit</STAGEDIR>
</SCENE>

<SCENE><TITLE>SCENE VII.  Verona. JULIA'S house.</TITLE>
<STAGEDIR>Enter JULIA and LUCETTA</STAGEDIR>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LUCETTA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Alas, the way is wearisome and long!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LUCETTA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Better forbear till Proteus make return.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

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

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LUCETTA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>But in what habit will you go along?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LUCETTA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Why, then, your ladyship must cut your hair.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LUCETTA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>What fashion, madam shall I make your breeches?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LUCETTA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>You must needs have them with a codpiece, madam.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Out, out, Lucetta! that would be ill-favour'd.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LUCETTA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>A round hose, madam, now's not worth a pin,</LINE>
<LINE>Unless you have a codpiece to stick pins on.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LUCETTA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>If you think so, then stay at home and go not.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Nay, that I will not.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LUCETTA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>All these are servants to deceitful men.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LUCETTA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Pray heaven he prove so, when you come to him!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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


<STAGEDIR>Exeunt</STAGEDIR>
</SCENE>

</ACT>

<ACT><TITLE>ACT III</TITLE>

<SCENE><TITLE>SCENE I.  Milan. The DUKE's palace.</TITLE>
<STAGEDIR>Enter DUKE, THURIO, and PROTEUS</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUKE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Sir Thurio, give us leave, I pray, awhile;</LINE>
<LINE>We have some secrets to confer about.</LINE>
<STAGEDIR>Exit THURIO</STAGEDIR>
<LINE>Now, tell me, Proteus, what's your will with me?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

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

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUKE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Upon mine honour, he shall never know</LINE>
<LINE>That I had any light from thee of this.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Adieu, my Lord; Sir Valentine is coming.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>Exit</STAGEDIR>
<STAGEDIR>Enter VALENTINE</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUKE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Sir Valentine, whither away so fast?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUKE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Be they of much import?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>The tenor of them doth but signify</LINE>
<LINE>My health and happy being at your court.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

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

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>What would your Grace have me to do in this?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUKE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>But she did scorn a present that I sent her.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Why, then, I would resort to her by night.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>What lets but one may enter at her window?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUKE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Now, as thou art a gentleman of blood,</LINE>
<LINE>Advise me where I may have such a ladder.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>When would you use it? pray, sir, tell me that.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUKE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>This very night; for Love is like a child,</LINE>
<LINE>That longs for every thing that he can come by.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>By seven o'clock I'll get you such a ladder.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUKE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>But, hark thee; I will go to her alone:</LINE>
<LINE>How shall I best convey the ladder thither?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>It will be light, my lord, that you may bear it</LINE>
<LINE>Under a cloak that is of any length.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUKE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>A cloak as long as thine will serve the turn?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Ay, my good lord.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUKE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Then let me see thy cloak:</LINE>
<LINE>I'll get me one of such another length.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Why, any cloak will serve the turn, my lord.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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


<STAGEDIR>Exit</STAGEDIR>

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


<STAGEDIR>Enter PROTEUS and LAUNCE</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Run, boy, run, run, and seek him out.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LAUNCE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Soho, soho!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>What seest thou?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LAUNCE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Him we go to find: there's not a hair on's head</LINE>
<LINE>but 'tis a Valentine.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Valentine?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>No.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Who then? his spirit?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Neither.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>What then?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Nothing.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LAUNCE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Can nothing speak? Master, shall I strike?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Who wouldst thou strike?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LAUNCE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Nothing.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Villain, forbear.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LAUNCE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Why, sir, I'll strike nothing: I pray you,--</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Sirrah, I say, forbear. Friend Valentine, a word.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>My ears are stopt and cannot hear good news,</LINE>
<LINE>So much of bad already hath possess'd them.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Then in dumb silence will I bury mine,</LINE>
<LINE>For they are harsh, untuneable and bad.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Is Silvia dead?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>No, Valentine.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>No Valentine, indeed, for sacred Silvia.</LINE>
<LINE>Hath she forsworn me?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>No, Valentine.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>No Valentine, if Silvia have forsworn me.</LINE>
<LINE>What is your news?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LAUNCE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Sir, there is a proclamation that you are vanished.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>That thou art banished--O, that's the news!--</LINE>
<LINE>From hence, from Silvia and from me thy friend.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

