Valentine
And how do yours?
Proteus
I left them all in health.
Valentine
How does your lady? and how thrives your love?
Proteus
My tales of love were wont to weary you;
I know you joy not in a love discourse.
Valentine
Ay, Proteus, but that life is alter’d now:
I have done penance for contemning Love,
Whose high imperious thoughts have punish’d me
With bitter fasts, with penitential groans,
With nightly tears and daily heart-sore sighs;
For in revenge of my contempt of love,
Love hath chased sleep from my enthralled eyes
And made them watchers of mine own heart’s sorrow.
O gentle Proteus, Love’s a mighty lord,
And hath so humbled me, as, I confess,
There is no woe to his correction,
Nor to his service no such joy on earth.
Now no discourse, except it be of love;
Now can I break my fast, dine, sup and sleep,
Upon the very naked name of love.
Proteus
Enough; I read your fortune in your eye.
Was this the idol that you worship so?
Valentine
Even she; and is she not a heavenly saint?
Proteus
No; but she is an earthly paragon.
Valentine
Call her divine.
Proteus
I will not flatter her.
Valentine
O, flatter me; for love delights in praises.
Proteus
When I was sick, you gave me bitter pills,
And I must minister the like to you.
Valentine
Then speak the truth by her; if not divine,
Yet let her be a principality,
Sovereign to all the creatures on the earth.
Proteus
Except my mistress.
Valentine
Sweet, except not any;
Except thou wilt except against my love.
Proteus
Have I not reason to prefer mine own?
Valentine
And I will help thee to prefer her too:
She shall be dignified with this high honour —
To bear my lady’s train, lest the base earth
Should from her vesture chance to steal a kiss
And, of so great a favour growing proud,
Disdain to root the summer-swelling flower
And make rough winter everlastingly.
Proteus
Why, Valentine, what braggardism is this?
Valentine
Pardon me, Proteus: all I can is nothing
To her whose worth makes other worthies nothing;
She is alone.
Proteus
Then let her alone.
Valentine
Not for the world: why, man, she is mine own,
And I as rich in having such a jewel
As twenty seas, if all their sand were pearl,
The water nectar and the rocks pure gold.
Forgive me that I do not dream on thee,
Because thou see’st me dote upon my love.
My foolish rival, that her father likes
Only for his possessions are so huge,
Is gone with her along, and I must after,
For love, thou know’st, is full of jealousy.
Proteus
But she loves you?
Valentine
Ay, and we are betroth’d: nay, more, our, marriage-hour,
With all the cunning manner of our flight,
Determined of; how I must climb her window,
The ladder made of cords, and all the means
Plotted and ‘greed on for my happiness.
Good Proteus, go with me to my chamber,
In these affairs to aid me with thy counsel.
Proteus
Go on before; I shall inquire you forth:
I must unto the road, to disembark
Some necessaries that I needs must use,
And then I’ll presently attend you.
Valentine
Will you make haste?
Proteus
I will.
Exit Valentine
Even as one heat another heat expels,
Or as one nail by strength drives out another,
So the remembrance of my former love
Is by a newer object quite forgotten.
Is it mine, or Valentine’s praise,
Her true perfection, or my false transgression,
That makes me reasonless to reason thus?
She is fair; and so is Julia that I love —
That I did love, for now my love is thaw’d;
Which, like a waxen image, ’gainst a fire,
Bears no impression of the thing it was.
Methinks my zeal to Valentine is cold,
And that I love him not as I was wont.
O, but I love his lady too too much,
And that’s the reason I love him so little.
How shall I dote on her with more advice,
That thus without advice begin to love her!
’Tis but her picture I have yet beheld,
And that hath dazzled my reason’s light;
But when I look on her perfections,
There is no reason but I shall be blind.
If I can cheque my erring love, I will;
If not, to compass her I’ll use my skill.
Exit
SCENE V. THE SAME. A STREET.
Enter Speed and Launce severally
Speed
Launce! by mine honesty, welcome to Milan!
Launce
Forswear not thyself, sweet youth, for I am not welcome. I reckon this always, that a man is never undone till he be hanged, nor never welcome to a place till some certain shot be paid and the hostess say ‘Welcome!’
Speed
Come on, you madcap, I’ll to the alehouse with you presently; where, for one shot of five pence, thou shalt have five thousand welcomes. But, sirrah, how did thy master part with Madam Julia?
Launce
Marry, after they closed in earnest, they parted very fairly in jest.
Speed
But shall she marry him?
Launce
No.
Speed
How then? shall he marry her?
