DARIN COUNTY FREE LIBRARY
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822.3 Shakespeare, William
S Two gentlemen of Verona
Marin County Free Library
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MARIN COUNTY FREE LIBRARY
San Rafael, California
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THE
TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA.
Preface.
The First Edition. The Tzvo Gentlemen of Verona
first appeared in the Folio of 1623, where it immediately
follows The Tempest, and occupies pp. 20-38; no evidence
exists for an earlier edition. A list of the Dramatis Per-
sons, " The Names of all the Actors," is given at the
end of the play. The text is on the whole free from cor-
ruptions; the most remarkable errors occur in II. v. 1;
III. i. 81 ; V. iv. 129; where ' Padua ' and ' Verona ' are
given instead of ' Milan.' These inaccuracies are prob-
ably due to Shakespeare's MS.; the poet had evidently
not revised this play as carefully as his other early ef-
forts.
Several critics are inclined to attribute the final scene
to another hand; it bears evident signs of hasty com-
position, and Valentine's renunciation comes as a shock
to one's sensibilities. It must however be borne in mind
that the theme of Friendship versus Love was not un-
common in Elizabethan literature; perhaps the best ex-
ample is to be found in the plot of Lyly's ' Campaspe,'
where Alexander magnanimously resigns the lady to
Apelles. Shakespeare in his Sonnets XL., xli., xlii.,
makes himself enact the part of Valentine to his Protean
friend : —
" Take all my loves, my love, yea, take them all ;
What hast thou then more than thou hadst before?
No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call,
All mine was thine before thou hadst this more."
Preface TWO GENTLEMEN
Date of Composition. The only allusion to the play
previous to its insertion in the First Folio is in the Pal-
ladis Tamia, 1598, where Meres places it first among the
six comedies mentioned. Its date cannot be definitely
fixed. The following general considerations place it
among the earliest of Shakespeare's productions, i.e. circa
1 590- 1 592: — the symmetrical arrangement of the charac-
ters; the unnaturalness of some of its incidents, espe-
cially the abrupt denouement; the finely finished regular-
ity of the blank verse, suggestive of lyrical rather than
of dramatic poetry, and recalling the thoughts and phra-
seology of the sonnets (I. i. 45-50 and Sonnets lxx.,
xcv.; IV. iv. 161 and Sonnet cxxvu.); the alternate
rhymes; the burlesque doggerel; the quibbles; and the
fondness for alliteration. Many ' notes ' in the play seem
to prelude Romeo and Juliet, and the influence of the
story, as though the Poet were already meditating a
drama on the theme, is one of the striking characteristics
of the play.
Sources of the Play. The greater part of the play
seems ultimately derived from the Story of the Shep-
herdess Filismena in the Diana of Jorge de Montemayor
(a Portuguese poet and novelist, 1 520-1 562). Bartholo-
mew Yonge's translation of the work, though published
in 1598, was finished some sixteen years before (cp.
Shakespeare's Library, ed. Hazlitt, vol. I. part i.). There
were other translations of the whole or part of the
romance by Thomas Wilson (1595-6) and by "Edward
Paston, Esquire " (mentioned by Yonge).
Probably Shakespeare was not directly indebted to
Montemayor; as early as 1584-5 a play was acted at
Greenwich " on the Sondaie next after newe yeares daie
at night," entitled The History of Felix and Philiomena ;
where Felix is certainly the " Don Felix " of the Diana,
and " Philiomena " is a scribal error for " Filismena."
Shakespeare's play may very well have been based on
this earlier production.
OF VERONA Preface
A similar theme, with a tragic denouement, is to be
found in the Comccdia von Julio mid Hippolyta, a play
acted by the English actors in Germany, preserved only
in a German paraphrase (cp. Schauspiele der cnglischen
Komodianten in Dcuschland, ed. J. Tittmann ; also, Zu-
pitza, "Shakespeare Jahrbuch," xxiii.).
Bandello's Novel of Appolonius and Sylla, which was
translated by Riche (1581), may have suggested certain
incidents (cp. Hazlitt's Shakespeare's Library, Vol. I. part
L); Sidney's Arcadia (Book I. cli. vi.) — itself greatly in-
debted to Montemayor's Diana, Sidney's favourite book
— may possibly be the original of Valentine's consenting
to lead the robber-band, and the speech at the beginning
of the scene (V. iv.) in praise of Solitude may also have
been suggested by a passage in the same book.
The Form of the Play. In order to understand the
form of ' The Two Gentlemen ' — probably the first of
Shakespeare's plays dealing with love-intrigue — the
reader must remember that it links itself to the pre-
Shakespearian romantic dramas based on Italian love-
stories; but these earlier dramas are rare. The best ex-
ample of the kind extant is without doubt a very scarce
production, registered in the books of the Stationers'
Company 1584 (and printed soon after), entitled " Fidclc
and Fortune: the Receipts in Love discoursed in a Comcdie
of ij Italian Gentlemen, translated into English " by A. M.,
i.e. probably Anthony Munday). This crude effort may
certainly be regarded as one of the most valuable of the
prototypes of the Shakespearian romantic plays ; it has
hitherto been strangely neglected {cp. Extracts, printed
by Halliwell in his " Illustrations to the Literature of the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries "*). One is inclined
to think that Shakespeare is indebted for something
more than the title of his first love-play to " The Two
* Halliwell printed certain scenes in order to illustrate the
witchcraft in Macbeth; it is remarkable that he did not notice
the real value of the play.
Preface TWO GENTLEMEN
Italian Gentlemen." In this connection it is perhaps note-
worthy that Meres, as early as 1598, and Kirkman, as
late as 1661, mention Shakespeare's play as ' The Gentle-
men of Verona' This was perhaps customary in order to
distinguish it from Munday's translated drama.
Forward-Links. The play contains many hints of in-
cidents and characters more admirably developed in later
plays; e.g. the scenes between Julia and her maid Lu-
cetta at Verona anticipate the similar talk between Portia
and Nerissa at Belmont ; Julia's disguise makes her the
first of Shakespeare's best-beloved heroines, Portia, Jes-
sica, Rosalind, Viola, Imogen; Valentine's lament (Act
III. sc. i. 11. 170-187), with its burden of " banished," is
heard again as Romeo's death-knell; the meeting of
Eglamour and Silvia at Friar Patrick's cell suggests the
meeting-place of the two star-crossed lovers at Friar
Laurence's.
Launcelot Gobbo owes much to his namesake Launce,
and something also to Speed, whose description of the
various signs whereby one may know a lover finds de-
velopment in the character of Benedick.
Duration of Time. The Time covered is seven days
on the stage, with intervals between scenes and acts: —
Day 1: Act 1. sc. i. and ii.; interval of a month or per-
haps sixteen months (cp. iv. 1-21). Day 2: Act I. sc. iii.
and Act II. sc. i. Day 3: Act II. sc. ii. and iii.; interval,
Proteus's journey to Milan. Day 4: Act II. sc. iv. and
v.; interval of a few days. Day 5: Act II. sc. vi. and vii.,
Act III. and Act IV. sc. i. ; interval, including Julia's
Journey to Milan. Day 6: Act IV. sc. ii. Day 7: Act
IV. sc. iii. and iv. and Act V. (cp. Daniel, New Shake-
speare Society's Transactions, 1877-79).
OF VERONA
Critical Comments.
I.
Argument.
I. Valentine and Proteus, two gentlemen of Verona,
are intimate friends accustomed to telling their hearts'
secrets freely, the one to the other. Valentine goes to
the court of Milan to gain worldly experience and honour.
Proteus, for love of a Veronese maiden named Julia,
would fain stay at home; but his father, ignorant of the
love affair, and desirous that his son shall see something
of the world, sends him to join Valentine at Milan.
II. Silvia, the daughter of the Duke of Milan, has
many suitors. No sooner does Valentine see her than he
becomes one of the number; but he is more fortunate than
the rest, for Silvia favours him. The Duke, however, has
chosen another for his daughter's husband. Valentine
and Silvia plan to elope. At this juncture Proteus ar-
rives from Verona, after having exchanged vows there
with Julia. Valentine introduces Proteus to Silvia, con-
fides to him the secret of their proposed clandestine mar-
riage, and asks his assistance. Proteus promises it, but
inwardly resolves to play his friend false, and try to win
Silvia for himself. His neglected love, Julia, hearing no
tidings of him, decides to don boy's garments, and go to
Milan in search of him.
III. Proteus foils his friend's schemes by informing
the Duke of the lovers' projected flight. The Duke
banishes Valentine from his realm. Thurio, the suitor
Comments TWO GENTLEMEN
chosen by the Duke, does not prosper in his wooing, and
therefore asks Proteus to aid him.
IV. The banished Valentine flees to a forest near
Milan, where he falls into the hands of outlaws, who,
pleased by his address, make him their chief.
In Milan, Proteus plays false with Thurio just as he
had done with Valentine. Under guise of fostering
Thurio's suit he pleads his own cause to Silvia, who
scorns him. Julia arrives dressed as a page, and secures
employment with Proteus, who does not recognize her.
She soon has opportunity to discover her lover's perfidy,
since he sends her to Silvia with a ring that was Julia's
own love-token to him.
V. Silvia escapes to the forest in search of Valen-
tine, but is seized by some of the outlaws of her lover's
band. Before they can bring her to his presence, she
is rescued by Proteus, who, however, tries to take ad-
vantage of the occasion and compel her to yield to his
love. Valentine overhears his false friend and liberates
Silvia, at the same time reproaching Proteus so sternly
that the latter is stricken with remorse, and humbly begs
forgiveness. The generous Valentine accords it. The
identity of Julia is discovered, and she is united with her
repentant lover.
Meantime the Duke, who had gone also to the forest
in search of Silvia, is captured by others of Valentine's
outlaws. Valentine releases him; and the Duke pardons
all the band, permits them to resume the rights of citizen-
ship, and consents to the nuptials of Silvia and Valentine.
McSpadden : Shakespearian Synopses.
II.
ft. Proteus.
There is the principal agent, Proteus; a man who
" suns himself " in the esteem and confidence of all his
acquaintance, is the early and bosom-friend of Valentine,
6
OF VERONA Comments
is trusted (and to all appearance deservedly so) by his
mistress, Julia. He leaves her with the sincerest vows
of constancy; and the moment he beholds the mistress
of his friend, he not only becomes enamoured of her,
but, with a wantonness of treachery, turns low, scoundrel
informer to her father of their projected elopement.
This not being enough to fill the measure of his villany,
at the instance of that father he actually consents to
become the calumniator of his unoffending friend to his
friend's mistress, and afterwards to woo her for the
pantaloon lover, Thurio; an office which he nevertheless
endeavours to convert to his own advantage. He next
sends his own mistress's love-pledge, and by herself
(disguised, however, as his page) to her rival; and, im-
mediately after, attempts the greatest crime that man
can perpetrate towards woman — against that same
woman, too, whom he has vainly endeavoured to seduce
from his friend; and when, in the sequel, he reads his
repentance in four lines, he is at once accepted in two
lines by the man he had so injured — who, with unique
and amusing simplicity, says: "Then I am paid, and
once again I do receive thee honest." But, to crown all,
his mistress, Julia, congratulates herself upon having re-
deemed such a lover! All these confoundings of the
probabilities of event may be excused in a story of high
romance; but where there is any profession of human
passion, we must look to have some regard to the con-
comitant mystery of human nature in the abstract.
Now, Proteus is, confessedly, a solid scoundrel; am ,
what is worse, he is a mean scoundrel. j^J^* ^ jf
Charles Cowden Clarke: Shakespeare Characw^p <
III.
Valentine. V*Y,
The character of Valentine is compounded of sc
of the elements that we find in Romeo; for the strong"
Comments TWO GENTLEMEN
impulses of both these lovers are as much opposed as it
is possible to the subtle devices of Proteus. The con-
fiding Valentine goes to his banishment with the cold
comfort that Proteus gives him : —
" Hope is a lover's staff ; walk hence with that."
He is compelled to join the outlaws, but he makes con-
ditions with them that exhibit the goodness of his nature;
and we hear no more of him till the catastrophe, when
his traitorous friend is forgiven with the same confiding
generosity that has governed all his intercourse with
him. We have little doubt of the corruption, or, at any
rate, of the unfinished nature, of the passage in which he
is made to give up Silvia to his false friend — for that
would be entirely inconsistent with the ardent character
of his love, and an act of injustice towards Julia, which
he could not commit. But it is perfectly natural and
probable that he should receive Proteus again into his
confidence, upon his declaration of " hearty sorrow," and
that he should do so upon principle : —
" Who by repentance is not satisfied
Is nor of heaven nor earth."
It is, to our minds, quite delightful to find in this, which
we consider amongst the earliest of Shakspere's plays,
that exhibition of the real Christian spirit of charity
which, more or less, pervades all his writings ; but which,
more than any other quality, has made some persons,
who deem their own morality as of a higher and purer
order, cry out against them, as giving encouragement to
evil-doers. . . .
The generous, confiding, courageous, and forgiving
spirit of Valentine is well appreciated by the Duke —
" Thou art a gentleman." In this praise are included
all the virtues which Shakspere desired to represent in
the character of Valentine; the absence of which virtues
he has also indicated in the selfish Proteus. The Duke
8
OF VERONA Comments
adds, " and well derived." " Thou art a gentleman " in
"thy spirit" — a gentleman in "thy unrivalled merit";
and thou hast the honours of ancestry — the further ad-
vantage of honourable progenitors. This line, in one of
Shakspere's earliest plays, is a key to some of his per-
sonal feelings. He was himself a true gentleman, though
the child of humble parents. His exquisite delineations
of the female character establish the surpassing refine-
ment and purity of his mind in relation to women; and
thus, if there were no other evidence of the son of the
wool-stapler of Stratford being a " gentleman," this one
prime feature of the character would be his most pre-
eminently. Well then might he, looking to himself, as-
sert the principle that rank and ancestry are additions
to the character of the gentleman, but not indispensable
component parts. " Thou art a gentleman, and well de-
rived."
Knight : Pictorial Shaksperc. '
Julia.
