‘And more faults than hairs,’—
Launce
That’s monstrous: O, that that were out!
Speed
‘And more wealth than faults.’
Launce
Why, that word makes the faults gracious. Well, I’ll have her; and if it be a match, as nothing is impossible,—
Speed
What then?
Launce
Why, then will I tell thee — that thy master stays for thee at the North-gate.
Speed
For me?
Launce
For thee! ay, who art thou? he hath stayed for a better man than thee.
Speed
And must I go to him?
Launce
Thou must run to him, for thou hast stayed so long that going will scarce serve the turn.
Speed
Why didst not tell me sooner? pox of your love letters!
Exit
Launce
Now will he be swinged for reading my letter; an unmannerly slave, that will thrust himself into secrets! I’ll after, to rejoice in the boy’s correction.
Exit
SCENE II. THE SAME. THE DUKE’S PALACE.
Enter Duke and Thurio
Duke
Sir Thurio, fear not but that she will love you,
Now Valentine is banish’d from her sight.
Thurio
Since his exile she hath despised me most,
Forsworn my company and rail’d at me,
That I am desperate of obtaining her.
Duke
This weak impress of love is as a figure
Trenched in ice, which with an hour’s heat
Dissolves to water and doth lose his form.
A little time will melt her frozen thoughts
And worthless Valentine shall be forgot.
Enter Proteus
How now, Sir Proteus! Is your countryman
According to our proclamation gone?
Proteus
Gone, my good lord.
Duke
My daughter takes his going grievously.
Proteus
A little time, my lord, will kill that grief.
Duke
So I believe; but Thurio thinks not so.
Proteus, the good conceit I hold of thee —
For thou hast shown some sign of good desert —
Makes me the better to confer with thee.
Proteus
Longer than I prove loyal to your grace
Let me not live to look upon your grace.
Duke
Thou know’st how willingly I would effect
The match between Sir Thurio and my daughter.
Proteus
I do, my lord.
Duke
And also, I think, thou art not ignorant
How she opposes her against my will
Proteus
She did, my lord, when Valentine was here.
Duke
Ay, and perversely she persevers so.
What might we do to make the girl forget
The love of Valentine and love Sir Thurio?
Proteus
The best way is to slander Valentine
With falsehood, cowardice and poor descent,
Three things that women highly hold in hate.
Duke
Ay, but she’ll think that it is spoke in hate.
Proteus
Ay, if his enemy deliver it:
Therefore it must with circumstance be spoken
By one whom she esteemeth as his friend.
Duke
Then you must undertake to slander him.
Proteus
And that, my lord, I shall be loath to do:
’Tis an ill office for a gentleman,
Especially against his very friend.
Duke
Where your good word cannot advantage him,
Your slander never can endamage him;
Therefore the office is indifferent,
Being entreated to it by your friend.
Proteus
You have prevail’d, my lord; if I can do it
By ought that I can speak in his dispraise,
She shall not long continue love to him.
But say this weed her love from Valentine,
It follows not that she will love Sir Thurio.
Thurio
Therefore, as you unwind her love from him,
Lest it should ravel and be good to none,
You must provide to bottom it on me;
Which must be done by praising me as much
As you in worth dispraise Sir Valentine.
Duke
And, Proteus, we dare trust you in this kind,
Because we know, on Valentine’s report,
You are already Love’s firm votary
And cannot soon revolt and change your mind.
Upon this warrant shall you have access
Where you with Silvia may confer at large;
For she is lumpish, heavy, melancholy,
And, for your friend’s sake, will be glad of you;
Where you may temper her by your persuasion
To hate young Valentine and love my friend.
Proteus
As much as I can do, I will effect:
But you, Sir Thurio, are not sharp enough;
You must lay lime to tangle her desires
By wailful sonnets, whose composed rhymes
Should be full-fraught with serviceable vows.
Duke
Ay,
Much is the force of heaven-bred poesy.
Proteus
Say that upon the altar of her beauty
You sacrifice your tears, your sighs, your heart:
Write till your ink be dry, and with your tears
Moist it again, and frame some feeling line
That may discover such integrity:
For Orpheus’ lute was strung with poets’ sinews,
Whose golden touch could soften steel and stones,
Make tigers tame and huge leviathans
Forsake unsounded deeps to dance on sands.
After your dire-lamenting elegies,
Visit by night your lady’s chamber-window
With some sweet concert; to their instruments
Tune a deploring dump: the night’s dead silence
Will well become such sweet-complaining grievance.
