Script of Act II Two Gentlemen of Verona
The play by William Shakespeare Introduction
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SCENE I. Milan. The DUKE's palace.
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!
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?
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?
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 malecontent; to relish a love-song, like a
robin-redbreast; to walk alone, like one that had
the pestilence; to sigh, like a school-boy that had
lost his A B C; 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 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 think you my master.
VALENTINE
Are all these things perceived in me?
SPEED
They are all perceived without ye.
VALENTINE
Without me? they cannot.
SPEED
Without you? nay, that's certain, for, without you
were so simple, none else would: but you are so
without these follies, that these follies are within
you and shine through you like the water in an
urinal, that not an eye that sees you but is a
physician to comment on your malady.
VALENTINE
But tell me, dost thou know my lady Silvia?
SPEED
She that you gaze on so as she sits at supper?
VALENTINE
Hast thou observed that? even she, I mean.
SPEED
Why, sir, I know her not.
VALENTINE
Dost thou know her by my gazing on her, and yet
knowest her not?
SPEED
Is she not hard-favoured, sir?
VALENTINE
Not so fair, boy, as well-favoured.
SPEED
Sir, I know that well enough.
VALENTINE
What dost thou know?
SPEED
That she is not so fair as, of you, well-favoured.
VALENTINE
I mean that her beauty is exquisite, but her favour infinite.
SPEED
That's because the one is painted and the other out
of all count.
VALENTINE
How painted? and how out of count?
SPEED
Marry, sir, so painted, to make her fair, that no
man counts of her beauty.
VALENTINE
How esteemest thou me? I account of her beauty.
SPEED
You never saw her since she was deformed.
VALENTINE
How long hath she been deformed?
SPEED
Ever since you loved her.
VALENTINE
I have loved her ever since I saw her; and still I
see her beautiful.
SPEED
If you love her, you cannot see her.
VALENTINE
Why?
SPEED
Because Love is blind. O, that you had mine eyes;
or your own eyes had the lights they were wont to
have when you chid at Sir Proteus for going
ungartered!
VALENTINE
What should I see then?
SPEED
Your own present folly and her passing deformity:
for he, being in love, could not see to garter his
hose, and you, being in love, cannot see to put on your hose.
VALENTINE
Belike, boy, then, you are in love; for last
morning you could not see to wipe my shoes.
SPEED
True, sir; I was in love with my bed: I thank you,
you swinged me for my love, which makes me the
bolder to chide you for yours.
VALENTINE
In conclusion, I stand affected to her.
SPEED
I would you were set, so your affection would cease.
VALENTINE
Last night she enjoined me to write some lines to
one she loves.
SPEED
And have you?
VALENTINE
I have.
SPEED
Are they not lamely writ?
VALENTINE
No, boy, but as well as I can do them. Peace!
here she comes.
SPEED
[Aside] O excellent motion! O exceeding puppet!
Now will he interpret to her.
Enter SILVIA
VALENTINE
Madam and mistress, a thousand good-morrows.
SPEED
[Aside] O, give ye good even! here's a million of manners.
SILVIA
Sir Valentine and servant, to you two thousand.
SPEED
[Aside] He should give her interest and she gives it him.
VALENTINE
As you enjoin'd me, I have writ your letter
Unto the secret nameless friend of yours;
Which I was much unwilling to proceed in
But for my duty to your ladyship.
SILVIA
I thank you gentle servant: 'tis very clerkly done.
VALENTINE
Now trust me, madam, it came hardly off;
For being ignorant to whom it goes
I writ at random, very doubtfully.
SILVIA
Perchance you think too much of so much pains?
VALENTINE
No, madam; so it stead you, I will write
Please you command, a thousand times as much; And yet--
SILVIA
A pretty period! Well, I guess the sequel;
And yet I will not name it; and yet I care not;
And yet take this again; and yet I thank you,
Meaning henceforth to trouble you no more.
SPEED
[Aside] And yet you will; and yet another 'yet.'
VALENTINE
What means your ladyship? do you not like it?
SILVIA
Yes, yes; the lines are very quaintly writ;
But since unwillingly, take them again.