Julia, seeking out and attending her faithless lover in
the disguise of a page, and even making herself servant
to his infidelity, is one of those exhibitions of female
purity, sweetness, and devotion, wherein Shakespeare so
far excels all other writers. Her innocence and gentle-
ness are but the more apparent for the chill, rough at-
mosphere that threatens them; the Poet, here as else-
where, multiplying the difficulties of the situation, the
better to approve the beauty of the character. Perhaps
the best excuse for her undertaking is, that she never
dreams but her lover's heart is as far from fraud as her
own, till she finds him with proofs to the contrary on his
tongue. Julia, however, is little else than a dim fore-
shadowing of Imogen: we might almost call them the
same person, now seen before, now after marriage;
9
Comments TWO GENTLEMEN
though, in the latter case, by a much clearer light. Per-
haps, withal, Imogen has both more rectitude of thought
and more delicacy of feeling, than to set forth on such
an adventure with so little cause : for Julia has no perse-
cution at home to drive her away, and her love seems
rather unwise in not bearing the absence of its object,
this being so manifestly for his good.
Hudson: The Works of Shakespeare.
Silvia.
Silvia, " hard beset " with lovers in her father's court,
though she gives proof not to be excepted against that
she loves Valentine, betrays not the less a tinge of the
temper of her wooer Proteus. It must be said without dis-
guise, that it was not absolutely necessary for her to give
her picture to Proteus while she was upbraiding him with
falsehood to his friend and to a former love; and if the
act was not falsehood on her part towards Valentine, it
was dangerous coquetry towards Proteus, and goes far
to account for the interpretation he evidently put upon
her coyness, when he had added the service of rescue
from the robbers to former fervent protestations. Her
bitter upbraidings are phenomena that Homer and Paris
Alexander knew, and Proteus may therefore not unnat-
urally have thought, to be far less sincere than they may
sometimes have sounded; and Valentine himself who
unseen was looking on and listening at the scene, may
have had his own apprehensions too, and interfered, it
may be, to rescue Silvia scarcely more from Proteus
than from herself. Thus may be, but only thus can be
accounted for, the remainder of the scene; thus the more
than Christian eagerness of pardon with which Valentine
overwhelms the abashed Proteus, and the alacrity of his
renunciation of all previous rights in the blushing damsel
10
OF VERONA Comments
who has no word of recognition or gratitude to greet
him with, but is tongue-tied to the end.
" And that my love may appear plain and free,
All that was mine in Silvia I give thee."
Lloyd: Critical Essays on the Plays of Shakespeare,
VI.
Speed and Launce.
While Speed impresses us chiefly by his astonishing
volubility, the true English humour makes its entrance
upon the Shakespearian stage when Launce appears,
dragging his dog by a string.
Note the torrent of eloquence in this speech of Speed's,
enumerating the symptoms from which he concludes that
his master is in love: —
" First, you have learn'd, like Sir Proteus, to wreath your arms
like a malcontent ; 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 laugh'd, to crow like
a cock ; when you walk'd, to walk like one of the lions ; when you
fasted, it was presently after dinner ; when you look'd 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."
All these similes of Speed's are apt and accurate; it is
only the way in which he piles them up that makes us
laugh. But when Launce opens his mouth, unbridled
whimsicality at once takes the upper hand. He comes
upon the scene with his dog: —
"Nay, 'twill be this hour ere I have done weeping; all the kind
of the Launces have this very fault. ... I think Crab, my
II
Comments TWO GENTLEMEN
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 gran-
dam, 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 't is : now,
sir, 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, — O! the dog is
me, and I am myself : ay, so, so."
Here we have nothing but joyous nonsense, and yet
nonsense of a highly dramatic nature. That is to say,
here reigns that youthful exuberance of spirit which
laughs with a childlike grace, even where it condescends
to the petty and low; exuberance as of one who glories
in the very fact of existence, and rejoices to feel life
pulsing and seething in his veins; exuberance such as
belongs of right, in some degree, to every well-consti-
tuted man in the light-hearted days of his youth — how
much more, then, to one who possesses the double youth
of years and genius among a people which is itself young,
and more than young: liberated, emancipated, enfran-
chised, like a colt which has broken its tether and scam-
pers at large through the luxuriant pastures.
Brandes: William Shakespeare.
What shall we say to Launce and his dog? Is it prob-
able that even such a fool as Launce should have put his
feet into the stocks for the puddings which his dog had
stolen, or poked his head through the pillory for the
murder of geese which the same dog had killed? — yet
12
OF VERONA Comments
the ungrateful cur never denies one item of the facts
with which Launce so tenderly reproaches him. Nay,
what is more wonderful, this enormous outrage on the
probable excites our common risibility. What an un-
conscionable empire over our fanciful faith is assumed
by those comic geniuses! They despise the very word
probability. Only think of Smollett making us laugh
at the unlikely speech of Pipes, spoken to Commodore
Trunnion down a chimney — " Commodore Trunnion,
get up and be spliced, or lie still and be damned! " And
think also of Swift amusing us with contrasted descrip-
tions of men six inches and sixty feet high — how very
improbable!
At the same time, something may be urged on the
opposite side of the question. A fastidious sense of the
improbable would be sometimes a nuisance in comic
fiction. One sees dramatic critics often trying the prob-
abilities of incidents in a play, as if they were testing the
evidence of facts at the Old-Bailey. Now, unquestion-
ably, at that august court, when it is a question whether
a culprit shall be spared, or whipped and transported for
life, probabilities should be sifted with a merciful leaning
towards the side of doubt. But the theatre is not the
Old-Bailey, and as we go to the former place for amuse-
ment, we open our hearts to whatever may most amuse
us; nor do we thank the critic who, by his Old-Bailey-
like pleadings, would disenchant our belief. The imagi-
nation is a liberal creditor of its faith as to incidents,
when the poet can either touch our affections, or tickle
our ridicule.
Nay, we must not overlook an important truth in this
subject. The poet or the fictionist — and every great fic-
tionist is a true poet — gives us an image of life at large,
and not of the narrow and stinted probabilities of every-
day life. But real life teems with events which, unless we
knew them to have actually happened, would seem to be
next to impossibilities. So that if you chain down the
poet from representing everything that may seem in dry
13
Comments TWO GENTLEMEN
reasoning to be improbable, you will make his fiction
cease to be a probable picture of Nature.
Campbell.
VII.
The Play as a Whole.
Love, in its double form of sexual love and friendship,
is evidently the basis of the whole, the leading centre of
the action. To represent this foundation in its uncer-
tainty and instability — in other words, to describe it within
the comic view of life, in contradiction with its true na-
ture, is manifestly the purport and tendency of the play;
this is, however, too seriously and strongly emphasized,
and thus the representation loses in comic power. Love
is here, accordingly, represented in the most diversi-
fied forms, but invariably weak and frail, foolish and
perverse. The centre is formed by the passion of Pro-
teus for Julia, his double faithlessness and his equally
sudden conversion ; a look from Silvia, her mere ap-
pearance, makes him forget the one for whom he has
just been sighing, and for whose absence tears are still
lingering in his eyes; a look from her makes him a traitor
to his best and oldest friend, and also makes him de-
ceive the Duke and the latter's favourite, Thurio. In
fact, he is the impersonation of the faithlessness of love.
In contrast to him we have Julia; she is exhibited at
first in the capricious self-will of a girl in love, but coy,
who will not accept her lover's letter, and yet chides
her maid that the latter has not forced her to read it;
she tears it to pieces before she has opened it, but after-
wards gathers up the fragments in order to try and spell
out the contents. Suddenly, however, this coyness is
quite forgotten, nay, turns into its opposite, for, cast-
ing aside all girlish shyness, she dresses herself in man's
attire and sets out after her faithless lover, acts as his
messenger in carrying love-letters to Silvia, and finally,
14
OF VERONA Comments
after enduring all this mortification, again throws herself
into his arms. A greater amount of constancy is ex-
hibited in the other couple, Valentine and Silvia; they
remain true to one another in spite of all obstacles, suf-
ferings and adversities, and yet Valentine is capable of
giving up his beloved — for whose sake he has done and
suffered so much, and whom he intended to carry off
from her father's house — in favour of his treacherous
and only half-repentant friend, although the latter, on
account of Silvia's aversion to him, could in no way be
a gainer by his sacrifice. Thurio, lastly, is a lover of
the commonest type, a wealthy blockhead, more inter-
ested in the father as a duke than in the daughter, and
who resembles his more gifted rivals only in so far as he
likewise does not know his own mind — continuing to
make love although he is rejected with scorn and con-
tempt, and in the end retiring because he is rejected with
scorn and contempt. This fickle, inconstant and contra-
dictory form of love is worthily associated with the
Duke's peculiar paternal affection for his daughter; here
also we have a high degree of delusion and inconsistency.
After having at first purposed to force his daughter's
inclinations in favour of a repulsive old noodle, he at
last consents to give her to a robber chieftain whom —
as an honourable knight — he had rejected. But the
delicious folly reaches its climax in the person of the
inimitable Launce, one of those thoroughly comic char-
acters whose true nature Shakespeare alone can de-
scribe. Launce, who for weeping and wailing can
scarcely leave his father's house, whose tears would fill
the river were it dry, and whose sighs, " were the wind
down," would drive on the boat that is carrying him
away from his home — it is he who allows himself to be
cudgelled for the sake of his " cruel-hearted cur," to
be set in the stocks and placed in the pillory, and never-
theless rejoices at the punishment inflicted upon his
friend Speed for a fault into which he himself had inten-
tionally led him. In fact, he is the most amusing im-
iS
a n 9 1
Commenis TWO GENTLEMEN
personation both of sentimental folly and foolish senti-
mentality, and of the self-will and blindness of love.
Ulrici: Shakspeare's Dramatic Art.
In the Tzvo Gentlemen of Verona rhyme has fallen
seemingly into abeyance, and there are no passages of
such elegiac beauty as in the former [Comedy of Errors],
of such exalted eloquence as in the latter [Love's Labour fs
Lost] of these plays ; there is an even sweetness, a sim-
ple equality of grace in thought and language
which keeps the whole poem in tune, written as it
is in a subdued key of unambitious harmony. In per-
fect unity and keeping the composition of this beau-
tiful sketch may perhaps be said to mark a stage of ad-
vance, a new point of work attained, a faint but sensible
change of manner, signalised by increased firmness of
hand and clearness of outline. Slight and swift in ex-
ecution as it is, few and simple as are the chords here
struck of character and emotion, every shade of draw-
ing and every note of sound is at one with the whole
scheme of form and music. Here too is the first dawn
of that higher and more tender humour which was never
given in such perfection1 to any man as ultimately to
Shakespeare; one touch of the by-play of Launce and
his immortal dog is worth all the bright fantastic inter-
ludes of Boyet and Adriano, Costard ' and Holofernes ;
worth even half the "sallies of Mer.cutio, and half the
dancing doggerel or- : broad- witte.d " prose of either
Dromio. But in the filial' poem'*which concludes and
crowns the first epoch of Shakespeare's work, the special
graces and peculiar glories of each that went before are
gathered together as in one garland " of every hue and
every scent." The young genius of the master of all
our poets finds its consummation in the Midsummer-
Nighfs Dream. The blank verse is as full, sweet, and
strong as the best of Biron's or Romeo's; the rhymed
16
OF VERONA Comments
verse as clear, pure, and true as the simplest and truest
melody of Venus and Adonis or the Comedy of Er-
rors. But here each kind of excellence is equal through-
out; there are no purple patches on a gown of
serge, but one seamless and imperial robe of a single
dye. Of the lyric or the prosaic part, the counterchange
of loves and laughters, of fancy fine as air and imagina-
tion as high as heaven, what need can there be for any
one to shame himself by the helpless attempt to say
some word not utterly unworthy? Let it suffice us to
accept this poem as the landmark of our first stage, and
pause to look back from it on what lies behind us of
partial or perfect work.
Swinburne: A Study of Shakespeare.
«7
The
Two Gentlemen of Verona.
DRAMATIS PERSONAE.
Duke of Milan, Father to Silvia.
Valentine,
}
the tzvo Gentlemen.
Proteus,
Antonio, Father to Proteus.
Thurio, a foolish rival to Valentine.
Eglamour, Agent for Silvia in her escape.
Host, where Julia lodges.
Outlaws, with Valentine.
Speed, a clownish servant to Valentine.
Launce, the like to Proteus.
Panthino, Servant to Antonio.
Julia, beloved of Proteus.
Silvia, beloved of Valentine.
Lucetta, waiting-woman to Julia.
Servants, Musicians.
Scene, Verona; Milan; the frontiers of Mantua.
The
Two Gentlemen of Verona.
ACT FIRST.
Scene I.
Verona. An open place.
Enter Valentine and Proteus.
Val. Cease to persuade, my loving Proteus:
Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits.
Were 't not affection chains thy tender days
To the sweet glances of thy honour'd love,
I rather would entreat thy company
To see the wonders of the world abroad,
Than, living dully sluggardized at home,
Wear out thy youth with shapeless idleness.
But since thou lovest, love still, and thrive therein,
Even as I would, when I to love begin. 10
Pro. Wilt thou be gone? Sweet Valentine, adieu?
Think on thy Proteus, when thou haply seest
Some rare note-worthy object in thy travel:
Wish me partaker in thy happiness,
When thou dost meet good hap; and in thy danger,
If ever danger do environ thee,
Commend thy grievance to my holy prayers,
For I will be thy beadsman, Valentine.
Val. And on a love-book pray for my success?
Pro. Upon some book I love I '11 pray for thee. 20
Act I. Sc. i. TWO GENTLEMEN
Val. That 's on some shallow story of deep love:
How young Leander cross'd the Hellespont.
Pro. That's a deep story of a deeper love;
For he was more than over shoes in love.
Val. 'Tis true; for you are over boots in love,
And yet you never swum the Hellespont.
Pro. Over the boots? nay, give me not the boots.
Val. No, I will not, for it boots thee not.
Pro. What?
Val. To be in love, where scorn is bought with groans;
Coy looks with heart-sore sighs; one fading mo-
ment's mirth 30
With twenty watchful, weary, tedious nights:
If haply won, perhaps a hapless gain;
If lost, why then a grievous labour won;
However, but a folly bought with wit,
Or else a wit by folly vanquished.