This, or else nothing, will inherit her.
Duke
This discipline shows thou hast been in love.
Thurio
And thy advice this night I’ll put in practise.
Therefore, sweet Proteus, my direction-giver,
Let us into the city presently
To sort some gentlemen well skill’d in music.
I have a sonnet that will serve the turn
To give the onset to thy good advice.
Duke
About it, gentlemen!
Proteus
We’ll wait upon your grace till after supper,
And afterward determine our proceedings.
Duke
Even now about it! I will pardon you.
Exeunt
ACT IV
SCENE I. THE FRONTIERS OF MANTUA. A FOREST.
Enter certain Outlaws
First Outlaw
Fellows, stand fast; I see a passenger.
Second Outlaw
If there be ten, shrink not, but down with ’em.
Enter Valentine and Speed
Third Outlaw
Stand, sir, and throw us that you have about ye:
If not: we’ll make you sit and rifle you.
Speed
Sir, we are undone; these are the villains
That all the travellers do fear so much.
Valentine
My friends,—
First Outlaw
That’s not so, sir: we are your enemies.
Second Outlaw
Peace!
we’ll hear him.
Third Outlaw
Ay, by my beard, will we, for he’s a proper man.
Valentine
Then know that I have little wealth to lose:
A man I am cross’d with adversity;
My riches are these poor habiliments,
Of which if you should here disfurnish me,
You take the sum and substance that I have.
Second Outlaw
Whither travel you?
Valentine
To Verona.
First Outlaw
Whence came you?
Valentine
From Milan.
Third Outlaw
Have you long sojourned there?
Valentine
Some sixteen months, and longer might have stay’d,
If crooked fortune had not thwarted me.
First Outlaw
What, were you banish’d thence?
Valentine
I was.
Second Outlaw
For what offence?
Valentine
For that which now torments me to rehearse:
I kill’d a man, whose death I much repent;
Bu t yet I slew him manfully in fight,
Without false vantage or base treachery.
First Outlaw
Why, ne’er repent it, if it were done so.
But were you banish’d for so small a fault?
Valentine
I was, and held me glad of such a doom.
Second Outlaw
Have you the tongues?
Valentine
My youthful travel therein made me happy,
Or else I often had been miserable.
Third Outlaw
By the bare scalp of Robin Hood’s fat friar,
This fellow were a king for our wild faction!
First Outlaw
We’ll have him. Sirs, a word.
Speed
Master, be one of them; it’s an honourable kind of thievery.
Valentine
Peace, villain!
Second Outlaw
Tell us this: have you any thing to take to?
Valentine
Nothing but my fortune.
Third Outlaw
Know, then, that some of us are gentlemen,
Such as the fury of ungovern’d youth
Thrust from the company of awful men:
Myself was from Verona banished
For practising to steal away a lady,
An heir, and near allied unto the duke.
Second Outlaw
And I from Mantua, for a gentleman,
Who, in my mood, I stabb’d unto the heart.
First Outlaw
And I for such like petty crimes as these,
But to the purpose — for we cite our faults,
That they may hold excus’d our lawless lives;
And partly, seeing you are beautified
With goodly shape and by your own report
A linguist and a man of such perfection
As we do in our quality much want —
Second Outlaw
Indeed, because you are a banish’d man,
Therefore, above the rest, we parley to you:
Are you content to be our general?
To make a virtue of necessity
And live, as we do, in this wilderness?
Third Outlaw
What say’st thou? wilt thou be of our consort?
Say ay, and be the captain of us all:
We’ll do thee homage and be ruled by thee,
Love thee as our commander and our king.
First Outlaw
But if thou scorn our courtesy, thou diest.
Second Outlaw
Thou shalt not live to brag what we have offer’d.
Valentine
I take your offer and will live with you,
Provided that you do no outrages
On silly women or poor passengers.
Third Outlaw
No, we detest such vile base practises.
Come, go with us, we’ll bring thee to our crews,
And show thee all the treasure we have got,
Which, with ourselves, all rest at thy dispose.
Exeunt
SCENE II. MILAN. OUTSIDE THE DUKE’S PALACE, UNDER SILVIA’S CHAMBER.
Enter Proteus
Proteus
Already have I been false to Valentine
And now I must be as unjust to Thurio.
Under the colour of commending him,
I have access my own love to prefer:
But Silvia is too fair, too true, too holy,
To be corrupted with my worthless gifts.