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

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

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

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Go, sirrah, find him out. Come, Valentine.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>O my dear Silvia! Hapless Valentine!</LINE>
</SPEECH>


<STAGEDIR>Exeunt VALENTINE and PROTEUS</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LAUNCE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I am but a fool, look you; and yet I have the wit to</LINE>
<LINE>think my master is a kind of a knave: but that's</LINE>
<LINE>all one, if he be but one knave. He lives not now</LINE>
<LINE>that knows me to be in love; yet I am in love; but a</LINE>
<LINE>team of horse shall not pluck that from me; nor who</LINE>
<LINE>'tis I love; and yet 'tis a woman; but what woman, I</LINE>
<LINE>will not tell myself; and yet 'tis a milkmaid; yet</LINE>
<LINE>'tis not a maid, for she hath had gossips; yet 'tis</LINE>
<LINE>a maid, for she is her master's maid, and serves for</LINE>
<LINE>wages. She hath more qualities than a water-spaniel;</LINE>
<LINE>which is much in a bare Christian.</LINE>
<STAGEDIR>Pulling out a paper</STAGEDIR>
<LINE>Here is the cate-log of her condition.</LINE>
<LINE>'Imprimis: She can fetch and carry.' Why, a horse</LINE>
<LINE>can do no more: nay, a horse cannot fetch, but only</LINE>
<LINE>carry; therefore is she better than a jade. 'Item:</LINE>
<LINE>She can milk;' look you, a sweet virtue in a maid</LINE>
<LINE>with clean hands.</LINE>
</SPEECH>


<STAGEDIR>Enter SPEED</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>How now, Signior Launce! what news with your</LINE>
<LINE>mastership?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LAUNCE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>With my master's ship? why, it is at sea.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Well, your old vice still; mistake the word. What</LINE>
<LINE>news, then, in your paper?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LAUNCE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>The blackest news that ever thou heardest.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Why, man, how black?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LAUNCE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Why, as black as ink.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Let me read them.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LAUNCE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Fie on thee, jolt-head! thou canst not read.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Thou liest; I can.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LAUNCE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I will try thee. Tell me this: who begot thee?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Marry, the son of my grandfather.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LAUNCE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>O illiterate loiterer! it was the son of thy</LINE>
<LINE>grandmother: this proves that thou canst not read.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Come, fool, come; try me in thy paper.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LAUNCE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>There; and St. Nicholas be thy speed!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE><STAGEDIR>Reads</STAGEDIR>  'Imprimis: She can milk.'</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LAUNCE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Ay, that she can.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>'Item: She brews good ale.'</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LAUNCE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>And thereof comes the proverb: 'Blessing of your</LINE>
<LINE>heart, you brew good ale.'</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>'Item: She can sew.'</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LAUNCE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>That's as much as to say, Can she so?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>'Item: She can knit.'</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LAUNCE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>What need a man care for a stock with a wench, when</LINE>
<LINE>she can knit him a stock?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>'Item: She can wash and scour.'</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LAUNCE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>A special virtue: for then she need not be washed</LINE>
<LINE>and scoured.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>'Item: She can spin.'</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LAUNCE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Then may I set the world on wheels, when she can</LINE>
<LINE>spin for her living.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>'Item: She hath many nameless virtues.'</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>'Here follow her vices.'</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LAUNCE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Close at the heels of her virtues.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>'Item: She is not to be kissed fasting in respect</LINE>
<LINE>of her breath.'</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LAUNCE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Well, that fault may be mended with a breakfast. Read on.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>'Item: She hath a sweet mouth.'</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LAUNCE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>That makes amends for her sour breath.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>'Item: She doth talk in her sleep.'</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LAUNCE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>It's no matter for that, so she sleep not in her talk.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>'Item: She is slow in words.'</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>'Item: She is proud.'</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LAUNCE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Out with that too; it was Eve's legacy, and cannot</LINE>
<LINE>be ta'en from her.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>'Item: She hath no teeth.'</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LAUNCE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I care not for that neither, because I love crusts.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>'Item: She is curst.'</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LAUNCE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Well, the best is, she hath no teeth to bite.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>'Item: She will often praise her liquor.'</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LAUNCE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>If her liquor be good, she shall: if she will not, I</LINE>
<LINE>will; for good things should be praised.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>'Item: She is too liberal.'</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>'Item: She hath more hair than wit, and more faults</LINE>
<LINE>than hairs, and more wealth than faults.'</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>'Item: She hath more hair than wit,'--</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>'And more faults than hairs,'--</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LAUNCE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>That's monstrous: O, that that were out!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>'And more wealth than faults.'</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>What then?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LAUNCE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Why, then will I tell thee--that thy master stays</LINE>
<LINE>for thee at the North-gate.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>For me?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LAUNCE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>For thee! ay, who art thou? he hath stayed for a</LINE>
<LINE>better man than thee.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>And must I go to him?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LAUNCE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Thou must run to him, for thou hast stayed so long</LINE>
<LINE>that going will scarce serve the turn.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Why didst not tell me sooner? pox of your love letters!</LINE>
</SPEECH>