Pro. So, by your circumstance, you call me fool.
Val. So, by your circumstance, I fear you '11 prove.
Pro. 'Tis love you cavil at : I am not Love.
Val. Love is your master, for he masters you:
And he that is so yoked by a fool, 40
Methinks, should not be chronicled for wise.
Pro. Yet writers say, as in the sweetest bud
The eating canker dwells, so eating love
Inhabits in the finest wits of all.
Val. And writers say, as the most forward bud
Is eaten by the canker ere it blow,
Even so by love the young and tender wit
Is turn'd to folly; blasting in the bud,
Losing his verdure even in the prime,
And all the fair effects of future hopes. 50
22
OF VERONA Act I. Sc. i.
But wherefore waste I time to counsel thee,
That art a votary to fond desire?
Once more adieu ! my father at the road
Expects my coming, there to see me shipp'd.
Pro. And thither will I bring thee, Valentine.
Val. Sweet Proteus, no; now let us take our leave.
To Milan let me hear from thee by letters
Of thy success in love, and what news else
Betideth here in absence of thy friend;
And I likewise will visit thee with mine. 60
Pro. All happiness bechance to thee in Milan!
Val. As much to you at home! and so, farewell. [Exit.
Pro. He after honour hunts, I after love:
He leaves his friends to dignify them more;
I leave myself, my friends, and all, for love.
Thou, Julia, thou hast metamorphosed me,
Made me neglect my studies, lose my time,
War with good counsel, set the world at nought;
Made wit with musing weak, heart sick with
thought.
Enter Speed.
Speed. Sir Proteus, save you ! Saw you my master ? 70
Pro. But now he parted hence, to embark for Milan.
Speed. Twenty to one, then, he is shipp'd already,
And I have play'd the sheep in losing him.
Pro. Indeed, a sheep doth very often stray,
An if the shepherd be awhile away.
Speed. You conclude that my master is a shepherd,
then, and I a sheep?
Pro. I do.
Speed. Why then, my horns are his horns, whether
I wake or sleep. 80
23
Act I. Sc. i. TWO GENTLEMEN
Pro. A silly answer, and fitting well a sheep.
Speed. This proves me still a sheep.
Pro. True; and thy master a shepherd.
Speed. Nay, that I can deny by a circumstance.
Pro. It shall go hard but I '11 prove it by another.
Speed. The shepherd seeks the sheep, and not the
sheep the shepherd; but I seek my master, and
my master seeks not me: therefore I am no
sheep.
Pro. The sheep for fodder follow the shepherd ; the 90
shepherd for food follows not the sheep: thou
for wages followest thy master; thy master for
wages follows not thee: therefore thou art a
sheep.
Speed. Such another proof will make me cry ' baa/
Pro. But, dost thou hear? gavest thou my letter to
Julia?
Speed. Ay, sir: I, a lost mutton, gave your letter to
her, a laced mutton, and she, a laced mutton,
gave me, a lost mutton, nothing for my labour. 100
Pro. Here 's too small a pasture for such store of
muttons.
Speed. If the ground be overcharged, you were best
stick her.
Pro. Nay: in that you are astray, 'twere best pound
you.
Speed. Nay, sir, less than a pound shall serve me for
carrying your letter.
Pro. You mistake; I mean the pound, — a pinfold.
Speed. From a pound to a pin? fold it over and
over, no
'Tis threefold too little for carrying a letter to your
lover.
24
OF VERONA Act I. Sc. i.
Pro. But what said she?
Speed. [First nodding] Ay.
Pro. Nod — Ay — why, that 's noddy.
Speed. You mistook, sir; I say, she did nod: and
you ask me if she did nod; and I say, * Ay.'
Pro. And that set together is noddy.
Speed. Now you have taken the pains to set it to-
gether, take it for your pains.
Pro. No, no; you shall have it for bearing the letter. 120
Speed. Well, I perceive I must be fain to bear with
you.
Pro. Why, sir, how do you bear with me?
Speed. Marry, sir, the letter, very orderly; having
nothing but the word ' noddy ' for my pains.
Pro. Beshrew me, but you have a quick wit.
Speed. And yet it cannot overtake your slow purse.
Pro. Come, come, open the matter in brief: what
said she? •
Speed. Open your purse, that the money and the 130
matter may be both at once delivered.
Pro. Well, sir, here is for your pains. What said
she?
Speed. Truly, sir, I think you '11 hardly win her.
Pro. Why, couldst thou perceive so much from her?
Speed. Sir, I could perceive nothing at all from her;
no, not so much as a ducat for delivering your
letter: and being so hard to me that brought
your mind, I fear she '11 prove as hard to you in
telling your mind. Give her no token but 140
stones; for she 's as hard as steel.
Pro. What said she? nothing?
Speed. No, not so much as ' Take this for thy pains/
25
Act I. Sc. ii. TWO GENTLEMEN
To' testify your bounty, I thank you, you have
-testerned me; in requital whereof, henceforth
carry your letters yourself: and so, sir, I'll
commend you to my master.
Pro. Go, go, be gone, to save your ship from wreck,
Which cannot perish having thee aboard,
Being destined to a drier death on shore.
[Exit Speed.
I must go send some better messenger: 151
I fear my Julia would not deign my lines,
Receiving them from such a worthless post. [Exit.
Scene II.
The same. Garden of Jidia's house.
Enter Jidia and Lucctta.
Jul. But say, Lucetta, now we are alone,
Wouldst thou, then, counsel me to fall in love?
Lue. Ay, madam; so you stumble not unheedfully.
Jul. Of all the fair resort of gentlemen
That every day with parle encounter me,
In thy opinion which is worthiest love?
Luc. Please you repeat their names, I '11 show my mind
According to my shallow simple skill.
Jul. What think'st thou of the fair Sir Eglamour?
Luc. As of a knight well-spoken, neat and fine; 10
But, were I you, he never should be mine.
Jul. What think'st thou of the rich Mercatio?
Luc. Well of his wealth; but of himself, so so.
Jul. What think'st thou of the gentle Proteus?
Luc. Lord, Lord! to see what folly reigns in us!
Jul. How now! what means this passion at his name?
26
OF VERONA AclS.Sc. ii. C
..A
Luc. Pardon, dear madam : 'tis a passing shame^
That I, unworthy body as I am,
Should censure thus on lovely gentlemen.
Jul. Why not on Proteus, as of all the rest? 20
Luc. Then thus, — of many good I think him best.
Jul. Your reason?
Luc. I have no other but a woman's reason;
I think him so, because I think him so.
Jul. And wouldst thou have me cast my love on him?
Luc. Ay, if you thought your love not cast away.
Jul. Why, he, of all the rest, hath never moved me.
Luc. Yet he, of all the rest, I think, best loves ye.
Jul. His little speaking shows his love but small.
Luc. Fire that 's closest kept burns most of all. 30
Jul. They do not love that do not show their love.
Luc. O, they love least that let men know their love.
Jul. I would I knew his mind.
Luc. Peruse this paper, madam.
Jul. 'To Julia.' — Say, from whom?
Luc. That the contents will show.
Jul. Say, say, who gave it thee?
Luc. Sir Valentine's page; and sent, I think, from Pro-
teus.
He would have given it you; but I, being in the way,
Did in your name receive it: pardon the fault, I
pray.
Jul. Now, by my modesty, a goodly broker! 41
Dare you presume to harbour wanton lines?
To whisper and conspire against my youth?
Now, trust me, 'tis an office of great worth,
And you an officer fit for the place.
There, take the paper: see it be return'd;
Or else return no more into my sight.
Luc. To plead for love deserves more fee than hate.
27
Act I. Sc. ii. TWO GENTLEMEN
Jul. Will ye be gone?
Luc, That you may ruminate. [Exit.
Jul. And yet I would I had o'erlook'd the letter: 50
It were a shame to call her back again,
And pray her to a fault for which I chid her.
What fool is she, that knows I am a maid,
And would not force the letter to my view!
Since maids, in modesty, say ' no ' to that
Which they would have the profferer construe ' ay.'
Fie, fie, how wayward is this foolish love,
That, like a testy babe, will scratch the nurse,
And presently, all humbled, kiss the rod!
How churlishly I chid Lucetta hence, 60
When willingly I would have had her "here!
How angrily I taught my brow to frown,
When inward joy enforced my heart to smile!
My penance is, to call Lucetta back,
And ask remission for my folly past.
What, ho! Lucetta!
Re-enter Lucetta.
lUCm What would your ladyship?
Jul. Is 't near dinner-time?
LUCm I would it were;
That you might kill your stomach on your meat,
And not upon your maid.
Jul. What is 't that you took up so gingerly? 7°
Luc. Nothing.
Jul. Why didst thou stoop, then?
Luc. To take a paper up that I let fall.
Jul. And is that paper nothing?
Luc. Nothing concerning me.
OF VERONA Act I. Sc. ii.
Jul. Then let it He for those that it concerns.
Luc. Madam, it will not lie where it concerns,
Unless it have a false interpreter.
Jul. Some love of yours hath writ to you in rhyme.
Luc. That I might sing it, madam, to a tune. 80
Give me a note : your ladyship can set.
Jul. As little by such toys as may be possible.
Best sing it to the tune of ' Light o' love.'
Luc. It is too heavy for so light a tune.
Jul. Heavy ! belike it hath some burden, then ?
Luc. Ay; and melodious were it, would you sing it.
Jul. And why not you?
Luc. I cannot reach so high.
Jul. Let 's see your song. How now, minion !
Luc. Keep tune there still, so you will sing it out:
And yet methinks I do not like this tune. 90
Jul. You do not?
Luc. No, madam; it is too sharp.
Jul. You, minion, are too saucy.
Luc. Nay, now you are too flat,
And mar the concord with too harsh a descant:
There wanteth but a mean to fill your song.
Jul. The mean is drown'd with your unruly bass.
Luc. Indeed, I bid the base for Proteus.
Jul. This babble shall not henceforth trouble me.
Here is a coil with protestation! [Tears the letter.
Go get you gone, and let the papers lie: 100
You would be fingering them, to anger me.
Luc. She makes it strange; but she would be best pleased
To be so anger'd with another letter. [Exit.
Jul. Nay, would I were so anger'd with the same!
O hateful hands, to tear such loving words!
29
Act I. Sc. ii. TWO GENTLEMEN
Injurious wasps, to feed on such sweet honey,
And kill the bees, that yield it, with your stings !
I '11 kiss each several paper for amends.
Look, here is writ ' kind Julia.' Unkind Julia!
As in revenge of thy ingratitude, no
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,
Shall lodge thee, till thy wound be thoroughly
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,
Except mine own name : that some whirlwind bear
Unto a ragged, fearful-hanging rock, 121
And throw it thence into the raging sea!
Lo, here in one line is his name twice writ,
' Poor forlorn Proteus, passionate Proteus,
To the sweet Julia ' : — that I '11 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.
Re-enter Lucetta.
Luc. Madam, 13°
Dinner is ready, and your father stays.
Jul. Well, let us go.
Luc. What, shall these papers lie like tell-tales here?
Jul. If you respect them, best to take them up.
Luc. Nay, I was taken up for laying them down:
30
OF VERONA Act I. Sc. iii.
Yet here they shall not lie, for catching cold.
Jul. I see you have a moneth's mind to them.
Luc. Ay, madam, you may say what sights you see;
I see things too, although you judge I wink.
Jul. Come, come; will't please you go? [Exeunt. 140
Scene III.
The same. Antonio's house.
Enter Antonio and Panthino.
Ant. Tell me, Panthino, what sad talk was that
Wherewith my brother held you in the cloister?
Pan. 'Twas of his nephew Proteus, your son.
Ant. Why, what of him?
Pan. He wonder'd that your lordship
Would suffer him to spend his youth at home,
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,
In having known no travel in his youth.
Ant. 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, 20
3 1'
Act I. Sc. iii. TWO GENTLEMEN
Not being tried and tutor'd in the world:
Experience is by industry achieved,
And perfected by the swift course of time.
Then, tell me, whither were I best to send him?
Pan. I think your lordship is not ignorant
How his companion, youthful Valentine,
Attends the emperor in his royal court.
Ant. I know it well.
Pan. 'Twere good, I think, your lordship sent him
thither:
There shall he practise tilts and tournaments, 30
Hear sweet discourse, converse with noblemen,
And be in eye of every exercise
Worthy his youth and nobleness of birth.
Ant. I like thy counsel; well hast thou advised:
And that thou mayst perceive how well I like it
The execution of it shall make known.
Even with the speediest expedition
I will dispatch him to the emperor's court.
Pan. To-morrow, may it please you, Don Alphonso,
With other gentlemen ot good esteem, 40
Are journeying to salute the emperor,
And to commend their service to his will.
Ant. Good company; with them shall Proteus go:
And, in good time! now will we break with him.
Enter Proteus.
Pro. Sweet love! sweet lines! sweet life!
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! 50
32
OF VERONA Act I. Sc. Hi.
Ant. How now! what letter are you reading there?
Pro. May 't please your lordship, 'tis a word or two
Of commendations sent from Valentine,
Deliver'd by a friend that came from him.
Ant. Lend me the letter; let me see what news.
Pro. There is no news, my lord; but that he writes
How happily he lives, how well beloved, ifQ>
And daily graced by the emperor;
Wishing me with him, partner of his fortune.
Ant. And how stand you affected to his wish?
Pro. As one relying on your lordship's will,
And not depending on his friendly wish.
Ant. 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.
I am resolved 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-rnorrow be in readiness to go: 70
Excuse it not, for I am peremptory.
Pro. My lord, I cannot be so soon provided:
Please you, deliberate a day or two.
Ant. Look, what thou want'st shall be sent after thee:
No more of stay! to-morrow thou must go.
Come on, Panthino: ydu shall be employ'd
To hasten on his expedition.
[Exeunt Ant. and Pan.
Pro. 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, 80
Lest he should take exceptions to my love;
And with the vantage of mine own excuse
33
Act II. Sc. i. TWO GENTLEMEN
Hath he excepted most against my love.
O, how this spring of love resembleth
The uncertain glory of an April day,
Which now shows all the beauty of the sun,
And by and by a cloud takes all away!
Re-enter Panthino.