Launce
No, neither.
Speed
What, are they broken?
Launce
No, they are both as whole as a fish.
Speed
Why, then, how stands the matter with them?
Launce
Marry, thus: when it stands well with him, it stands well with her.
Speed
What an ass art thou! I understand thee not.
Launce
What a block art thou, that thou canst not! My staff understands me.
Speed
What thou sayest?
Launce
Ay, and what I do too: look thee, I’ll but lean, and my staff understands me.
Speed
It stands under thee, indeed.
Launce
Why, stand-under and under-stand is all one.
Speed
But tell me true, will’t be a match?
Launce
Ask my dog: if he say ay, it will! if he say no, it will; if he shake his tail and say nothing, it will.
Speed
The conclusion is then that it will.
Launce
Thou shalt never get such a secret from me but by a parable.
Speed
’Tis well that I get it so. But, Launce, how sayest thou, that my master is become a notable lover?
Launce
I never knew him otherwise.
Speed
Than how?
A notable lubber, as thou reportest him to be.
Speed
Why, thou whoreson ass, thou mistakest me.
Launce
Why, fool, I meant not thee; I meant thy master.
Speed
I tell thee, my master is become a hot lover.
Launce
Why, I tell thee, I care not though he burn himself in love. If thou wilt, go with me to the alehouse; if not, thou art an Hebrew, a Jew, and not worth the name of a Christian.
Speed
Why?
Launce
Because thou hast not so much charity in thee as to go to the ale with a Christian. Wilt thou go?
Speed
At thy service.
Exeunt
SCENE VI. THE SAME. THE DUKE’S PALACE.
Enter Proteus
Proteus
To leave my Julia, shall I be forsworn;
To love fair Silvia, shall I be forsworn;
To wrong my friend, I shall be much forsworn;
And even that power which gave me first my oath
Provokes me to this threefold perjury;
Love bade me swear and Love bids me forswear.
O sweet-suggesting Love, if thou hast sinned,
Teach me, thy tempted subject, to excuse it!
At first I did adore a twinkling star,
But now I worship a celestial sun.
Unheedful vows may heedfully be broken,
And he wants wit that wants resolved will
To learn his wit to exchange the bad for better.
Fie, fie, unreverend tongue! to call her bad,
Whose sovereignty so oft thou hast preferr’d
With twenty thousand soul-confirming oaths.
I cannot leave to love, and yet I do;
But there I leave to love where I should love.
Julia I lose and Valentine I lose:
If I keep them, I needs must lose myself;
If I lose them, thus find I by their loss
For Valentine myself, for Julia Silvia.
I to myself am dearer than a friend,
For love is still most precious in itself;
And Silvia — witness Heaven, that made her fair!—
Shows Julia but a swarthy Ethiope.
I will forget that Julia is alive,
Remembering that my love to her is dead;
And Valentine I’ll hold an enemy,
Aiming at Silvia as a sweeter friend.
I cannot now prove constant to myself,
Without some treachery used to Valentine.
This night he meaneth with a corded ladder
To climb celestial Silvia’s chamber-window,
Myself in counsel, his competitor.
Now presently I’ll give her father notice
Of their disguising and pretended flight;
Who, all enraged, will banish Valentine;
For Thurio, he intends, shall wed his daughter;
But, Valentine being gone, I’ll quickly cross
By some sly trick blunt Thurio’s dull proceeding.
Love, lend me wings to make my purpose swift,
As thou hast lent me wit to plot this drift!
Exit
SCENE VII. VERONA. JULIA’S HOUSE.
Enter Julia and Lucetta
Julia
Counsel, Lucetta; gentle girl, assist me;
And even in kind love I do conjure thee,
Who art the table wherein all my thoughts
Are visibly character’d and engraved,
To lesson me and tell me some good mean
How, with my honour, I may undertake
A journey to my loving Proteus.
Lucetta
Alas, the way is wearisome and long!
Julia
A true-devoted pilgrim is not weary
To measure kingdoms with his feeble steps;
Much less shall she that hath Love’s wings to fly,
And when the flight is made to one so dear,
Of such divine perfection, as Sir Proteus.
Lucetta
Better forbear till Proteus make return.
Julia
O, know’st thou not his looks are my soul’s food?
Pity the dearth that I have pined in,
By longing for that food so long a time.
Didst thou but know the inly touch of love,
Thou wouldst as soon go kindle fire with snow
As seek to quench the fire of love with words.
Lucetta
I do not seek to quench your love’s hot fire,
But qualify the fire’s extreme rage,
Lest it should burn above the bounds of reason.
