How angerly I taught my brow to frown,
When inward joy enforc’d my heart to smile!
My penance is to call Lucetta back
And ask remission for my folly past.
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What ho! Lucetta!
Enter LUCETTA.
LUCETTA What would your ladyship?
JULIA Is ’t near dinner time?
LUCETTA I would it were,
That you might kill your stomach on your meat,
And not upon your maid.
[She takes up Proteus’ letter.]
JULIA What is ’t that you took up so gingerly?
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LUCETTA Nothing.
JULIA Why didst thou stoop then?
LUCETTA To take a paper up that I let fall.
JULIA And is that paper nothing?
LUCETTA Nothing concerning me.
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JULIA Then let it lie, for those that it concerns.
LUCETTA Madam, it will not lie where it concerns,
Unless it have a false interpreter.
JULIA Some love of yours hath writ to you in rhyme.
LUCETTA That I might sing it, madam, to a tune.
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Give me a note; your ladyship can set.
JULIA As little by such toys as may be possible:
Best sing it to the tune of ‘Light o’ Love’.
LUCETTA It is too heavy for so light a tune.
JULIA Heavy? Belike it hath some burden then?
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LUCETTA
Ay; and melodious were it, would you sing it.
JULIA And why not you?
LUCETTA I cannot reach so high.
JULIA [taking the letter]
Let’s see your song. How now, minion?
LUCETTA Keep tune there still: so you will sing it out.
[Julia strikes her.]
And yet methinks I do not like this tune.
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JULIA You do not?
LUCETTA No, madam, ’tis too sharp.
JULIA You, minion, are too saucy.
LUCETTA Nay, now you are too flat;
And mar the concord with too harsh a descant:
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There wanteth but a mean to fill your song.
JULIA The mean is drown’d with your unruly bass.
LUCETTA Indeed I bid the base for Proteus.
JULIA This babble shall not henceforth trouble me.
Here is a coil with protestation. [She tears the letter.]
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Go, get you gone; and let the papers lie.
You would be fing’ring them, to anger me.
LUCETTA
She makes it strange, but she would be best pleas’d
To be so anger’d with another letter. Exit.
JULIA [gathering up pieces of the letter]
Nay, would I were so anger’d with the same!
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O hateful hands, to tear such loving words;
Injurious wasps, to feed on such sweet honey,
And kill the bees that yield it, with your stings!
I’ll kiss each several paper, for amends.
Look, here is writ ‘kind Julia’: unkind Julia!
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As in revenge of thy ingratitude,
I throw thy name against the bruising stones,
Trampling contemptuously on thy disdain.
And here is writ ‘love-wounded Proteus’.
Poor wounded name: my bosom, as a bed,
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Shall lodge thee till thy wound be throughly heal’d;
And thus I search it with a sovereign kiss.
But twice, or thrice, was ‘Proteus’ written down:
Be calm, good wind, blow not a word away,
Till I have found each letter, in the letter,
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Except mine own name: that some whirlwind bear
Unto a ragged, fearful, hanging rock,
And throw it thence into the raging sea.
Lo, here in one line is his name twice writ:
‘Poor forlorn Proteus’, ‘passionate Proteus’.
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‘To the sweet Julia’: that I’ll tear away.
And yet I will not, sith so prettily
He couples it to his complaining names.
Thus will I fold them, one upon another:
Now kiss, embrace, contend, do what you will.
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Enter LUCETTA.
LUCETTA
Madam, dinner is ready; and your father stays.
JULIA Well, let us go.
LUCETTA
What, shall these papers lie, like tell-tales here?
JULIA If you respect them, best to take them up.
LUCETTA Nay, I was taken up, for laying them down.
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Yet here they shall not lie, for catching cold.
[She gathers up the letter.]
JULIA I see you have a month’s mind to them.
LUCETTA
Ay, madam, you may say what sights you see;
I see things too, although you judge I wink.
JULIA Come, come, will’t please you go? Exeunt.
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1.3 Enter ANTONIO and PANTHINO.
ANTONIO Tell me, Panthino, what sad talk was that
Wherewith my brother held you in the cloister?
PANTHINO ’Twas of his nephew Proteus, your son.
ANTONIO Why, what of him?
PANTHINO He wonder’d that your lordship
Would suffer him to spend his youth at home,
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While other men, of slender reputation,
Put forth their sons, to seek preferment out:
Some to the wars, to try their fortune there;
Some, to discover islands far away;
Some, to the studious universities.
10
For any, or for all these exercises,
He said that Proteus, your son, was meet,
And did request me to importune you
To let him spend his time no more at home;
Which would be great impeachment to his age,
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In having known no travel in his youth.
ANTONIO
Nor need’st thou much importune me to that
Whereon this month I have been hammering.