Pan. Sir Proteus, your father calls for you:
He is in haste; therefore, I pray you, go.
Pro. Why, this it is: my heart accords thereto, 90
And yet a thousand times it answers ' no.'
[Exeunt.
ACT SECOND.
Scene I.
Milan. The Duke's palace.
Enter Valentine and Speed.
Speed. Sir, your glove.
Vd- Not mine; my gloves are on.
Speed. Why, then, this may be yours, for this is but one.
Val. 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!
Val. How now, sirrah?
Speed. She is not within hearing, sir.
Val. Why, sir, who bade you call her?
Speed. Your worship, sir; or else I mistook. 10
Val. Well, you '11 still be too forward.
Speed. And yet I was last chidden for being too slow.
34
OF VERONA Act II. Sc. i.
Val. Go to, sir: tell me, do you know Madam
Silvia?
Speed. She that your worship loves?
Val. 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 male-content; to relish a love-song,
like a robin-redbreast; to walk alone, like one 20
that had the pestilence; to sigh, like a school-
boy 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 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 30
now you are metamorphosed with a mistress,
that, when I look on you, I can hardly think you
my master.
Val. Are all these things perceived in me?
Speed. They are all perceived without ye.
Val. Without me? they cannot.
Speed. Without you? nay, that's certain, for, with-
out you were so simple, none else would: but
you are so without these follies, that these fol-
lies are within you, and shine through you like
the water in an urinal, that not an eye that sees 40
you but is a physician to comment on your mal-
ady.
Val. But tell me, dost thou know my lady Silvia?
Speed. She that you gaze on so as she sits at supper?
35
Act "• Sc- '• TWO GENTLEMEN
ef ^Snth°U observed that? even she, I mean.
Speed. Why, sir, I know her not.
Val Dost thou know her by my gazing on her, and
yet knowest her not?
Speed. Is she not hard-favoured, sir?
Val Not so fair, boy, as well-favoured c0
Speed. Sir, I know that well enough.
Val What dost thou know?
Speed. That she is not so fair as, of you, well fa-
voured.
Val 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.
Vol How painted? and how out of count?
Speed. Marry, sir, so painted, to make her fair, that
no man counts of her beauty. 50
Val How esteemest thou me? I account of her
beauty.
Speed You never saw her since she was deformed
Val How long hath she been deformed ?
Speed. Ever since you loved her.
Val I have loved her ever since I saw her; and still
I see her beautiful.
Speed. If you love her, you cannot see her
Val. Why?
Speed. Because Love is blind. O, that you had 7o
mine eyes; or your own eyes had the lights
they were wont to have when you chid at Sir
Proteus for going ungartered!
Val What should I see then?
Speed. Your own present folly, and her passing de-
formity: for he, being in love, could not see to
36
OF VERONA Act II. Sc. i.
garter his hose; and you, being in love, cannot
see to put on your hose.
Veil. Belike, boy, then, you are in love; for last
morning you could not see to wipe my shoes. 80
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.
Val. In conclusion, I stand affected to her.
Speed. I would you were set, so your affection would
cease.
Val. Last night she enjoined me to write some lines
to one she loves.
Speed. And have you?
Val. I have. 90
Speed. Are they not lamely writ?
Val. 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.
Val. Madam and mistress, a thousand good-mor-
rows.
Speed. [Aside] O, give ye good even! here 's a mil-
lion of manners.
Sil. Sir Valentine and servant, to you two thousand.
Speed. [Aside] He should give her interest, and she 100
gives it him.
Val. 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.
Sil. I thank you, gentle servant: 'tis very clerkly done.
37
Act H- Sc- *• TWO GENTLEMEN
Val. Now trust me, madam, it came hardly off;
For, being ignorant to whom it goes,
I writ at random, very doubtfully.
Sil. Perchance you think too much of so much
pains? IIQ
Val. No, madam ; so it stead you, I will write,
Please you command, a thousand times as much-
And yet —
Sil. 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.'
Val. What means your ladyship? do you not like it?
Sil. Yes, yes: the lines are very quaintly writ; 120
But since unwillingly, take them again.
Nay, take them.
Val. Madam, they are for you.
Sil 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.
Val. Please you, I '11 write your ladyship another*.
Sil. And when it 's writ, for my sake read it over,
And if it please you, so; if not, why, so.
Val. If it please me, madam, what then? 130
Sil. 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.
38
OF VERONA Act II. Sc. i.
O excellent device! was there ever heard a better,
That my master, being scribe, to himself should
write the letter?
VaL How now, sir? what are you reasoning with
yourself? 140
Speed. Nay, I was rhyming: 'tis you that have the
reason.
VaL To do what?
Speed. To be a spokesman from Madam Silvia.
VaL To whom?
Speed. To yourself: why, she wooes you by a figure.
VaL What figure?
Speed. By a letter, I should say.
VaL Why, she hath not writ to me?
Speed. What need she, when she hath made you 150
write to yourself? Why, do you not perceive
the jest?
VaL No, believe me.
Speed. No believing you, indeed, sir. But did you
perceive her earnest?
VaL She gave me none, except an angry word.
Speed. Why, she hath given you a letter.
VaL That 's the letter I writ to her friend.
Speed. And that letter hath she delivered, and there
an end.
VaL I would it were no worse. 160
Speed. I '11 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.
39
Act "• Sc- "• TWO GENTLEMEN
All this I speak in print, for in print I found it
Why muse you, sir? 'tis dinner-time.
Val. I have dined.
Speed Ay, but hearken, sir; though the chameleon
Love can feed on the air, I am one that am 170
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.
Pro. Have patience, gentle Julia.
Jul. I must, where is no remedy.
Pro. When possibly I can, I will return.
Jul If you turn not, you will return the sooner.
Keep this remembrance for thy Julia's sake.
td -it 71 , [Giving a ring.
Pro. Why then, we 'll make exchange; here, take you
this. J
Jul. And seal the bargain with a holy kiss.
Pro. 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, 10
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.
40
OF VERONA Act II. Sc. iii.
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.
Pan. Sir Proteus, you are stay'd for.
Pro. Go; I come, I come. 20
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 sis-
ter crying, our maid howling, our cat wringing
her hands, and all our house in a great perplex-
ity, yet did not this cruel-hearted cur shed one 10
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 her-
self blind at my parting. Nay, I '11 show you
the manner of it. This shoe is my father: no,
this left shoe is my father: no, no, this left shoe
41
Act II. Sc. iii. TWO GENTLEMEN
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 20
this my father; a vengeance on't! there 'tis:
now, sir, 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 weep-
ing: 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, 30
I kiss her, why, there 'tis; here's my mother's
breath up and down. Now come I to my sis-
ter; 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.
Pan. 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. 40
Launce. It is no matter if the tied were lost; for it
is the unkindest tied that ever any man tied.
Pan. What's the unkindest tide?
Launce. Why, he that 's tied here, Crab, my dog.
Pan. Tut, man, I mean thou 'It lose the flood, and,
in losing the flood, lose thy voyage, and, in
losing thy voyage, lose thy master, and, in
42
OF VERONA Act II. Sc. iv.
losing thy master, lose thy service, and, in
losing thy service, — Why dost thou stop my
mouth? 50
Laiince. For fear thou shouldst lose thy tongue.
Pan. Where should I lose my tongue?
Launcc. In thy tale.
Pan. In thy tail!
Launce. Lose the tide, and the voyage, and the mas-
ter, 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.
Pan. Come, come away, man; I was sent to call thee. 60
Launcc. Sir, call me what thou darest.
Pan. Wilt thou go?
Launce. Well, I will go. [Exeunt.
Scene IV.
Milan. The Duke's palace.
Enter Silvia, Valentine, Thurio, and Speed.
Sil. Servant!
Val. Mistress?
Speed. Master, Sir Thurio frowns on you.
Val. Ay, boy, it 's for love.
Speed. Not of you.
Val. Of my mistress, then.
Speed. 'Twere good you knocked him. [Exit.
Sil. Servant, you are sad.
Val. Indeed, madam, I seem so.
Thu. Seem you that you are not? 10
Val. Haply I do.
43
Act II. Sc. iv. TWO GENTLEMEN
Thu. So do counterfeits.
Vol. So do you.
Thu. What seem I that I am not?
Val. Wise.
Thu. What instance of the contrary?
Val. Your folly.
Thu. And how quote you my folly?
Val. I quote it in your jerkin.
Thu. My jerkin is a doublet. 20
Val. Well, then, I '11 double your folly.
Thu. How?
Sil. What, angry, Sir Thurio! do you change col-
our?
Val. Give him leave, madam; he is a kind of chame-
leon.
Thu. That hath more mind to feed on your blood
than live in your air.
Val. You have said, sir.
Thu. Ay, sir, and done too, for this time. 30
Val. I know it well, sir; you always end ere you
begin.
Sil. A fine volley of words, gentlemen, and quickly
shot off.
Val. 'Tis indeed, madam; we thank the giver.
Sil. Who is that, servant?
Val. Yourself, sweet lady; for you gave the fire.
Sir Thurio borrows his wit from your lady-
ship's looks, and spends what he borrows kindly
in your company. 40
Thu. Sir, if you spend word for word with me, I
shall make your wit bankrupt.
Val. I know it well, sir; you have an exchequer of
44
OF VERONA Act II. Sc. iv
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.
Sil. 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: 50
What say you to a letter from your friends
Of much good news?
Val. My lord, I will be thankful
To any happy messenger from thence.
Duke. Know ye Don Antonio, your countryman?
Val. 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?
Val. Ay, my- good lord ; a son that well deserves
The honour and regard of such a father. 60
Duke. You know him well?
Val. 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 judgement ripe; 70
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
45
Act II. Sc. iv. TWO GENTLEMEN
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: 80
I think 'tis no unwelcome news to you.
Val. 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.
Val. 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.
Sil. Belike that now she hath enfranchised them, 90
Upon some other pawn for fealty.
Val. Nay, sure, I think she holds them prisoners still.
Sil. Nay, then, he should be blind; and, being blind,
How could he see his way to seek out you?
Val. Why, lady, Love hath twenty pair of eyes.
Thu. They say that Love hath not an eye at all.
Val. To see such lovers, Thurio, as yourself:
Upon a homely object Love can wink.
Sil. Have done, have done; here comes the gentleman.
Enter Proteus.
Val. Welcome, dear Proteus! Mistress, I beseech you,
Confirm his welcome with some special favour. 101
Sil. His worth is warrant for his welcome hither,
If this be he you oft have wish'd to hear from.
46
OF VERONA Act II. Sc. iv.
Val. Mistress, it is : sweet lady, entertain him
To be my fellow-servant to your ladyship.
Sil. Too low a mistress for so high a servant.
Pro. Not so, sweet lady: but too mean a servant
To have a look of such a worthy mistress.
Val. Leave off discourse of disability:
Sweet lady, entertain him for your servant. no
Pro. My duty will I boast of; nothing else.
Sil, And duty never yet did want his meed:
Servant, you are welcome to a worthless mistress.
Pro. I '11 die on him that says so but yourself.
Sil. That you are welcome?
Pro. That you are worthless.
Enter Servant.
Ser. Madam, my lord your father would speak with you.
Sil. I wait upon his pleasure. [Exit Ser.] 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. 120
Pro. We '11 both attend upon your ladyship.
[Exeunt Silvia and Thurio.
Val. Now, tell me, how do all from whence you came?
Pro. Your friends are well, and have them much com-
mended.
Val. And how do yours?
Pro. I left them all in health.
Val. How does your lady ? and how thrives your love ?
Pro. My tales of love were wont to weary you;
I know you joy not in a love-discourse.
Val. Ay, Proteus, but that life is alter'd now:
I have done penance for contemning Love,
Whose high imperious thoughts have punish'd
me 130
47
Act II. Sc. iv. TWO GENTLEMEN
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 sor-
row.
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 ; 14°
Now can I break my fast, dine, sup and sleep,
Upon the very naked name of love.
Pro. Enough; I read your fortune in your eye.
Was this the idol that you worship so?
Val. Even she; and is she not a heavenly saint?
Pro. No; but she is an earthly paragon.
Val Call her divine.
Pyo. I will not flatter her.
Val. O, flatter me ; for love delights in praises.
Pro. When I was sick, you gave me bitter pills;
And I must minister the like to you. 15°
Val. Then speak the truth by her; if not divine,
Yet let her be a principality,
Sovereign to all the creatures on the earth.
Pro. Except my mistress.
yal Sweet, except not any;
Except thou wilt except against my love.
Pro. Have I not reason to prefer mine own?
Val. 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, 160
48
OF VERONA Act II. Sc. iv.
And, of so great a favour growing proud,
Disdain to root the summer-swelling flower,
And make rough winter everlastingly.
Pro. Why, Valentine, what braggardism is this?
Val. Pardon me, Proteus : all I can is nothing
To her, whose worth makes other worthies nothing;
She is alone.
Pro. Then let her alone.
Val. 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.
Pro. But she loves you ?
Val. Ay, and we are betroth'd: nay, more, our marriage-
hour,
With all the cunning manner of our flight, 180
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.
Pro. 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 '11 presently attend you.
Val. Will you make haste? 190
49
Act II. Sc. v. TWO GENTLEMEN
Pro. I will. lExit Val
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 eye, or Valentines 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; 200
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; 210
But when I look on her perfections,
There is no reason but I shall be blind.
If I can check my erring love, I will;
If not, to compass her I '11 use my skill, [Exit.
Scene V.
The same. A street.
Enter Speed and Lannce severally.
Speed. Launce! by mine honesty, welcome to Pa-
dua! T
Launce. Forswear not thyself, sweet youth; for 1 am
not welcome. I reckon this always—that a man
50
OF VERONA Act II. Sc. v.
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 '11 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 10
Madam Julia?
Laimcc. 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? 20
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 30
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.
51
Act II. Sc. vi. TWO GENTLEMEN
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? 40
Launce. I never knew him otherwise.
Speed. Than how?
Launce. A notable lubber, as thou reportest him to
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, 50
and not worth the name of Christian.
Speed. Why? , , .. •
Launce. Because thou hast not so much charity in
thee as to go to the ale with a Christian. Wilt
Speed. At thy service. [Exeunt.
Scene VI.