<STAGEDIR>Exit</STAGEDIR>

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


<STAGEDIR>Exit</STAGEDIR>
</SCENE>

<SCENE><TITLE>SCENE II.  The same. The DUKE's palace.</TITLE>
<STAGEDIR>Enter DUKE and THURIO</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUKE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Sir Thurio, fear not but that she will love you,</LINE>
<LINE>Now Valentine is banish'd from her sight.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUKE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>This weak impress of love is as a figure</LINE>
<LINE>Trenched in ice, which with an hour's heat</LINE>
<LINE>Dissolves to water and doth lose his form.</LINE>
<LINE>A little time will melt her frozen thoughts</LINE>
<LINE>And worthless Valentine shall be forgot.</LINE>
<STAGEDIR>Enter PROTEUS</STAGEDIR>
<LINE>How now, Sir Proteus! Is your countryman</LINE>
<LINE>According to our proclamation gone?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Gone, my good lord.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUKE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>My daughter takes his going grievously.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>A little time, my lord, will kill that grief.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Longer than I prove loyal to your grace</LINE>
<LINE>Let me not live to look upon your grace.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUKE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Thou know'st how willingly I would effect</LINE>
<LINE>The match between Sir Thurio and my daughter.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I do, my lord.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUKE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>And also, I think, thou art not ignorant</LINE>
<LINE>How she opposes her against my will</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>She did, my lord, when Valentine was here.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUKE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Ay, but she'll think that it is spoke in hate.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Ay, if his enemy deliver it:</LINE>
<LINE>Therefore it must with circumstance be spoken</LINE>
<LINE>By one whom she esteemeth as his friend.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUKE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Then you must undertake to slander him.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

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

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

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

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

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUKE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Ay,</LINE>
<LINE>Much is the force of heaven-bred poesy.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUKE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>This discipline shows thou hast been in love.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUKE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>About it, gentlemen!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>We'll wait upon your grace till after supper,</LINE>
<LINE>And afterward determine our proceedings.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUKE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Even now about it! I will pardon you.</LINE>
</SPEECH>