Nay, take them.
VALENTINE
Madam, they are for you.
SILVIA
Ay, ay: you writ them, sir, at my request;
But I will none of them; they are for you;
I would have had them writ more movingly.
VALENTINE
Please you, I'll write your ladyship another.
SILVIA
And when it's writ, for my sake read it over,
And if it please you, so; if not, why, so.
VALENTINE
If it please me, madam, what then?
SILVIA
Why, if it please you, take it for your labour:
And so, good morrow, servant.
Exit
SPEED
O jest unseen, inscrutable, invisible,
As a nose on a man's face, or a weathercock on a steeple!
My master sues to her, and she hath
taught her suitor,
He being her pupil, to become her tutor.
O excellent device! was there ever heard a better,
That my master, being scribe, to himself should write
the letter?
VALENTINE
How now, sir? what are you reasoning with yourself?
SPEED
Nay, I was rhyming: 'tis you that have the reason.
VALENTINE
To do what?
SPEED
To be a spokesman for Madam Silvia.
VALENTINE
To whom?
SPEED
To yourself: why, she wooes you by a figure.
VALENTINE
What figure?
SPEED
By a letter, I should say.
VALENTINE
Why, she hath not writ to me?
SPEED
What need she, when she hath made you write to
yourself? Why, do you not perceive the jest?
VALENTINE
No, believe me.
SPEED
No believing you, indeed, sir. But did you perceive
her earnest?
VALENTINE
She gave me none, except an angry word.
SPEED
Why, she hath given you a letter.
VALENTINE
That's the letter I writ to her friend.
SPEED
And that letter hath she delivered, and there an end.
VALENTINE
I would it were no worse.
SPEED
I'll warrant you, 'tis as well:
For often have you writ to her, and she, in modesty,
Or else for want of idle time, could not again reply;
Or fearing else some messenger that might her mind discover,
Herself hath taught her love himself to write unto her lover.
All this I speak in print, for in print I found it.
Why muse you, sir? 'tis dinner-time.
VALENTINE
I have dined.
SPEED
Ay, but hearken, sir; though the chameleon Love can
feed on the air, I am one that am nourished by my
victuals, and would fain have meat. O, be not like
your mistress; be moved, be moved.
Exeunt
SCENE II. Verona. JULIA'S house.
Enter PROTEUS and JULIA
PROTEUS
Have patience, gentle Julia.
JULIA
I must, where is no remedy.
PROTEUS
When possibly I can, I will return.
JULIA
If you turn not, you will return the sooner.
Keep this remembrance for thy Julia's sake.
Giving a ring
PROTEUS
Why then, we'll make exchange; here, take you this.
JULIA
And seal the bargain with a holy kiss.
PROTEUS
Here is my hand for my true constancy;
And when that hour o'erslips me in the day
Wherein I sigh not, Julia, for thy sake,
The next ensuing hour some foul mischance
Torment me for my love's forgetfulness!
My father stays my coming; answer not;
The tide is now: nay, not thy tide of tears;
That tide will stay me longer than I should.
Julia, farewell!
Exit JULIA
What, gone without a word?
Ay, so true love should do: it cannot speak;
For truth hath better deeds than words to grace it.
Enter PANTHINO
PANTHINO
Sir Proteus, you are stay'd for.
PROTEUS
Go; I come, I come.
Alas! this parting strikes poor lovers dumb.
Exeunt
SCENE III. The same. A street.