The same. The Duke's palace.
Enter Proteus.
Pro 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.
52
OF VERONA Act II. Sc. vi.
0 sweet-suggesting Love, if thou hast sinn'd,
Teach me, thy tempted subject, to excuse it!
At first I did adore a twinkling star,
But now I worship a celestial sun. 10
Unheedful vows may needfully 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.
1 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; 20
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 '11 hold an enemy,
Aiming at Silvia as a sweeter friend. 30
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 '11 give her father notice
Of their disguising and pretended flight;
Who, all enraged, will banish Valentine;
53
Act II. Sc. vii. TWO GENTLEMEN
For Thurio, he intends, shall wed his daughter;
But, Valentine being gone, I '11 quickly cross 40
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. t Julia's house.
Enter Julia and Lucetta.
Jul. 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.
Luc. Alas, the way is wearisome and long!
Jul. A true-devoted pilgrim is not weary
To measure kingdoms with his feeble steps; 10
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.
Luc. Better forbear till Proteus make return.
Jul. 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. 20
54
OF VERONA Act II. Sc. vii.
Luc, 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.
Jul. 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'd stones,
Giving a gentle kiss to every sedge
He overtaketh in his pilgrimage; 30
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 '11 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 '11 rest, as after much turmoil
A blessed soul doth in Elysium.
Luc. But in what habit will you go along?
Jul. Not like a woman; for I would prevent 40
The loose encounters of lascivious men:
Gentle Lucetta, fit me with such weeds
As may beseem some well-reputed page.
Luc. Why, then, your ladyship must cut your hair.
Jul. No, girl; I '11 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.
Luc. What fashion, madam, shall I make your breeches?
Jul. That fits as well as, ' Tell me, good my lord, 50
What compass will you wear your farthingale?'
Why even what fashion thou best likest, Lucetta.
55
Act II. Sc. vii. TWO GENTLEMEN
Luc. You must needs have them with a codpiece,
madam.
Jul. Out, out, Lucetta! that will be ill-favour'd.
Luc. A round hose, madam, now 's not worth a pin,
Unless you have a codpiece to stick pins on.
Jul. Lucetta, as thou lovest me, let me have
What thou think'st meet, and is most mannerly.
But tell me, wench, how will the world repute me
For undertaking so unstaid a journey? 60
I fear me, it will make me scandalized.
Luc. If you think so, then stay at home, and go not.
Jul. Nay, that I will not.
Luc. 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.
Jul. That is the least, Lucetta, of my fear:
A thousand oaths, an ocean of his tears,
And instances of infinite of love, 7°
Warrant me welcome to my Proteus.
Luc. All these are servants to deceitful men. .
Jul. 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.
Luc. Pray heaven he prove so, when you come to him!
Jul. Now, as thou lovest me, do him not that wrong, 80
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,
56
OF VERONA Act III. Sc. i.
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. 90
ACT THIRD.
Scene I.
Milan. Ante-room in 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 Thu.
Now, tell me, Proteus, what 's your will with me?
Pro. 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, 10
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
57
Act III. Sc. i. TWO GENTLEMEN
Than, by concealing it, heap on your head
A pack of sorrows, which would press you down, 20
Being unprevented, to your timeless grave.
Duke. Proteus, I than*k 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, 30
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.
Pro. Know, noble lord, they have devised a mean
How he her chamber-window will ascend,
And with a corded ladder fetch her down; 40
For which the youthful lover now is gone,
And this way comes he with it presently;
Where, if it please you, you may intercept him.
But, good my lord, do it so cunningly
That my discovery be not aimed at;
For, love of you, not hate unto my friend,
Hath made me publisher of this pretence.
Duke. Upon mine honour, he shall never know
That I had any light from thee of this. 49
Pro. Adieu, my lord; Sir Valentine is coming. [Exit.
58
OF VERONA Act III. Sc. i.
Enter Valentine. .
Duke. Sir Valentine, whither away so fast?
Val. Please it your grace, there is a messenger
That stays to bear my letters to my friends,
And I am going to deliver them.
Duke. Be they of much import?
Val. The tenour of them doth but signify
My health and happy being at your court.
Duke. Nay, then, no matter; stay with me awhile;
I am to break with thee of some affairs
That touch me near, wherein thou must be secret.
'Tis not unknown to thee that I have sought 61
To match my friend Sir Thurio to my daughter.
Val. I know it well, my lord ; and, sure, the match
Were rich and honourable; besides, the gentleman
Is full of virtue, bounty, worth and qualities
Beseeming such a wife as your fair daughter:
Cannot your grace win her to fancy him ?
Duke. No, trust me; she is peevish, sullen, fro ward,
Proud, disobedient, stubborn, lacking duty;
Neither regarding that she is my child, 70
Nor fearing me as if I were her father:
And, may I say to thee, this pride of hers,
Upon advice, hath drawn my love from her;
And, where I thought the remnant of mine age
Should have been cherish'd by her child-like duty,
I now am full resolved to take a wife,
And turn her out to who will take her in:
Then let her beauty be her wedding-dower;
For me and my possessions she esteems not.
Val. What would your grace have me to do in this? 80
59
Act III. Sc. i. TWO GENTLEMEN
Duke. There is a lady in Verona here
Whom I affect; but she is nice and coy,
And nought esteems my aged eloquence:
Now, therefore, would I have thee to my tutor, —
For long agone I have forgot to court;
Besides, the fashion of the time is changed, —
How and which way I may bestow myself,
To be regarded in her sun-bright eye.
Val. Win her with gifts, if she respect not words :
Dumb jewels often in their silent kind 90
More than quick words do move a woman's mind.
Duke. But she did scorn a present that I sent her.
Val. A woman sometimes scorns what best contents her.
Send her another; never give her o'er;
For scorn at first makes after-love the more.
If she do frown, 'tis not in hate of you,
But rather to beget more love in you:
If she do chide, 'tis not to have you gone;
For why, the fools are mad, if left alone.
Take no repulse, whatever she doth say; 100
For ' get you gone,' she doth not mean 'away! '
Flatter and praise, commend, extol their graces;
Though ne'er so black, say they have angels' faces.
That man that hath a tongue, I say, is no man,
If with his tongue he cannot win a woman.
Duke. But she I mean is promised by her friends
Unto a youthful gentleman of worth;
And kept severely from resort of men,
That no man hath access by day to her.
Val. Why, then, I would resort to her by night. no
Duke. Ay, but the doors be lock'd, and keys kept safe,
That no man hath recourse to her by night.
60
OF VERONA Act III. Sc. i.
Val. What lets but one may enter at her window?
Duke. Her chamber is aloft, far from the ground,
And built so shelving, that one cannot climb it
Without apparent hazard of his life.
Val. Why, then, a ladder, quaintly made of cords,
To cast up, with a pair of anchoring hooks,
Would serve to scale another Hero's tower,
So bold Leander would adventure it. 120
Duke. Now, as thou art a gentleman of blood,
Advise me where I may have such a ladder.
Val. When wrould you use it? pray, sir, tell me that.
Duke. This very night; for Love is like a child,
That longs for every thing that he can come by.
Val. By seven o'clock I '11 get you such a ladder.
Duke. But, hark thee; I will go to her alone:
How shall I best convey the ladder thither?
Val. It will be light, my lord, that you may bear it
Under a cloak that is of any length. 130
Duke. A cloak as long as thine will serve the turn?
Val. Ay, my good lord.
Duke. Then let me see thy cloak:
I '11 get me one of such another length.
Val. Why, any cloak will serve the turn, my lord.
Duke. How shall I fashion me to wear a cloak?
I pray thee, let me feel thy cloak upon me.
What letter is this same? What's here? 'To Sil-
via'!
And here an engine fit for my proceeding.
I '11 be so bold to break the seal for once. [Reads.
1 My thoughts do harbour with my Silvia nightly ;
And slaves they are to me, that send them flying:
O, could their master come and go as lightly, 142
Himself would lodge where senseless they are
lying!
61
Act III. Sc. i. TWO GENTLEMEN
My herald thoughts in thy pure bosom rest them;
While I, their king, that thither them importune,
Do curse the grace that with such grace hath bless'd
them,
Because myself do want my servants' fortune:
I curse myself, for they are sent by me,
That they should harbour where their lord would
be.'
What 's here? 150
' Silvia, this night I will enfranchise thee.'
'Tis so; and here 's the ladder for the purpose.
Why, Phaethon, — for thou art Merops' son, —
Wilt thou aspire to guide the heavenly car,
And with thy daring folly burn the world?
Wilt thou reach stars, because they shine on thee?
Go, base intruder! overweening slave!
Bestow thy fawning smiles on equal mates;
And think my patience, more than thy desert,
Is privilege for thy departure hence: 160
Thank me for this more than for all the favours,
Which all too much I have bestow'd on thee.
But if thou linger in my territories
Longer than swiftest expedition
Will give thee time to leave our royal court,
By heaven! my wrath shall far exceed the love
I ever bore my daughter or thyself.
Be gone! I will not hear thy vain excuse;
But, as thou lovest thy life, make speed from hence.
[Exit.
Val. And why not death rather than living torment? 170
To die is to be banish'd from myself;
And Silvia is myself: banish'd from her,
Is self from self: a deadly banishment!
62
OF VERONA
Act III. Sc. i.
What light is light, if Silvia be not seen?
What joy is joy, if Silvia be not by?
Unless it be to think that she is by,
And feed upon the shadow of perfection.
Except I be by Silvia in the night,
There is no music in the nightingale;
Unless I look on Silvia in the day, 180
There is no day for me to look upon:
She is my essence; and I leave to be,
If I be not by her fair influence
Foster'd, illumined, cherish'd, kept alive,
I fly not death, to fly his deadly doom:
Tarry I here, I but attend on death:
But, fly I hence, I fly away from life.
Enter Proteus and Launce.
Pro. Run, boy, run, run, and seek him out.
Launce. Soho, soho!
Pro. What seest thou? 190
Launce, Him we go to find : there 's not a hair on 's
head but 'tis a Valentine.
Pro. Valentine?
Val. No.
Pro. Who then? his spirit?
Val. Neither.
Pro. What then?
Val. Nothing.
Launce. Can nothing speak? Master, shall I strike?
Pro. Who wouldst thou strike? 200
Launce. Nothing.
Pro. Villain, forbear.
Launce. Why, sir, I '11 strike nothing: I pray you, —
63
Act III. Sc. i. TWO GENTLEMEN
Pro. Sirrah, I say, forbear. Friend Valentine, a word.
Val. My ears are stopt, and cannot hear good news,
So much of bad already hath possess'd them.
Pro. Then in dumb silence will I bury mine,
For they are harsh, untuneable, and bad.
Vol. Is Silvia dead?
Pro. No, Valentine. 210
Val. No Valentine, indeed, for sacred Silvia.
Hath she forsworn me?
Pro. No, Valentine.
Val. No Valentine, if Silvia have forsworn me.
What is your news?
Launce. Sir, there is a proclamation that you are van-
ished.
Pro. That thou art banished — O, that 's the news! —
From hence, from Silvia, and from me thy friend.
Val. O, I have fed upon this woe already,
And now excess of it will make me surfeit. 220
Doth Silvia know that I am banished?
Pro. Ay, ay; and she hath offer'd to the doom —
Which, unreversed, stands in effectual force —
A sea of melting pearl, which some call tears:
Those at her father's churlish feet she tender'd;
With them, upon her knees, her humble self;
Wringing her hands, whose whiteness so became
them
As if but now they waxed pale for woe:
But neither bended knees, pure hands held up,
Sad sighs, deep groans, nor silver-shedding tears, 230
Could penetrate her uncompassionate sire;
But Valentine, if he be ta'en, must die.
Besides, her intercession chafed him so,
When she for thy repeal was suppliant,
That to close prison he commanded her,
64
OF VERONA Act III. Sc. i.
With many bitter threats of biding there.
Vol. No more; unless the next word that thou speak'st
Have some malignant power upon my life:
If so, I pray thee, breathe it in mine ear,
As ending anthem of my endless dolour. 240
Pro. Cease to lament for that thou canst not help,
And study help for that which thou lament'st.
Time is the nurse and breeder of all good.
Here if thou stay, thou canst not see thy love;
Besides, thy staying will abridge thy life.
Hope is a lover's staff; walk hence with that,
And manage it against despairing thoughts.
Thy letters may be here, though thou art hence;
Which, being writ to me, shall be deliver'd
Even in the milk-white bosom of thy love. 250
The time now serves not to expostulate:
Come, I '11 convey thee through the city-gate;
And, ere I part with thee, confer at large
Of all that may concern thy love-affairs.
As thou lovest Silvia, though not for thyself,
Regard thy danger, and along with me!
Vol. I pray thee, Launce, an if thou seest my boy,
Bid him make haste, and meet me at the North-
gate.
Pro. Go, sirrah, find him out. Come, Valentine.
Vol. O my dear Silvia! Hapless Valentine! 260
[Exeunt Vol. and Pro.
Launce. I am but a fool, look you; and yet I have
the wit to think my master is a kind of a knave:
but that 's all one, if he be but one knave. He
lives not now that knows me to be in love; yet
I am in love; but a team of horse shall not
65
Act III. Sc. i. TWO GENTLEMEN
pluck that from me; nor who 'tis I love; and
yet 'tis a woman; but what woman, I will not
tell myself; and yet 'tis a milkmaid; yet 'tis not
a maid, for she hath had gossips; yet 'tis a
maid, for she is her master's maid, and serves 270
for wages. She hath more qualities than a
water-spaniel, — which is much in a bare Chris-
tian. [Pulling out a paper.] Here is the cate-
log of her condition. ' Imprimis: She can fetch
and carry/ Why, a horse can do no more:
nay, a horse cannot fetch, but only carry; there-
fore is she better than a jade. ' Item : She can
milk '; look you, a sweet virtue in a maid with
clean hands.
Enter Speed.
Speed. How now, Signior Launce ! what news with
your mastership? 280
Launce. With my master's ship? why, it is at sea.
Speed. Well, your old vice still; mistake the word.
What news, then, in your paper?
Launce. The blackest news that ever thou heardest.
Speed. Why, man, how black?
Launce. Why, as black as ink.
Speed. Let me read them.