<STAGEDIR>Exeunt</STAGEDIR>
</SCENE>

</ACT>

<ACT><TITLE>ACT IV</TITLE>

<SCENE><TITLE>SCENE I.  The frontiers of Mantua. A forest.</TITLE>
<STAGEDIR>Enter certain Outlaws</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>First Outlaw</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Fellows, stand fast; I see a passenger.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>Second Outlaw</SPEAKER>
<LINE>If there be ten, shrink not, but down with 'em.</LINE>
</SPEECH>


<STAGEDIR>Enter VALENTINE and SPEED</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>Third Outlaw</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Stand, sir, and throw us that you have about ye:</LINE>
<LINE>If not: we'll make you sit and rifle you.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Sir, we are undone; these are the villains</LINE>
<LINE>That all the travellers do fear so much.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>My friends,--</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>First Outlaw</SPEAKER>
<LINE>That's not so, sir: we are your enemies.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>Second Outlaw</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Peace! we'll hear him.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>Third Outlaw</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Ay, by my beard, will we, for he's a proper man.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>Second Outlaw</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Whither travel you?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>To Verona.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>First Outlaw</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Whence came you?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>From Milan.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>Third Outlaw</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Have you long sojourned there?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Some sixteen months, and longer might have stay'd,</LINE>
<LINE>If crooked fortune had not thwarted me.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>First Outlaw</SPEAKER>
<LINE>What, were you banish'd thence?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I was.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>Second Outlaw</SPEAKER>
<LINE>For what offence?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>First Outlaw</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Why, ne'er repent it, if it were done so.</LINE>
<LINE>But were you banish'd for so small a fault?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I was, and held me glad of such a doom.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>Second Outlaw</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Have you the tongues?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>My youthful travel therein made me happy,</LINE>
<LINE>Or else I often had been miserable.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>First Outlaw</SPEAKER>
<LINE>We'll have him. Sirs, a word.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SPEED</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Master, be one of them; it's an honourable kind of thievery.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Peace, villain!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>Second Outlaw</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Tell us this: have you any thing to take to?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Nothing but my fortune.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>Second Outlaw</SPEAKER>
<LINE>And I from Mantua, for a gentleman,</LINE>
<LINE>Who, in my mood, I stabb'd unto the heart.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

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

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>First Outlaw</SPEAKER>
<LINE>But if thou scorn our courtesy, thou diest.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>Second Outlaw</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Thou shalt not live to brag what we have offer'd.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I take your offer and will live with you,</LINE>
<LINE>Provided that you do no outrages</LINE>
<LINE>On silly women or poor passengers.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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


<STAGEDIR>Exeunt</STAGEDIR>
</SCENE>

<SCENE><TITLE>SCENE II.  Milan. Outside the DUKE's palace, under SILVIA's chamber.</TITLE>
<STAGEDIR>Enter PROTEUS</STAGEDIR>

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


<STAGEDIR>Enter THURIO and Musicians</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>THURIO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>How now, Sir Proteus, are you crept before us?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Ay, gentle Thurio: for you know that love</LINE>
<LINE>Will creep in service where it cannot go.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>THURIO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Ay, but I hope, sir, that you love not here.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Sir, but I do; or else I would be hence.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>THURIO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Who? Silvia?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Ay, Silvia; for your sake.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>THURIO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I thank you for your own. Now, gentlemen,</LINE>
<LINE>Let's tune, and to it lustily awhile.</LINE>
</SPEECH>


<STAGEDIR>Enter, at a distance, Host, and JULIA in boy's clothes</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>Host</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Now, my young guest, methinks you're allycholly: I</LINE>
<LINE>pray you, why is it?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Marry, mine host, because I cannot be merry.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>But shall I hear him speak?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>Host</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Ay, that you shall.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>That will be music.</LINE>
</SPEECH>