Julia
The more thou damm’st it up, the more it burns.
The current that with gentle murmur glides,
Thou know’st, being stopp’d, impatiently doth rage;
But when his fair course is not hindered,
He makes sweet music with the enamell’ed stones,
Giving a gentle kiss to every sedge
He overtaketh in his pilgrimage,
And so by many winding nooks he strays
With willing sport to the wild ocean.
Then let me go and hinder not my course
I’ll be as patient as a gentle stream
And make a pastime of each weary step,
Till the last step have brought me to my love;
And there I’ll rest, as after much turmoil
A blessed soul doth in Elysium.
Lucetta
But in what habit will you go along?
Julia
Not like a woman; for I would prevent
The loose encounters of lascivious men:
Gentle Lucetta, fit me with such weeds
As may beseem some well-reputed page.
Lucetta
Why, then, your ladyship must cut your hair.
Julia
No, girl, I’ll knit it up in silken strings
With twenty odd-conceited true-love knots.
To be fantastic may become a youth
Of greater time than I shall show to be.
Lucetta
What fashion, madam shall I make your breeches?
Julia
That fits as well as ‘Tell me, good my lord,
What compass will you wear your farthingale?’
Why even what fashion thou best likest, Lucetta.
Lucetta
You must needs have them with a codpiece, madam.
Julia
Out, out, Lucetta! that would be ill-favour’d.
Lucetta
A round hose, madam, now’s not worth a pin,
Unless you have a codpiece to stick pins on.
Julia
Lucetta, as thou lovest me, let me have
What thou thinkest meet and is most mannerly.
But tell me, wench, how will the world repute me
For undertaking so unstaid a journey?
I fear me, it will make me scandalized.
Lucetta
If you think so, then stay at home and go not.
Julia
Nay, that I will not.
Lucetta
Then never dream on infamy, but go.
If Proteus like your journey when you come,
No matter who’s displeased when you are gone:
I fear me, he will scarce be pleased withal.
Julia
That is the least, Lucetta, of my fear:
A thousand oaths, an ocean of his tears
And instances of infinite of love
Warrant me welcome to my Proteus.
Lucetta
All these are servants to deceitful men.
Julia
Base men, that use them to so base effect!
But truer stars did govern Proteus’ birth
His words are bonds, his oaths are oracles,
His love sincere, his thoughts immaculate,
His heart as far from fraud as heaven from earth.
Lucetta
Pray heaven he prove so, when you come to him!
Julia
Now, as thou lovest me, do him not that wrong
To bear a hard opinion of his truth:
Only deserve my love by loving him;
And presently go with me to my chamber,
To take a note of what I stand in need of,
To furnish me upon my longing journey.
All that is mine I leave at thy dispose,
My goods, my lands, my reputation;
Only, in lieu thereof, dispatch me hence.
Come, answer not, but to it presently!
I am impatient of my tarriance.
Exeunt
ACT III
SCENE I. MILAN. THE DUKE’S PALACE.
Enter Duke, Thurio, and Proteus
Duke
Sir Thurio, give us leave, I pray, awhile;
We have some secrets to confer about.
Exit Thurio
Now, tell me, Proteus, what’s your will with me?
Proteus
My gracious lord, that which I would discover
The law of friendship bids me to conceal;
But when I call to mind your gracious favours
Done to me, undeserving as I am,
My duty pricks me on to utter that
Which else no worldly good should draw from me.
Know, worthy prince, Sir Valentine, my friend,
This night intends to steal away your daughter:
Myself am one made privy to the plot.
I know you have determined to bestow her
On Thurio, whom your gentle daughter hates;
And should she thus be stol’n away from you,
It would be much vexation to your age.
Thus, for my duty’s sake, I rather chose
To cross my friend in his intended drift
Than, by concealing it, heap on your head
A pack of sorrows which would press you down,
Being unprevented, to your timeless grave.
Duke
Proteus, I thank thee for thine honest care;
Which to requite, command me while I live.
This love of theirs myself have often seen,
Haply when they have judged me fast asleep,
And oftentimes have purposed to forbid
Sir Valentine her company and my court:
But fearing lest my jealous aim might err
And so unworthily disgrace the man,
A rashness that I ever yet have shunn’d,
I gave him gentle looks, thereby to find
That which thyself hast now disclosed to me.
And, that thou mayst perceive my fear of this,
Knowing that tender youth is soon suggested,
I nightly lodge her in an upper tower,
The key whereof myself have ever kept;
And thence she cannot be convey’d away.
Complete Plays, The Page 342