Launce. Fie on thee, jolt-head! thou canst not read.
Speed. Thou liest; I can.
Launce. I will try thee. Tell me this: who begot 290
thee?
Speed. Marry, the son of my grandfather.
Launce. O illiterate loiterer! it was the son of thy
grandmother: this proves that thou canst not
read.
Speed. Come, fool, come; try me in thy paper.
66
OF VERONA , Act III. Sc. i.
Launcc. There; and Saint Nicholas be thy speed!
Speed. [Reads] 'Imprimis: She can milk.'
Launec. Ay, that she can.
Speed. ' Item: She brews good ale/
Launcc. And thereof comes the proverb: 'Blessing 300
of your heart, you brew good ale/
Speed. ' Item : She can sew/
Laiuice. That 's as much as to say, Can she so?
Speed. ' Item : She can knit.'
Launcc. What need a man care for a stock with a
wench, when she can knit him a stock?
Speed. ' Item: She can wash and scour.'
Launcc. A special virtue; for then she need not be
washed and scoured.
Speed. 'Item: She can spin.' 310
Launcc. Then may I set the world on wheels, when
she can spin for her living.
Speed. ' Item : She hath many nameless virtues.'
Launcc. That's as much as to say, bastard virtues;
that, indeed, know not their fathers, and there-
fore have no names.
Speed. ' Here follow her vices.'
Launcc. Close at the heels of her virtues.
Speed. ' Item : She is not to be kissed fasting, in re-
spect of her breath.' 320
Launcc. Well, that fault may be mended with a
breakfast. Read on.
Speed. ' Item : She hath a sweet mouth.'
Launcc. That makes amends for her sour breath.
Speed. ' Item: She doth talk in her sleep.'
Launcc. It 's no matter for that, so she sleep not in
her talk.
67
Act III. Sc. i. TWO GENTLEMEN
Speed. 'Item: She is slow in words.'
Launee. O villain, that set this down among her
vices! To be slow in words is a woman's only 330
virtue : I pray thee, out with 't, and place it for
her chief virtue.
Speed. 'Item: She is proud/
Launee. Out with that too ; it was Eve's legacy, and
cannot be ta'en from her.
Speed. 'Item: She hath no teeth.'
Launee. I care not for that neither, because I love
crusts.
Speed. ' Item : She is curst.'
Launee. Well, the best is, she hath no teeth to bite. 340
Speed. ' Item: She will often praise her liquor.'
Launee. If her liquor be good, she shall: if she will
not, I will; for good things should be praised.
Speed. 'Item: She is too liberal.'
Launee. Of her tongue she cannot, for that's writ
down she is slow of; of her purse she shall not,
for that I '11 keep shut: now, of another thing
she may, and that cannot I help. Well, pro-
ceed. 350
Speed. ' Item : She hath more hair than wit, and
more faults than hairs, and more wealth than
faults.'
Launee. Stop there; I'll have her: she was mine,
and not mine, twice or thrice in that last article.
Rehearse that once more.
Speed. 'Item: She hath more hair than wit,' —
Launee. More hair than wit? It may be; I '11 prove
it. The cover of the salt hides the salt, and
therefore it is more than the salt; the hair that
68
OF VERONA Act III. Sc. ii.
covers the wit is more than the wit, for the 360
greater hides the less. What's next?
Speed. ' 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. 370
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 let-
ter,— an unmannerly slave, that will thrust him- 380
self 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.
Thu. Since his exile she hath despised me most,
Forsworn my company, and rail'd at me,
69
Act III. Sc. ii. TWO GENTLEMEN
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. 10
Enter Proteus.
How now, Sir Proteus! Is your countryman,
According to our proclamation, gone?
Pro. Gone, my good lord.
Duke. My daughter takes his going grievously.
Pro. 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.
Pro. Longer than I prove loyal to your grace 20
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.
Pro. I do, my lord.
Duke. And also, I think, thou art not ignorant
How she opposes her against my will.
Pro. 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? 30
Pro. 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 '11 think that it is spoke in hate.
70
OF VERONA Act III. Sc. ii.
Pro. 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.
Pro. And that, my lord, I shall be loath to do:
'Tis an ill office for a gentleman, 40
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.
Pro. You have prevail'd, my lord: if I can do it
By aught 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. 50
Thu. 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 60
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.
Pro. As much as I can do, I will effect:
7i
Act III. Sc. ii. TWO GENTLEMEN
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. 70
Duke. Ay,
Much is the force of heaven-bred poesy.
Pro. 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 feejing 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 80
Forsake unsounded deeps to dance on sands.
After your dire-lamenting elegies,
Visit by night your lady's chamber-window
With some sweet consort; 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.
Thu. And thy advice this night I '11 put in practice.
Therefore, sweet Proteus, my direction-giver, 90
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!
Pro. We '11 wait upon your grace till after supper,
And afterward determine our proceedings.
Duke. Even now about it! I will pardon you. [Exeunt.
72
OF VERONA Act IV. Sc. i.
ACT FOURTH.
Scene I.
The frontiers of Mantua. A forest.
Enter certain Outlaws.
First Out. Fellows, stand fast; I see a passenger.
Sec. Out. If there be ten, shrink not, but down with 'em.
Enter Valentine and Speed.
Third Out. Stand, sir, and throw us that you have about
ye:
If not, we '11 make you sit, and rifle you.
Speed. Sir, we are undone; these are the villains
That all the travellers do fear so much.
Vol. My friends, —
First Out. That 's not so, sir: we are your enemies.
Sec. Out. Peace ! we '11 hear him.
Third Oat. Ay, by my beard, will we, for he 's a proper
man. 10
Val. 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.
Sec. Out. Whither travel you?
Val. To Verona.
First Out. Whence came you?
Val. From Milan.
Third Out. Have you long sojourned there? 20
Val. Some sixteen months, and longer might have stay'd,
73
Act IV. Sc. I. TWO GENTLEMEN
If crooked fortune had not thwarted me.
First Out. What, were you banish'd thence?
Val. I was.
Sec. Out. For what offence?
Val. For that which now torments me to rehearse:
I kill'd a man, whose death I much repent;
But yet I slew him manfully in fight,
Without false vantage or base treachery.
First Out. Why, ne'er repent it, if it were done so. 30
But were you banish'd for so small a fault?
Val. I was, and held me glad of such a doom.
Sec. Out. Have you the tongues?
Val. My youthful travel therein made me happy,
Or else I often had been miserable.
Third Out. By the bare scalp of Robin Hood's fat friar,
This fellow were a king for our wild faction!
First Out. We '11 have him. Sirs, a word.
Speed. Master, be one of them; it's an honourable
kind of thievery. 40
Val. Peace, villain!
Sec. Out. Tell us this : have you any thing to take to?
Val. Nothing but my fortune.
Third Out. 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.
Sec. Out. And I from Mantua, for a gentleman, 50
Who, in my mood, I stabb'd unto the heart.
First Out. And I for such like petty crimes as these.
But to the purpose, — for we cite our faults,
74
OF VERONA Act IV. Sc. ii.
That they may hold excused 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, —
Sec. Out. Indeed, because you are a banish'd man,
Therefore, above the rest, we parley to you: 60
Are you content to be our general?
To make a virtue of necessity,
And live, as we do, in this wilderness?
Third Out. What say'st thou? wilt thou be of our con-
sort?
Say ay, and be the captain of us all:
We '11 do thee homage and be ruled by thee,
Love thee as our commander and our king.
First Out. But if thou scorn our courtesy, thou diest.
Sec. Out. Thou shalt not live to brag what we have
offer'd.
Val. I take your offer, and will live with you, 70
Provided that you do no outrages
On silly women or poor passengers.
Third Out. No, we detest such vile base practices.
Come, go with us, we '11 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.
Pro. Already have I been false to Valentine,
And now I must be as unjust to Thurio.
75
Act IV. Sc. ii. TWO GENTLEMEN
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 10
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 win-
dow,
And give some evening music to her ear.
Enter Thurio and Musicians.
Thu. How now, Sir Proteus, are you crept before us?
Pro. Ay, gentle Thurio; for you know that love
Will creep in service where it cannot go. 20
Thu. Ay, but I hope, sir, that you love not here.
Pro. Sir, but I do ; or else I would be hence.
Thu. Who? Silvia?
Pro. Ay, Silvia; for your sake.
Thu. 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 ally-
cholly: I pray you, why is it?
Jul. Marry, mine host, because I cannot be merry.
Host. Come, we '11 have you merry: I '11 bring you 30
76
OF VERONA
Act IV. Sc. ii.
where you shall hear music, and see the gen-
tleman that you asked for.
Jul. But shall I hear him speak?
Host. Ay, that you shall.
Jul. That will be music. [Music plays.
Host. Hark, hark!
Jul. 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? 40
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; 50
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.
Jul. You mistake; the musician likes me not.
Host. Why, my pretty youth?
77
Act IV. Sc. ii. TWO GENTLEMEN
Jul. He plays false, father.
Host. How? out of tune on the strings? 60
Jul. Not so; but yet so false that he grieves my
very heart-strings.
Host. You have a quick ear.
Jul. Ay, I would I were deaf; it makes me have a
slow heart.
Host. I perceive you delight not in music.
Jul. Not a whit, when it jars so.
Host. Hark, what fine change is in the music!
Jul. Ay, that change is the spite.
Host. You would have them always play but one
thing? 70
Jul. 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.
Jul. Where is Launce?
Host. Gone to seek his dog, which to-morrow, by
his master's command, he must carry for a pres-
ent to his lady.
Jul. Peace! stand aside: the company parts. 80
Pro. Sir Thurio, fear not you: I will so plead,
That you shall say my cunning drift excels.
Thu. Where meet we?
Pro. At Saint Gregory's well.
Thu. Farewell.
[Exeunt Thu. and Musicians.
■
Enter Silvia above.
Pro. Madam, good even to your ladyship.
Sil. I thank you for your music, gentlemen.
78
OF VERONA Act IV. Sc. ii.
Who is that that spake?
Pro. One, lady, if you knew his pure heart's truth,
You would quickly learn to know him by his voice.
Sil. Sir Proteus as I take it.
Pro. Sir Proteus, gentle lady, and your servant. 90
Sil. What's your will?
Pro. That I may compass yours.
Sil. 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, 100
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.
Pro. I grant, sweet love, that I did love a lady;
But she is dead.
Jul. [Aside] 'Twere false, if I should speak it;
For I am sure she is not buried.
Sil. Say that she be; yet Valentine thy friend
Survives; to whom, thyself art witness,
I am betroth'd: and art thou not ashamed no
To wrong him with thy importunacy?
Pro. I likewise hear that Valentine is dead.
Sil. And so suppose am I; for in his grave
Assure thyself my love is buried.
Pro. Sweet lady, let me rake it from the earth.
Sil. Go to thy lady's grave; and call hers thence;
79
Act IV. Sc. ii. TWO GENTLEMEN
Or, at the least, in hers sepulchre thine.
Jul. [Aside] He heard not that.
Pro. Madam, if your heart be so obdurate,
Vouchsafe me yet your picture for my love, 120
The picture that is hanging in your chamber;
To that I '11 speak, to that I '11 sigh and weep:
For since the substance of your perfect self
Is else devoted, I am but a shadow;
And to your shadow will I make true love.
Jul. [Aside] If 'twere a substance, you would, sure, de-
ceive it,
And make it but a shadow, as I am.
Sil. I am very loath to be your idol, sir;
But since your falsehood shall become you well
To worship shadows and adore false shapes, 130
Send to me in the morning, and I '11 send it:
And so, good rest.
pr0t As wretches have o'ernight
That wait for execution in the morn.
[Exeunt Pro. and Sil. severally.
Jul. Host, will you go?
Host. By my halidom, I was fast asleep.
Jul. Pray you, where lies Sir Proteus?
Host. Marry, at my house. Trust me, I think 'tis
almost day.
Jul. Not so; but it hath been the longest night
That e'er I watch'd, and the most heaviest. 140
[Exeunt.
80
OF VERONA Act IV. Sc. iii.
Scene III.
The same.
Enter E glamour.
Ed. This is the hour that Madam Silvia
'<b
Entreated me to call and know her mind:
There 's some great matter she 'Id employ me in.
Madam, madam!
* Enter Silvia above.
Sil. Who calls?
Egl. Your servant and your friend;
One that attends your ladyship's command.
Sil. Sir Eglamour, a thousand times good morrow.
Egl. As many, worthy lady, to yourself:
According to your ladyship's impose,
I am thus early come to know what service
It is your pleasure to command me in. 10
Sil. O Eglamour, thou art a gentleman, —
Think not I flatter, for I swear I do not, —
Valiant, wise, remorseful, well accomplish'd:
Thou art not ignorant what dear good will
I bear unto the banish'd Valentine;
Nor how my father would enforce me marry
Vain Thurio, whom my very soul abhors.
Thyself hast loved; and I have heard thee say
No grief did ever come so near thy heart
As when thy lady and thy true love died, 20
Upon whose grave thou vow'dst pure chastity.
Sir Eglamour, I would to Valentine,
To Mantua, where I hear he makes abode;
And, for the ways are dangerous to pass,
81
Act IV. Sc. iii. TWO GENTLEMEN
I do desire thy worthy company,
Upon whose faith and honour I repose.
Urge not my father's anger, Eglamour.
But think upon my grief, a lady's grief,
And on the justice of my flying hence,
To keep me from a most unholy match, 30
Which heaven and fortune still rewards with
plagues.
I do desire thee, even from a heart
As full of sorrows as the sea of sands,
, To bear me company, and go witk me:
If not, to fride what I have said to thee,
That I may venture to depart alone.
Egl Madam, I pity much your grievances;
Which since I know they virtuously are placed,
I give consent to go along with you;
Recking as little what betideth me 40
As much I wish all good befortune you.
When will you go?
SU. This evening coming.
Egl. Where shall I meet you?
SU. At Friar Patrick's cell,
Where I intend holy confession.
Egl. I will not fail your ladyship. Good morrow,
gentle lady.
SU. Good morrow, kind Sir Eglamour.
[Exeunt severally.
82
OF VERONA Act IV. Sc. iv.
Scene IV.
The same.
Enter Launce with his Dog.