<STAGEDIR>Music plays</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>Host</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Hark, hark!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Is he among these?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>Host</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Ay: but, peace! let's hear 'em.</LINE>
<SUBHEAD>SONG.</SUBHEAD>
<LINE>Who is Silvia? what is she,</LINE>
<LINE>That all our swains commend her?</LINE>
<LINE>Holy, fair and wise is she;</LINE>
<LINE>The heaven such grace did lend her,</LINE>
<LINE>That she might admired be.</LINE>
<LINE>Is she kind as she is fair?</LINE>
<LINE>For beauty lives with kindness.</LINE>
<LINE>Love doth to her eyes repair,</LINE>
<LINE>To help him of his blindness,</LINE>
<LINE>And, being help'd, inhabits there.</LINE>
<LINE>Then to Silvia let us sing,</LINE>
<LINE>That Silvia is excelling;</LINE>
<LINE>She excels each mortal thing</LINE>
<LINE>Upon the dull earth dwelling:</LINE>
<LINE>To her let us garlands bring.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>Host</SPEAKER>
<LINE>How now! are you sadder than you were before? How</LINE>
<LINE>do you, man? the music likes you not.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>You mistake; the musician likes me not.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>Host</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Why, my pretty youth?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>He plays false, father.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>Host</SPEAKER>
<LINE>How? out of tune on the strings?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Not so; but yet so false that he grieves my very</LINE>
<LINE>heart-strings.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>Host</SPEAKER>
<LINE>You have a quick ear.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Ay, I would I were deaf; it makes me have a slow heart.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>Host</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I perceive you delight not in music.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Not a whit, when it jars so.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>Host</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Hark, what fine change is in the music!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Ay, that change is the spite.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>Host</SPEAKER>
<LINE>You would have them always play but one thing?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>Host</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I tell you what Launce, his man, told me: he loved</LINE>
<LINE>her out of all nick.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Where is Launce?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>Host</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Gone to seek his dog; which tomorrow, by his</LINE>
<LINE>master's command, he must carry for a present to his lady.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Peace! stand aside: the company parts.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Sir Thurio, fear not you: I will so plead</LINE>
<LINE>That you shall say my cunning drift excels.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>THURIO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Where meet we?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>At Saint Gregory's well.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>THURIO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Farewell.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<STAGEDIR>Exeunt THURIO and Musicians</STAGEDIR>
<STAGEDIR>Enter SILVIA above</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Madam, good even to your ladyship.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SILVIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I thank you for your music, gentlemen.</LINE>
<LINE>Who is that that spake?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>One, lady, if you knew his pure heart's truth,</LINE>
<LINE>You would quickly learn to know him by his voice.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SILVIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Sir Proteus, as I take it.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Sir Proteus, gentle lady, and your servant.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SILVIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>What's your will?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>That I may compass yours.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I grant, sweet love, that I did love a lady;</LINE>
<LINE>But she is dead.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE><STAGEDIR>Aside</STAGEDIR>        'Twere false, if I should speak it;</LINE>
<LINE>For I am sure she is not buried.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I likewise hear that Valentine is dead.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SILVIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>And so suppose am I; for in his grave</LINE>
<LINE>Assure thyself my love is buried.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Sweet lady, let me rake it from the earth.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SILVIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Go to thy lady's grave and call hers thence,</LINE>
<LINE>Or, at the least, in hers sepulchre thine.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE><STAGEDIR>Aside</STAGEDIR>  He heard not that.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE><STAGEDIR>Aside</STAGEDIR>  If 'twere a substance, you would, sure,</LINE>
<LINE>deceive it,</LINE>
<LINE>And make it but a shadow, as I am.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>As wretches have o'ernight</LINE>
<LINE>That wait for execution in the morn.</LINE>
</SPEECH>


<STAGEDIR>Exeunt PROTEUS and SILVIA severally</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Host, will you go?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>Host</SPEAKER>
<LINE>By my halidom, I was fast asleep.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Pray you, where lies Sir Proteus?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>Host</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Marry, at my house. Trust me, I think 'tis almost</LINE>
<LINE>day.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Not so; but it hath been the longest night</LINE>
<LINE>That e'er I watch'd and the most heaviest.</LINE>
</SPEECH>