Enter LAUNCE, leading a dog
LAUNCE
Nay, 'twill be this hour ere I have done weeping;
all the kind of the Launces have this very fault. I
have received my proportion, like the prodigious
son, and am going with Sir Proteus to the Imperial's
court. I think Crab, my dog, be the sourest-natured
dog that lives: my mother weeping, my father
wailing, my sister crying, our maid howling, our cat
wringing her hands, and all our house in a great
perplexity, yet did not this cruel-hearted cur shed
one tear: he is a stone, a very pebble stone, and
has no more pity in him than a dog: a Jew would have
wept to have seen our parting; why, my grandam,
having no eyes, look you, wept herself blind at my
parting. Nay, I'll show you the manner of it. This
shoe is my father: no, this left shoe is my father:
no, no, this left shoe is my mother: nay, that
cannot be so neither: yes, it is so, it is so, it
hath the worser sole. This shoe, with the hole in
it, is my mother, and this my father; a vengeance
on't! there 'tis: now, sit, this staff is my
sister, for, look you, she is as white as a lily and
as small as a wand: this hat is Nan, our maid: I
am the dog: no, the dog is himself, and I am the
dog--Oh! the dog is me, and I am myself; ay, so,
so. Now come I to my father; Father, your blessing:
now should not the shoe speak a word for weeping:
now should I kiss my father; well, he weeps on. Now
come I to my mother: O, that she could speak now
like a wood woman! Well, I kiss her; why, there
'tis; here's my mother's breath up and down. Now
come I to my sister; mark the moan she makes. Now
the dog all this while sheds not a tear nor speaks a
word; but see how I lay the dust with my tears.
Enter PANTHINO
PANTHINO
Launce, away, away, aboard! thy master is shipped
and thou art to post after with oars. What's the
matter? why weepest thou, man? Away, ass! You'll
lose the tide, if you tarry any longer.
LAUNCE
It is no matter if the tied were lost; for it is the
unkindest tied that ever any man tied.
PANTHINO
What's the unkindest tide?
LAUNCE
Why, he that's tied here, Crab, my dog.
PANTHINO
Tut, man, I mean thou'lt lose the flood, and, in
losing the flood, lose thy voyage, and, in losing
thy voyage, lose thy master, and, in losing thy
master, lose thy service, and, in losing thy
service,--Why dost thou stop my mouth?
LAUNCE
For fear thou shouldst lose thy tongue.
PANTHINO
Where should I lose my tongue?
LAUNCE
In thy tale.
PANTHINO
In thy tail!
LAUNCE
Lose the tide, and the voyage, and the master, and
the service, and the tied! Why, man, if the river
were dry, I am able to fill it with my tears; if the
wind were down, I could drive the boat with my sighs.
PANTHINO
Come, come away, man; I was sent to call thee.
LAUNCE
Sir, call me what thou darest.
PANTHINO
Wilt thou go?
LAUNCE
Well, I will go.
Exeunt
SCENE IV. Milan. The DUKE's palace.
Enter SILVIA, VALENTINE, THURIO, and SPEED
SILVIA
Servant!
VALENTINE
Mistress?
SPEED
Master, Sir Thurio frowns on you.
VALENTINE
Ay, boy, it's for love.
SPEED
Not of you.
VALENTINE
Of my mistress, then.
SPEED
'Twere good you knocked him.
Exit
SILVIA
Servant, you are sad.
VALENTINE
Indeed, madam, I seem so.
THURIO
Seem you that you are not?
VALENTINE
Haply I do.
THURIO
So do counterfeits.
VALENTINE
So do you.
THURIO
What seem I that I am not?
VALENTINE
Wise.
THURIO
What instance of the contrary?
VALENTINE
Your folly.
THURIO
And how quote you my folly?
VALENTINE
I quote it in your jerkin.
THURIO
My jerkin is a doublet.
VALENTINE
Well, then, I'll double your folly.
THURIO
How?
SILVIA
What, angry, Sir Thurio! do you change colour?
VALENTINE
Give him leave, madam; he is a kind of chameleon.
THURIO
That hath more mind to feed on your blood than live
in your air.
VALENTINE
You have said, sir.
THURIO
Ay, sir, and done too, for this time.
VALENTINE
I know it well, sir; you always end ere you begin.
SILVIA
A fine volley of words, gentlemen, and quickly shot off.
VALENTINE
'Tis indeed, madam; we thank the giver.
SILVIA
Who is that, servant?
VALENTINE
Yourself, sweet lady; for you gave the fire. Sir
Thurio borrows his wit from your ladyship's looks,
and spends what he borrows kindly in your company.
THURIO
Sir, if you spend word for word with me, I shall
make your wit bankrupt.