Launce. When a man's servant shall play the cur
with him, look you, it goes hard: one that I
brought up of a puppy; one that I saved from
drowning, when three or four of his blind
brothers and sisters went to it! I have taught
him, even as one would say precisely, ' thus I
would teach a dog.' I was sent to deliver him
as a present to Mistress Silvia from my master;
and I came no sooner into the dining-chamber,
but he steps me to her trencher, and steals 10
her capon's leg: O, 'tis a foul thing when a cur
cannot keep himself in all companies! I would
have, as one should say, one that takes upon
him to be a dog indeed, to be, as it were, a dog
at all things. If I had not had more wit than he,
to take a fault upon me that he did, I think
verily he had been hanged for 't; sure as I live,
he had suffered for't; you shall judge. He
thrusts me himself into the company of three
or four gentlemanlike dogs, under the duke's
table: he had not been there — bless the mark — 20
a pissing while, but all the chamber smelt him.
'Out with the dog!' says one: 'What cur is
that?' says another: ' Whip him out,' says the
third: ' Hang him up,' says the duke. I, having
been acquainted with the smell before, knew it
was Crab, and goes me to the fellow that whips
the dogs: ' Friend,' quoth I, ' you mean to whip
the dog? ' * Ay, marry, do I,' quoth he. ' You
83
Act IV. Sc. iv. TWO GENTLEMEN
do him the more wrong,' quoth I; ' 'twas I did
the thing you wot of.' He makes me no more 30
ado, but whips me out of the chamber. How
many masters would do this for his servant?
Nay, I'll be sworn, I have sat in the stocks for
puddings he hath stolen, otherwise he had been
executed; I have stood on the pillory for geese
he hath killed, otherwise he had suffered for 't.
Thou thinkest not of this now. Nay, I remem-
ber the trick you served me when I took my
leave of Madam Silvia: did not I bid thee still
mark me, and do as I do? when didst thou see 40
me heave up my leg, and make water against
a gentlewoman's farthingale? didst thou ever
see: me do such a trick?
Enter Proteus and Julia.
Pro. Sebastian is thy name? I like thee well,
And will employ thee in some service presently.
Jul. In what you please : I '11 do what I can.
Pro. I hope thou wilt. [To Launce] How now, you
whoreson peasant!
Where have you been these two days loitering?
Launce. Marry, sir, I carried Mistress Silvia the dog
you bade me. 50
Pro. And what says she to my little jewel?
Launce. Marry, she says your dog was a cur, and
tells you currish thanks is good enough for such
a present.
Pro. But she received my dog?
Launce. No, indeed, did she not: here have I
brought him back again.
84
OF VERONA Act IV. Sc. iv.
Pro. What, didst thou offer her this from me?
Launcc. Ay, sir; the other squirrel was stolen from
me by the hangman boys in the market-place: 60
and then I offered her mine own, who is a dog
as big as ten of yours, and therefore the gift
the greater.
Pro. Go get thee hence, and find my dog again,
Or ne'er return again into my sight.
Away, I say! stay'st thou to vex me here?
[Exit Launce.
A slave, that still an end turns me to shame!
Sebastian, I have entertained thee,
Partly that I have need of such a youth,
That can with some discretion do my business, 70
'For 'tis no trusting to yond foolish lout;
IBut chiefly for thy face and thy behaviour,
Which, if my augury deceive me not,
Witness good bringing up, fortune, and truth:
Therefore know thou, for this I entertain thee.
Go presently, and take this ring with thee,
Deliver it to Madam Silvia:
She loved me well deliver'd it to me.
Jul. It seems you loved not her, to leave her token.
She is dead, belike?
Pro. Not so; I think she lives. 80
Jul. Alas!
Pro. Why dost thou cry, ' alas '?
Jul. I cannot choose
But pity her.
Pro. Wherefore shouldst thou pity her?
Jul. Because methinks that she loved you as well
As you do love your lady Silvia:
85
Act IV. Sc. iv. TWO GENTLEMEN
She dreams on him that has forgot her love;
You dote on her that cares not for your love.
Tis pity love should be so contrary;
And thinking on it makes me cry, ' alas! '
Pro. Well, give her that ring, and therewithal 90
This letter. That 's her chamber. Tell my lady
I claim the promise for her heavenly picture.
Your message done, hie home unto my chamber,
Where thou shalt find me, sad and solitary. [Exit.
Jul. How many women would do such a message?
Alas, poor Proteus! thou hast entertain'd
A fox to be the shepherd of thy lambs.
Alas, poor fool! why do I pity him
That with his very heart despiseth me?
Because he loves her, he despiseth me; 100
Because I love him, I must pity him.
This ring I gave him when he parted from me,
To bind him to remember my good will;
And now am I, unhappy messenger,
To plead for that which I would not obtain,
To carry that which I would have refused,
To praise his faith which I would have dispraised.
I am my master's true-confirmed love;
But cannot be true servant to my master,
Unless I prove false traitor to myself. no
Yet will I woo for him, but yet so coldly,
As, heaven it knows, I would not have him speed.
Enter Silvia, attended.
Gentlewoman, good day! I pray you, be my mean
To bring me where to speak with Madam Silvia.
Sil. What would you with her, if that I be she?
86
OF VERONA Act IV. Sc. iv.
Jul. If you be she, I do entreat your patience
To hear me speak the message I am sent on.
Sil. From whom?
Jul. From my master, Sir Proteus, madam.
67/. O, he sends you for a picture. 120
Jul. Ay, madam.
Sil. Ursula, bring my picture there.
Go give your master this : tell him, from me,
One Julia, that his changing thoughts forget,
Would better fit his chamber than this shadow.
Jul. Madam, please you peruse this letter. —
Pardon me, madam; I have unadvised
Deliver'd you a paper that I should not:
This is the letter to your ladyship.
Sil. I pray thee, let me look on that again. 130
Jul. It may not be; good madam, pardon me.
Sil. There, hold!
I will not look upon your master's lines:
I know they are stuff'd with protestations,
And full of new-found oaths ; which he will break
As easily as I do tear his paper.
Jul. Madam, he sends your ladyship this ring.
Sil. The more shame for him that he sends it me;
For I have heard him say a thousand times
His Julia gave it him at his departure. 140
Though his false finger have profaned the ring,
Mine shall not do his Julia so much wrong.
Jul. She thanks you.
Sil. What say'st thou?
Jul. I thank you, madam, that you tender her.
Poor gentlewoman! my master wrongs her much.
Sil. Dost thou know her?
87
Act IV. Sc. iv. TWO GENTLEMEN
Jul. Almost as well as I do know myself:
To think upon her woes I do protest
That I have wept a hundred several times. 150
Sil. Belike she thinks that Proteus hath forsook her.
Jul. I think she doth; and that 's her cause of sorrow.
Sil. Is she not passing fair?
Jul. She hath been fairer, madam, than she is :
When she did think my master loved her well,
She, in my judgement, was as fair as you;
But since she did neglect her looking-glass,
And threw her sun-expelling mask away,
The air hath starved the roses in her cheeks,
And pinch'd the lily-tincture of her face, 160
That now she is become as black as I.
Sil. How tall was she?
Jul. About my stature : for, at Pentecost,
When all our pageants of delight were play'd,
Our youth got me to play the woman's part,
And I was trimm'd in Madam Julia's gown;
Which served me as fit, by all men's judgements,
As if the garment had been made for me:
Therefore I know she is about my height.
And at that time I made her weep agood, 170
For I did play a lamentable part:
Madam, 'twas Ariadne passioning
For Theseus' perjury and unjust flight;
Which I so lively acted with my tears,
That my poor mistress, moved therewithal,
Wept bitterly; and, would I might be dead,
If I in thought felt not her very sorrow!
SU. She is beholding to thee, gentle youth,
Alas, poor lady, desolate and left!
OF VERONA Act IV. Sc. iv.
I weep myself to think upon thy words. 180
Here, youth, there is my purse : I give thee this
For thy sweet mistress' sake, because thou lovest
her.
Farewell. [Exit Silvia, with attendants.
Jul. And she shall thank you for 't, if e'er you know her.
A virtuous gentlewoman, mild and beautiful!
I hope my master's suit will be but cold,
Since she respects my mistress' love so much.
Alas, how love can trifle with itself!
Here is her picture: let me see; I think,
If I had such a tire, this face of mine 190
Were full as lovely as is this of hers:
And yet the painter flatter'd her a little,
Unless I flatter with myself too much.
Her hair is auburn, mine is perfect yellow:
If that be all the difference in his love,
I '11 get me such a colour'd periwig.
Her eyes are grey as glass; and so are mine:
Ay, but her forehead 's low, and mine 's as high.
What should it be that he respects in her,
But I can make respective in myself, 200
If this fond Love were not a blinded god?
Come, shadow, come, and take this shadow up,
For 'tis thy rival. O thou senseless form,
Thou shalt be worshipp'd, kiss'd, loved, and adored!
And, were there sense in his idolatry,
My substance should be statue in thy stead.
I '11 use thee kindly for thy mistress' sake,
That used me so; or else, by Jove I vow,
I should have scratch'd out your unseeing eyes,
To make my master out of love with thee! [Exit.
89
Act V. Sc. i.=ii. TWO GENTLEMEN
ACT FIFTH.
Scene I.
Milan. An abbey.
Enter E glamour.
Egl. The sun begins to gild the western sky;
And now it is about the very hour
That Silvia, at Friar Patrick's cell, should meet me.
She will not fail, for lovers break not hours,
Unless it be to come before their time;
So much they spur their expedition.
See where she comes.
Enter Silvia.
Lady, a happy evening!
Sil. Amen, amen! Go on, good Eglamour,
Out at the postern by the abbey-wall:
I fear I am attended by some spies. 10
Egl. Fear not: the forest is not three leagues off;
If we recover that, we are sure enough. [Exeunt.
Scene II.
The same. The Duke's palace.
Enter Thurio, Proteus, and Julia.
Thu. Sir Proteus, what says Silvia to my suit?
Pro. O, sir, I find her milder than she was;
And yet she takes exceptions at your person.
Thu. What, that my leg is too long?
Pro. No ; that it is too little.
90
OF VERONA Act V. Sc. ii.
Thu. I '11 wear a boot, to make it somewhat rounder.
Jul. [Aside] But love will not be spurr'd to what it
loathes.
Thu. What says she to my face?
Pro. She says it is a fair one.
Thu. Nay then, the wanton lies; my face is black. 10
Pro. But pearls are fair; and the old saying is,
Black men are pearls in beauteous ladies' eyes.
Jul. [Aside] 'Tis true ; such pearls as put out ladies' eyes ;
For I had rather wink than look on them.
Thu. How likes she my discourse?
Pro. Ill, when you talk of war.
Thu. But well, when I discourse of love and peace?
Jul. [Aside] But better, indeed, when you hold your peace.
Thu. What says she to my valour?
Pro. O, sir, she makes no doubt of that. 20
Jul. [Aside] She needs not, when she knows it cow-
ardice.
Thu. What says she to my birth?
Pro. That you are well derived.
Jul. [Aside] True; from a gentleman to a fool.
Thu. Considers she my possessions?
Pro. O, ay; and pities them.
Thu. Wherefore?
Jul. [Aside] That such an ass should owe them.
Pro. That they are out by lease.
Jul. Here comes the, duke. 30
Enter Duke.
Duke. How now, Sir Proteus! how now, Thurio!
Which of you saw Sir Eglamour of late?
Thu. Not I.
Pro. Nor I.
Duke. Saw you my daughter?
91
Act V. Sc. iii. TWO GENTLEMEN
Pro. Neither.
Duke. Why then,
She 's fled unto that peasant Valentine;
And Eglamour is in her company.
'Tis true; for Friar Laurence met them both,
As he in penance wander'd through the forest;
Him he knew well, and guess'd that it was she,
But, being mask'd, he was not sure of it; 40
Besides, she did intend confession
At Patrick's cell this even; and there she was not;
These likelihoods confirm her flight from hence.
Therefore, I pray you, stand not to discourse,
But mount you presently, and meet with me
Upon the rising of the mountain-foot
That leads toward Mantua, whither they are fled:
Dispatch, sweet gentlemen, and follow me. [Exit.
Thu. Why, this it is to be a peevish girl,
That flies her fortune when it follows her. 50
I '11 after, more to be revenged on Eglamour
Than for the love of reckless Silvia. [Exit.
Pro. And I will follow, more for Silvia's love
Than hate of Eglamour, that goes with her. [Exit.
Jul. And I will follow, more to cross that love
Than hate for Silvia, that is gone for love. [Exit.
Scene III.
The frontiers of Mantua. The forest.
Enter Outlaws zvith Silvia.
First Out. Come, come,
Be patient; we must bring you to our captain.
Sil. A thousand more mischances than this one
92
OF VERONA
Act V. Sc. iv.
Have learned me how to brook this patiently.
Sec. Out. Come, bring her away.
First Out. Where is the gentleman that was with her?
Third Out. Being nimble-footed, he hath outrun us,
But Moses and Valerius follow him.
Go thou with her to the west end of the wood;
There is our captain: we '11 follow him that 's fled;
The thicket is beset: he cannot 'scape. n
First Out. Come, I must bring you to our captain's cave:
Fear not; he bears an honourable mind,
And will not use a woman lawlessly.
5**7. O Valentine, this I endure for thee! [Exeunt.
Scene IV.
Another part of the forest.
Enter Valentine.
Val. How use doth breed a habit in a man!
This shadowy desert, unfrequented woods,
I better brook than flourishing peopled towns:
Here can I sit alone, unseen of any,
And to the nightingale's complaining notes
Tune my distresses and record my woes.
O thou that dost inhabit in my breast,
Leave not the mansion so long tenantless,
Lest, growing ruinous, the building fall,
And leave no memory of what it was! 10
Repair me with thy presence, Silvia;
Thou gentle nymph, cherish thy forlorn swain!
What halloing and what stir is this to-day?
These are my mates, that make their wills their law,
93
Act V. Sc. iv. TWO GENTLEMEN
Have some unhappy passenger in chase.
They love me well; yet I have much to do
To keep them from uncivil outrages.
Withdraw thee, Valentine: who's this comes here?