<STAGEDIR>Exeunt</STAGEDIR>
</SCENE>

<SCENE><TITLE>SCENE III.  The same.</TITLE>
<STAGEDIR>Enter EGLAMOUR</STAGEDIR>

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


<STAGEDIR>Enter SILVIA above</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SILVIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Who calls?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>EGLAMOUR</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Your servant and your friend;</LINE>
<LINE>One that attends your ladyship's command.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SILVIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Sir Eglamour, a thousand times good morrow.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

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

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SILVIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>This evening coming.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>EGLAMOUR</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Where shall I meet you?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SILVIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>At Friar Patrick's cell,</LINE>
<LINE>Where I intend holy confession.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>EGLAMOUR</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I will not fail your ladyship. Good morrow, gentle lady.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SILVIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Good morrow, kind Sir Eglamour.</LINE>
</SPEECH>


<STAGEDIR>Exeunt severally</STAGEDIR>
</SCENE>

<SCENE><TITLE>SCENE IV.  The same.</TITLE>
<STAGEDIR>Enter LAUNCE, with his his Dog</STAGEDIR>

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


<STAGEDIR>Enter PROTEUS and JULIA</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Sebastian is thy name? I like thee well</LINE>
<LINE>And will employ thee in some service presently.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>In what you please: I'll do what I can.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I hope thou wilt.</LINE>
<STAGEDIR>To LAUNCE</STAGEDIR>
<LINE>How now, you whoreson peasant!</LINE>
<LINE>Where have you been these two days loitering?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LAUNCE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Marry, sir, I carried Mistress Silvia the dog you bade me.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>And what says she to my little jewel?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LAUNCE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Marry, she says your dog was a cur, and tells you</LINE>
<LINE>currish thanks is good enough for such a present.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>But she received my dog?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>LAUNCE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>No, indeed, did she not: here have I brought him</LINE>
<LINE>back again.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>What, didst thou offer her this from me?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Go get thee hence, and find my dog again,</LINE>
<LINE>Or ne'er return again into my sight.</LINE>
<LINE>Away, I say! stay'st thou to vex me here?</LINE>
<STAGEDIR>Exit LAUNCE</STAGEDIR>
<LINE>A slave, that still an end turns me to shame!</LINE>
<LINE>Sebastian, I have entertained thee,</LINE>
<LINE>Partly that I have need of such a youth</LINE>
<LINE>That can with some discretion do my business,</LINE>
<LINE>For 'tis no trusting to yond foolish lout,</LINE>
<LINE>But chiefly for thy face and thy behavior,</LINE>
<LINE>Which, if my augury deceive me not,</LINE>
<LINE>Witness good bringing up, fortune and truth:</LINE>
<LINE>Therefore know thou, for this I entertain thee.</LINE>
<LINE>Go presently and take this ring with thee,</LINE>
<LINE>Deliver it to Madam Silvia:</LINE>
<LINE>She loved me well deliver'd it to me.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>It seems you loved not her, to leave her token.</LINE>
<LINE>She is dead, belike?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Not so; I think she lives.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Alas!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Why dost thou cry 'alas'?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I cannot choose</LINE>
<LINE>But pity her.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Wherefore shouldst thou pity her?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

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


<STAGEDIR>Exit</STAGEDIR>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SILVIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>What would you with her, if that I be she?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>If you be she, I do entreat your patience</LINE>
<LINE>To hear me speak the message I am sent on.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SILVIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>From whom?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>From my master, Sir Proteus, madam.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SILVIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>O, he sends you for a picture.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Ay, madam.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SILVIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I pray thee, let me look on that again.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>It may not be; good madam, pardon me.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Madam, he sends your ladyship this ring.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>She thanks you.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SILVIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>What say'st thou?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I thank you, madam, that you tender her.</LINE>
<LINE>Poor gentlewoman! my master wrongs her much.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SILVIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Dost thou know her?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Almost as well as I do know myself:</LINE>
<LINE>To think upon her woes I do protest</LINE>
<LINE>That I have wept a hundred several times.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SILVIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Belike she thinks that Proteus hath forsook her.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I think she doth; and that's her cause of sorrow.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SILVIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Is she not passing fair?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SILVIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>How tall was she?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