I have consider’d well his loss of time,
And how he cannot be a perfect man,
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Not being tried and tutor’d in the world:
Experience is by industry achiev’d,
And perfected by the swift course of time.
Then tell me, whither were I best to send him?
PANTHINO I think your lordship is not ignorant
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How his companion, youthful Valentine,
Attends the Emperor in his royal court.
ANTONIO I know it well.
PANTHINO
’Twere good, I think, your lordship sent him thither:
There shall he practise tilts and tournaments,
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Hear sweet discourse, converse with noblemen,
And be in eye of every exercise
Worthy his youth and nobleness of birth.
ANTONIO I like thy counsel: well hast thou advis’d.
And that thou mayst perceive how well I like it,
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The execution of it shall make known.
Even with the speediest expedition,
I will dispatch him to the Emperor’s court.
PANTHINO
To-morrow, may it please you, Don Alphonso
With other gentlemen of good esteem
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Are journeying to salute the Emperor,
And to commend their service to his will.
ANTONIO Good company: with them shall Proteus go.
Enter PROTEUS.
And in good time, now will we break with him.
PROTEUS [aside] Sweet love, sweet lines, sweet life!
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Here is her hand, the agent of her heart;
Here is her oath for love, her honour’s pawn.
O that our fathers would applaud our loves
To seal our happiness with their consents!
O heavenly Julia!
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ANTONIO
How now? What letter are you reading there?
PROTEUS
May ’t please your lordship, ’tis a word or two
Of commendations sent from Valentine,
Deliver’d by a friend that came from him.
ANTONIO Lend me the letter: let me see what news.
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PROTEUS There is no news, my lord, but that he writes
How happily he lives, how well-belov’d,
And daily graced by the Emperor;
Wishing me with him, partner of his fortune.
ANTONIO And how stand you affected to his wish?
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PROTEUS As one relying on your lordship’s will,
And not depending on his friendly wish.
ANTONIO My will is something sorted with his wish.
Muse not that I thus suddenly proceed,
For what I will, I will, and there an end.
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I am resolv’d that thou shalt spend some time
With Valentinus, in the Emperor’s court:
What maintenance he from his friends receives,
Like exhibition thou shalt have from me.
To-morrow be in readiness to go.
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Excuse it not, for I am peremptory.
PROTEUS My lord, I cannot be so soon provided:
Please you deliberate a day or two.
ANTONIO
Look what thou want’st shall be sent after thee.
No more of stay; to-morrow thou must go.
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Come on, Panthino; you shall be employ’d
To hasten on his expedition.
Exeunt Antonio and Panthino.
PROTEUS
Thus have I shunn’d the fire, for fear of burning,
And drench’d me in the sea, where I am drown’d.
I fear’d to show my father Julia’s letter,
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Lest he should take exceptions to my love,
And with the vantage of mine own excuse
Hath he excepted most against my love.
O, how this spring of love resembleth
The uncertain glory of an April day,
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Which now shows all the beauty of the sun,
And by and by a cloud takes all away.
Enter PANTHINO.
PANTHINO Sir Proteus, your father calls for you,
He is in haste, therefore I pray you go.
PROTEUS Why, this it is: my heart accords thereto,
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And yet a thousand times it answers ‘no’. Exeunt
2.1 Enter VALENTINE and SPEED.
SPEED Sir, your glove.
VALENTINE Not mine: my gloves are on.
SPEED Why, then this may be yours; for this is but one.
VALENTINE Ha! Let me see; ay, give it me, it’s mine.
Sweet ornament, that decks a thing divine!
5
Ah, Silvia, Silvia!
SPEED Madam Silvia! Madam Silvia!
VALENTINE How now, sirrah?
SPEED She is not within hearing, sir.
VALENTINE Why, sir, who bade you call her?
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SPEED Your worship, sir, or else I mistook.
VALENTINE Well, you’ll still be too forward.
SPEED And yet I was last chidden for being too slow.
VALENTINE
Go to, sir, tell me: do you know Madam Silvia?
SPEED She that your worship loves?
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VALENTINE Why, how know you that I am in love?
SPEED Marry, by these special marks: first, you have
learned (like Sir Proteus) to wreathe your arms like a
malcontent; to relish a love-song, like a robin-
redbreast; to walk alone, like one that had the
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pestilence; to sigh, like a schoolboy that had lost his
ABC; to weep, like a young wench that had buried
her grandam; to fast, like one that takes diet; to
watch, like one that fears robbing; to speak puling, like
a beggar at Hallowmas. You were wont, when you
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laughed, to crow like a cock; when you walked, to walk
like one of the lions; when you fasted, it was
presently after dinner; when you looked sadly, it was
for want of money. And now you are metamorphosed
with a mistress, that when I look on you, I can hardly
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The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 536