When I protest true loyalty to her,
She twits me with my falsehood to my friend;
When to her beauty I commend my vows,
She bids me think how I have been forsworn
In breaking faith with Julia whom I loved:
And notwithstanding all her sudden quips,
The least whereof would quell a lover’s hope,
Yet, spaniel-like, the more she spurns my love,
The more it grows and fawneth on her still.
But here comes Thurio: now must we to her window,
And give some evening music to her ear.
Enter Thurio and Musicians
Thurio
How now, Sir Proteus, are you crept before us?
Proteus
Ay, gentle Thurio: for you know that love
Will creep in service where it cannot go.
Thurio
Ay, but I hope, sir, that you love not here.
Proteus
Sir, but I do; or else I would be hence.
Thurio
Who? Silvia?
Proteus
Ay, Silvia; for your sake.
Thurio
I thank you for your own. Now, gentlemen,
Let’s tune, and to it lustily awhile.
Enter, at a distance, Host, and Julia in boy’s clothes
Host
Now, my young guest, methinks you’re allycholly: I pray you, why is it?
Julia
Marry, mine host, because I cannot be merry.
Host
Come, we’ll have you merry: I’ll bring you where you shall hear music and see the gentleman that you asked for.
Julia
But shall I hear him speak?
Host
Ay, that you shall.
Julia
That will be music.
Music plays
Host
Hark, hark!
Julia
Is he among these?
Host
Ay: but, peace! let’s hear ’em.
Song.
Who is Silvia? what is she,
That all our swains commend her?
Holy, fair and wise is she;
The heaven such grace did lend her,
That she might admired be.
Is she kind as she is fair?
For beauty lives with kindness.
Love doth to her eyes repair,
To help him of his blindness,
And, being help’d, inhabits there.
Then to Silvia let us sing,
That Silvia is excelling;
She excels each mortal thing
Upon the dull earth dwelling:
To her let us garlands bring.
Host
How now! are you sadder than you were before? How do you, man? the music likes you not.
Julia
You mistake; the musician likes me not.
Host
Why, my pretty youth?
Julia
He plays false, father.
Host
How? out of tune on the strings?
Julia
Not so; but yet so false that he grieves my very heart-strings.
Host
You have a quick ear.
Julia
Ay, I would
I were deaf; it makes me have a slow heart.
Host
I perceive you delight not in music.
Julia
Not a whit, when it jars so.
Host
Hark, what fine change is in the music!
Julia
Ay, that change is the spite.
Host
You would have them always play but one thing?
Julia
I would always have one play but one thing.
But, host, doth this Sir Proteus that we talk on
Often resort unto this gentlewoman?
Host
I tell you what Launce, his man, told me: he loved her out of all nick.
Julia
Where is Launce?
Host
Gone to seek his dog; which tomorrow, by his master’s command, he must carry for a present to his lady.
Julia
Peace! stand aside: the company parts.
Proteus
Sir Thurio, fear not you: I will so plead
That you shall say my cunning drift excels.
Thurio
Where meet we?
Proteus
At Saint Gregory’s well.
Thurio
Farewell.
Exeunt Thurio and Musicians
Enter Silvia above
Proteus
Madam, good even to your ladyship.
Silvia
I thank you for your music, gentlemen.
Who is that that spake?
Proteus
One, lady, if you knew his pure heart’s truth,
You would quickly learn to know him by his voice.
Silvia
Sir Proteus, as I take it.
Proteus
Sir Proteus, gentle lady, and your servant.
Silvia
What’s your will?
Proteus
That I may compass yours.
Silvia
You have your wish; my will is even this:
That presently you hie you home to bed.
Thou subtle, perjured, false, disloyal man!
Think’st thou I am so shallow, so conceitless,
To be seduced by thy flattery,
That hast deceived so many with thy vows?
Return, return, and make thy love amends.
For me, by this pale queen of night I swear,
I am so far from granting thy request
That I despise thee for thy wrongful suit,
And by and by intend to chide myself
Even for this time I spend in talking to thee.
Proteus
I grant, sweet love, that I did love a lady;
But she is dead.
Julia
[Aside] ’Twere false, if I should speak it;
For I am sure she is not buried.
Silvia
Say that she be; yet Valentine thy friend
Survives; to whom, thyself art witness,
I am betroth’d: and art thou not ashamed
To wrong him with thy importunacy?
Proteus
I likewise hear that Valentine is dead.
Silvia
And so suppose am I; for in his grave
Assure thyself my love is buried.
Complete Plays, The Page 344