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


<STAGEDIR>Exit SILVIA, with attendants</STAGEDIR>

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


<STAGEDIR>Exit</STAGEDIR>
</SCENE>

</ACT>

<ACT><TITLE>ACT V</TITLE>

<SCENE><TITLE>SCENE I.  Milan. An abbey.</TITLE>
<STAGEDIR>Enter EGLAMOUR</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>EGLAMOUR</SPEAKER>
<LINE>The sun begins to gild the western sky;</LINE>
<LINE>And now it is about the very hour</LINE>
<LINE>That Silvia, at Friar Patrick's cell, should meet me.</LINE>
<LINE>She will not fail, for lovers break not hours,</LINE>
<LINE>Unless it be to come before their time;</LINE>
<LINE>So much they spur their expedition.</LINE>
<LINE>See where she comes.</LINE>
<STAGEDIR>Enter SILVIA</STAGEDIR>
<LINE>Lady, a happy evening!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>EGLAMOUR</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Fear not: the forest is not three leagues off;</LINE>
<LINE>If we recover that, we are sure enough.</LINE>
</SPEECH>


<STAGEDIR>Exeunt</STAGEDIR>
</SCENE>

<SCENE><TITLE>SCENE II.  The same. The DUKE's palace.</TITLE>
<STAGEDIR>Enter THURIO, PROTEUS, and JULIA</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>THURIO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Sir Proteus, what says Silvia to my suit?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>O, sir, I find her milder than she was;</LINE>
<LINE>And yet she takes exceptions at your person.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>THURIO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>What, that my leg is too long?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>No; that it is too little.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>THURIO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I'll wear a boot, to make it somewhat rounder.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE><STAGEDIR>Aside</STAGEDIR>  But love will not be spurr'd to what</LINE>
<LINE>it loathes.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>THURIO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>What says she to my face?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>She says it is a fair one.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>THURIO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Nay then, the wanton lies; my face is black.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>But pearls are fair; and the old saying is,</LINE>
<LINE>Black men are pearls in beauteous ladies' eyes.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE><STAGEDIR>Aside</STAGEDIR>  'Tis true; such pearls as put out</LINE>
<LINE>ladies' eyes;</LINE>
<LINE>For I had rather wink than look on them.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>THURIO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>How likes she my discourse?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Ill, when you talk of war.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>THURIO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>But well, when I discourse of love and peace?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE><STAGEDIR>Aside</STAGEDIR>  But better, indeed, when you hold your peace.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>THURIO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>What says she to my valour?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>O, sir, she makes no doubt of that.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE><STAGEDIR>Aside</STAGEDIR>  She needs not, when she knows it cowardice.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>THURIO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>What says she to my birth?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>That you are well derived.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE><STAGEDIR>Aside</STAGEDIR>  True; from a gentleman to a fool.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>THURIO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Considers she my possessions?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>O, ay; and pities them.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>THURIO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Wherefore?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE><STAGEDIR>Aside</STAGEDIR>  That such an ass should owe them.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>That they are out by lease.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Here comes the duke.</LINE>
</SPEECH>


<STAGEDIR>Enter DUKE</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUKE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>How now, Sir Proteus! how now, Thurio!</LINE>
<LINE>Which of you saw Sir Eglamour of late?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>THURIO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Not I.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Nor I.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUKE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Saw you my daughter?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Neither.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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


<STAGEDIR>Exit</STAGEDIR>

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


<STAGEDIR>Exit</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>And I will follow, more for Silvia's love</LINE>
<LINE>Than hate of Eglamour that goes with her.</LINE>
</SPEECH>