VALENTINE
I know it well, sir; you have an exchequer of words,
and, I think, no other treasure to give your
followers, for it appears by their bare liveries,
that they live by your bare words.
SILVIA
No more, gentlemen, no more:--here comes my father.
Enter DUKE
DUKE
Now, daughter Silvia, you are hard beset.
Sir Valentine, your father's in good health:
What say you to a letter from your friends
Of much good news?
VALENTINE
My lord, I will be thankful.
To any happy messenger from thence.
DUKE
Know ye Don Antonio, your countryman?
VALENTINE
Ay, my good lord, I know the gentleman
To be of worth and worthy estimation
And not without desert so well reputed.
DUKE
Hath he not a son?
VALENTINE
Ay, my good lord; a son that well deserves
The honour and regard of such a father.
DUKE
You know him well?
VALENTINE
I know him as myself; for from our infancy
We have conversed and spent our hours together:
And though myself have been an idle truant,
Omitting the sweet benefit of time
To clothe mine age with angel-like perfection,
Yet hath Sir Proteus, for that's his name,
Made use and fair advantage of his days;
His years but young, but his experience old;
His head unmellow'd, but his judgment ripe;
And, in a word, for far behind his worth
Comes all the praises that I now bestow,
He is complete in feature and in mind
With all good grace to grace a gentleman.
DUKE
Beshrew me, sir, but if he make this good,
He is as worthy for an empress' love
As meet to be an emperor's counsellor.
Well, sir, this gentleman is come to me,
With commendation from great potentates;
And here he means to spend his time awhile:
I think 'tis no unwelcome news to you.
VALENTINE
Should I have wish'd a thing, it had been he.
DUKE
Welcome him then according to his worth.
Silvia, I speak to you, and you, Sir Thurio;
For Valentine, I need not cite him to it:
I will send him hither to you presently.
Exit
VALENTINE
This is the gentleman I told your ladyship
Had come along with me, but that his mistress
Did hold his eyes lock'd in her crystal looks.
SILVIA
Belike that now she hath enfranchised them
Upon some other pawn for fealty.
VALENTINE
Nay, sure, I think she holds them prisoners still.
SILVIA
Nay, then he should be blind; and, being blind
How could he see his way to seek out you?
VALENTINE
Why, lady, Love hath twenty pair of eyes.
THURIO
They say that Love hath not an eye at all.
VALENTINE
To see such lovers, Thurio, as yourself:
Upon a homely object Love can wink.
SILVIA
Have done, have done; here comes the gentleman.
Exit THURIO
Enter PROTEUS
VALENTINE
Welcome, dear Proteus! Mistress, I beseech you,
Confirm his welcome with some special favour.
SILVIA
His worth is warrant for his welcome hither,
If this be he you oft have wish'd to hear from.
VALENTINE
Mistress, it is: sweet lady, entertain him
To be my fellow-servant to your ladyship.
SILVIA
Too low a mistress for so high a servant.
PROTEUS
Not so, sweet lady: but too mean a servant
To have a look of such a worthy mistress.
VALENTINE
Leave off discourse of disability:
Sweet lady, entertain him for your servant.
PROTEUS
My duty will I boast of; nothing else.
SILVIA
And duty never yet did want his meed:
Servant, you are welcome to a worthless mistress.
PROTEUS
I'll die on him that says so but yourself.
SILVIA
That you are welcome?
PROTEUS
That you are worthless.
Re-enter THURIO
THURIO
Madam, my lord your father would speak with you.
SILVIA
I wait upon his pleasure. Come, Sir Thurio,
Go with me. Once more, new servant, welcome:
I'll leave you to confer of home affairs;
When you have done, we look to hear from you.
PROTEUS
We'll both attend upon your ladyship.
Exeunt SILVIA and THURIO
VALENTINE
Now, tell me, how do all from whence you came?
PROTEUS
Your friends are well and have them much commended.
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?
LAUNCE
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 tears pure messengers sent from his heart,
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 Script of Act II Two Gentlemen of Verona by William Shakespeare Personae |