<STAGEDIR>Exit</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>And I will follow, more to cross that love</LINE>
<LINE>Than hate for Silvia that is gone for love.</LINE>
</SPEECH>


<STAGEDIR>Exit</STAGEDIR>
</SCENE>

<SCENE><TITLE>SCENE III.  The frontiers of Mantua. The forest.</TITLE>
<STAGEDIR>Enter Outlaws with SILVIA</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>First Outlaw</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Come, come,</LINE>
<LINE>Be patient; we must bring you to our captain.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SILVIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>A thousand more mischances than this one</LINE>
<LINE>Have learn'd me how to brook this patiently.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>Second Outlaw</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Come, bring her away.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>First Outlaw</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Where is the gentleman that was with her?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SILVIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>O Valentine, this I endure for thee!</LINE>
</SPEECH>


<STAGEDIR>Exeunt</STAGEDIR>
</SCENE>

<SCENE><TITLE>SCENE IV.  Another part of the forest.</TITLE>
<STAGEDIR>Enter VALENTINE</STAGEDIR>

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


<STAGEDIR>Enter PROTEUS, SILVIA, and JULIA</STAGEDIR>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE><STAGEDIR>Aside</STAGEDIR>  How like a dream is this I see and hear!</LINE>
<LINE>Love, lend me patience to forbear awhile.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SILVIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>O miserable, unhappy that I am!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Unhappy were you, madam, ere I came;</LINE>
<LINE>But by my coming I have made you happy.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SILVIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>By thy approach thou makest me most unhappy.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE><STAGEDIR>Aside</STAGEDIR>  And me, when he approacheth to your presence.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

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

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>In love</LINE>
<LINE>Who respects friend?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SILVIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>All men but Proteus.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>SILVIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>O heaven!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I'll force thee yield to my desire.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Ruffian, let go that rude uncivil touch,</LINE>
<LINE>Thou friend of an ill fashion!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Valentine!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

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

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>O me unhappy!</LINE>
</SPEECH>


<STAGEDIR>Swoons</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Look to the boy.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Why, boy! why, wag! how now! what's the matter?</LINE>
<LINE>Look up; speak.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>O good sir, my master charged me to deliver a ring</LINE>
<LINE>to Madam Silvia, which, out of my neglect, was never done.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Where is that ring, boy?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Here 'tis; this is it.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>How! let me see:</LINE>
<LINE>Why, this is the ring I gave to Julia.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>O, cry you mercy, sir, I have mistook:</LINE>
<LINE>This is the ring you sent to Silvia.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>But how camest thou by this ring? At my depart</LINE>
<LINE>I gave this unto Julia.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>And Julia herself did give it me;</LINE>
<LINE>And Julia herself hath brought it hither.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>How! Julia!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

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

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>PROTEUS</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Bear witness, Heaven, I have my wish for ever.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>JULIA</SPEAKER>
<LINE>And I mine.</LINE>
</SPEECH>


<STAGEDIR>Enter Outlaws, with DUKE and THURIO</STAGEDIR>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>Outlaws</SPEAKER>
<LINE>A prize, a prize, a prize!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Forbear, forbear, I say! it is my lord the duke.</LINE>
<LINE>Your grace is welcome to a man disgraced,</LINE>
<LINE>Banished Valentine.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUKE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Sir Valentine!</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>THURIO</SPEAKER>
<LINE>Yonder is Silvia; and Silvia's mine.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

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

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

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUKE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I grant it, for thine own, whate'er it be.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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

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

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

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUKE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I think the boy hath grace in him; he blushes.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>VALENTINE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>I warrant you, my lord, more grace than boy.</LINE>
</SPEECH>

<SPEECH>
<SPEAKER>DUKE</SPEAKER>
<LINE>What mean you by that saying?</LINE>
</SPEECH>

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


<STAGEDIR>Exeunt</STAGEDIR>
</SCENE>
</ACT>
</PLAY>