Enter Proteus, Silvia, and Julia.
Pro. Madam, this service I have done for you,
Though you respect not aught your servant doth, 20
To hazard life, and rescue you from him
That would have forced your honour and your love;
Vouchsafe me, for my meed, but one fair look;
A smaller boon than this I cannot beg,
And less than this, I am sure, you cannot give.
Vol. [Aside] How like a dream is this I see and hear!
Love, lend me patience to forbear awhile.
Sil. O miserable, unhappy that I am!
Pro. Unhappy were you, madam, ere I came;
But by my coming I have made you happy. 30
Sil. By thy approach thou makest me most unhappy.
Jul. [Aside] And me, when he approacheth to your
presence.
Sil. Had I been seized by a hungry lion,
I would have been a breakfast to the beast,
Rather than have false Proteus rescue me.
O, Heaven be judge how I love Valentine,
Whose life 's as tender to me as my soul!
And full as much, for more there cannot be,
I do detest false perjured Proteus.
Therefore be gone; solicit me no more. 40
Pro. What dangerous action, stood it next to death,
Would I not undergo for one calm look!
O, 'tis the curse in love, and still approved,
94
OF VERONA Act V. Sc. iv.
When women cannot love where they 're beloved!
Sil. When Proteus cannot love where he 's beloved.
Read over Julia's heart, thy first, best love,
For whose dear sake thou didst then rend thy faith
Into a thousand oaths; and all those oaths
Descended into perjury, to love me. 49
Thou hast no faith left now, unless thou 'dst two,
And that 's far worse than none ; better have none
Than plural faith which is too much by one:
Thou counterfeit to thy true friend!
Pro. In love
Who respects friend?
Sil. All men but Proteus.
Pro. Nay, if the gentle spirit of moving words
Can no way change you to a milder form,
I '11 woo you like a soldier, at arms' end,
And love you 'gainst the nature of love, — force ye.
Sil. O heaven!
Pro. I '11 force thee yield to my desire*
Val. Ruffian, let go that rude uncivil touch, 60
Thou friend of an ill fashion!
Pro. Valentine !
Val. Thou common friend, that 's without faith or love,
For such is a friend now; treacherous man!
Thou hast beguiled my hopes; nought but mine eye
Could have persuaded me: now I dare not say
I have one friend alive; thou wouldst disprove me.
Who should be trusted now, when one's right hand
Is perjured to the bosom? Proteus,
I am sorry I must never trust thee more,
But count the world a stranger for thy sake. 70
The private wound is deepest: O time most accurst,
95
Act V. Sc. iv. TWO GENTLEMEN
'Mongst all foes that a friend should be the worst!
Pro. My shame and guilt confounds me.
Forgive me, Valentine: if hearty sorrow
Be a sufficient ransom for offence,
I tender 't here ; I do as truly suffer
As e'er I did commit.
Val. Then I am paid;
And once again I do receive thee honest,
Who by repentance is not satisfied
Is nor of heaven nor earth, for these are pleased. 80
By penitence the Eternal's wrath's appeased:
And, that my love may appear plain and free,
All that was mine in Silvia I give thee.
Jul. O me unhappy! [Swoons.
Pro. Look to the boy.
Val. Why, boy! why, wag! how now! what's the
matter? Look up; speak.
Jul. O good sir, my master charged me to deliver a
ring to Madam Silvia, which, out of my neglect,
was never done. 90
Pro. Where is that ring, boy?
Jul. Here 'tis; this is it.
Pro. How! let me see:
Why, this is the ring I gave to Julia.
Jul. O, cry you mercy, sir, I have mistook:
This is the ring you sent to Silvia.
Pro. But how earnest thou by this ring? At my depart
I gave this unto Julia.
Jul. And Julia herself did give it me ;
And Julia herself hath brought it hither.
Pro. How! Julia! 100
Jul. Behold her that gave aim to all thy oaths,
96
OF VERONA Act V. Sc. iv.
And entertain'd 'em deeply in her heart.
How oft hast thou with perjury cleft the root!
O Proteus, let this habit make thee blush!
Be thou ashamed that I have took upon me
Such an immodest raiment, if shame live
In a disguise of love:
It is the lesser blot, modesty finds,
Women to change their shapes than men their
minds.
Pro. Than men their minds! 'tis true. O heaven,
were man no
But constant, he were perfect! That one error
Fills him with faults; makes him run through
all the sins:
Inconstancy falls off ere it begins.
What is in Silvia's face, but I may spy
More fresh in Julia's with a constant eye?
Val. Come, come, a hand from either:
Let me be blest to make this happy close;
'Twere pity two such friends should be long foes.
Pro. Bear witness, Heaven, I have my wish for ever.
Jul. And I mine. 120
Enter Ontlazvs, with Duke and Thurio.
Outlaws. A prize, a prize, a prize!
Val. Forbear, forbear, I say! it is my lord the duke.
Your grace is welcome to a man disgraced,
Banished Valentine.
Duke. Sir Valentine!
Thu. Yonder is Silvia; and Silvia's mine.
Val. Thurio, give back, or else embrace thy death;
Come not within the measure of my wrath;
Do not name Silvia thine; if once again,
97
Act V. Sc. iv. TWO GENTLEMEN
Verona shall not hold thee. Here she stands:
Take but possession of her with a touch: 130
I dare thee but to breathe upon my love.
Thu. Sir Valentine, I care not for her, I :
I hold him but a fool that will endanger
His body for a girl that loves him not:
I claim her not, and therefore she is thine.
Duke. The more degenerate and base art thou,
To make such means for her as thou hast done,
And leave her on such slight conditions.
Now, by the honour of my ancestry,
I do applaud thy spirit, Valentine, 140
And think thee worthy of an empress' love:
Know, then, I here forget all former griefs,
Cancel all grudge, repeal thee home again,
Plead a new state in thy unrival'd merit,
To which I thus subscribe: Sir Valentine,
Thou art a gentleman, and well derived;
Take thou thy Silvia, for thou hast deserved her.
Val. I thank your grace; the gift hath made me happy.
I now beseech you, for your daughter's sake,
To grant one boon that I shall ask of you. 150
Duke. I grant it, for thine own, whate'er it be.
Val. These banish'd men that I have kept withal
Are men endued with worthy qualities:
Forgive them what they have committed here,
And let them be recall'd from their exile:
They are reformed, civil, full of good,
And fit for great employment, worthy lord.
Duke. Thou hast prevail'd; I pardon them and thee:
Dispose of them as thou know'st their deserts.
Come, let us go: we will include all jars 160
98
OF VERONA Act V. Sc. iv.
With triumphs, mirth, and rare solemnity.
Val. And, as we walk along, I dare be bold
With our discourse to make your grace to smile.
What think you of this page, my lord?
Duke. I think the boy hath grace in him; he blushes.
Val. I warrant you, my lord, more grace than boy.
Duke. What mean you by that saying?
Val. Please you, I '11 tell you as we pass along,
That you will wonder what hath fortuned.
Come, Proteus; 'tis your penance but to hear 170
The story of your loves discovered:
That done, our day of marriage shall be yours;
One feast, one house, one mutual happiness.
[Exeunt.
99
#^
»
r-
TWO GENTLEMEN
Glossary.
Account of, appreciates ; II. i.
61.
Advice; "more advice," i.e.
" further knowledge " ; II. iv.
207; consideration; III. i. 73.
Agood, in good earnest; IV. iv.
170.
Aim, conjecture; III. i. 28.
Aimed at, guessed ; III. i. 45.
Ale, ale-house (with perhaps
an allusion to church-ale, or
rural festival) ; II. v. 61.
Allycholly, corrupted from
"melancholy"; IV. ii. 27.
Apparent, manifest; III. i. 116.
Applaud, approve; I. iii. 48.
Approved, proved by experi-
ence; V. iv. 43.
Auburn, flaxen ;
IV. iv. 194.
Azvful, filled with
reverence for
authority ; IV. i.
46.
Bare, mere (with
a quibble on the
other sense of
Fromthedraw- naked) ; III. i.
ing of the 272.
Funeral of n . .
Abbot Islip, Base, in the game
in Westmin- 0f "prisoner's
ster Abbey, , » u j. u-j
i522(Q*.'Ve- base to bid
tusta Monu- the base " was to
menta'). , f1
challenge to a
contest of speed; I. ii. 97.
Beadsman, one who prays on
behalf of another ; I. i. 18.
Bcfortune, betide; IV. iii. 41.
Beholding, beholden; IV. iv.
178.
Beshrew, evil befal ; I. i. 126.
Bestow, deport (one's self) ;
III. i. 87.
Boots; " to give one the boots "
= " to make a laughing-
stock of one," with a quib-
bling allusion to the torture
From Millaeus's Praxis criminis perse-
quendi (Paris, 1541).
IOO
OF VERONA
Glossary
known as " the boots " ; I. i.
27.
Boots, profits, avails ; I. i. 28.
Bottom, to wind thread; III. ii.
53-
Break, broach a matter; III. i.
59-
Broken, fallen out ; II. v. 19.
Broker, matchmaker, go-be-
tween; I. ii. 41.
Burden, undersong (with a
quibble on the ordinary-
sense of the word) ; I. ii. 85.
Canker, canker-worm; I. i. 43.
Catc-log (Launce's blunder
for "catalogue") ; III. i. 273.
Censure, pass judgement; I. ii.
19.
Character' d, written ; II. vii. 4.
Circumstance, circumstantial
deduction; I. i. 36; I. i. 84;
the position in which one has
placed one's self, conduct ; I.
i. 37; detail, particulars, III.
ii. 36.
Cite, incite ; II. iv. 85.
Close, union; V. iv. 117.
Clerkly, scholarly ; II. i. 106.
Codpiece, " a part of the male
attire, indelicately conspicu-
ous in the poet's time"; II.
vii. 53-
Coil, fuss, ado ; I. ii. 99.
Commit, sin ; V. iv. 77.
Compass, obtain ; IV. ii. 91.
Competitor, confederate ; II. vi.
35-
Conceit, opinion ; III. ii. 17.
Conceitless, devoid of under-
standing; IV. ii. 95.
Condition, quality; III. i. 273.
Consort, a company; IV. i. 64;
a company of musicians
playing together; III. ii. 84.
Conversed, associated; II. iv.
63.
Crews, bands ; IV. i. 74.
Curst, shrewish; III. i. 339.
Dazzled (trisyllabic) ; II. iv.
210.
Deign, condescend to accept ;
I. i. 152.
Descant; " counterpoint, or the
adding one or more parts to
a theme, which was" called
' the plain song ' " ; I. ii. 94.
Diet; " takes diet "=" is under
a strict regimen " ; II. i. 24.
Dispose, disposal ; II. vii. 86.
Doublet, inner garment of a
man, sometimes worn with-
out the jerkin, with which at
times it was confounded; II.
iv. 20.
Dump, slow, melancholy tune ;
III. ii. 85 (see end of Notes).
Earnest, pledge, token of fu-
ture bestowal (with a quib-
ble on " earnest " as opposed
to "jest") ; III. i. 163.
Else, elsewhere ; IV. ii. 124.
Engine, instrument; III. i. 138.
Entertain, take into service; II.
iv. 104; IV. iv. 68.
Exhibition, allowance ; I. iii. 69.
Extreme (accented on the first
syllable) ; II. vii. 22.
Earthingalc, hoop petticoat ; II.
vii. 51.
Feature, shape, form ; II. iv. 73.
101
Glossary
TWO GENTLEMEN
Figure, a turn of rhetoric; II.
i. 146.
Fire (dissyllabic) ; I. ii. 30.
Fond, foolish; I. i. 52.
For (= for fear of) ; I. ii. 136.
For why, because ; III. i. 99.
Forlorn (accented on first syl-
lable) ; I. ii. 124.
Gossips, sponsors at baptism
(used quibblingly) ; III. i.
269.
Greed, agreed; II. iv. 183.
Griefs, grievances; V. iv. 142.
G r i e v ances ,
causes of
grief; IV. iii.
37-
Hangman (as a
term of re-
proach), ras-
cally; IV. iv.
60.
Homely, plain,
unrefined ; I.
i. 2.
Fromablack-letter Hose, " a round
ballad formerly in hose " ; II.
the Heber collec- .. .
tion. Vil. 55; 'to
garter his
hose'; II. i. 77.
However, in any case ; I. i. 34.
Impeachment, reproach, dis-
credit; I. iii. 15.
Impose, injunction; IV. iii. 8.
Include, conclude ; V. iv. 160.
Infinite, infinity ; II. vii. 70.
Inherit, win ; III. ii. 87.
Inly, inward; II. vii. 18.
Integrity, sincerity; III. ii. 77.
Interpret, act the interpreter
(to the figure in a puppet
show) ; II. i. 101.
lade (used quibblingly) ; III. i.
277.
lerkin, jacket or short coat,
usually worn over the dou-
blet; II. iv. 19.
Jolt-head, blockhead ; III. i. 290.
Keep, restrain; IV. iv. 11.
Kind, kindred; II. iii. 2.
Knots (true-love) ; II. vii. 46.
From a Monument in Ashford Church,
Kent.
Laced, see "mutton."
Learn, teach; II. vi. 13.
Learn' d, taught ; V. iii. 4.
Lease, " out by lease/' i.e. " let
to others, and not under one's
own control " ; the point of
the line turns on the equivo-
cal interpretation of " posses-
sions " in the sense of " men-
tal endowments;" V. ii. 29.
102
OF VERONA
Glossary
Leave, cease, III. i. 182; part
with, IV. iv. 79.
Lets, hinders; III. i. 113.
Liberal, wanton; III. i. 355.
Lies, lodges ; IV. ii. 137.
"Light o' love," a popular old
tune, referred to also in
Much Ado, III. iv. 44; I. ii.
83.
Likes, pleases ; IV. ii. 55.
Lime, bird-lime; III. ii. 68.
Manage, to wield; III. i. 247.
Mean, tenor ; I. ii. 95.
Means, " to make means," i.e.
" to contrive measures and
opportunities " (to win her) ;
V. iv. 137.
M easure, "within the measure,"
i.e. " within reach " ; V. iv.
127.
Merops, Phaethon was re-
proached, though falsely,
with being the son, not of
Apollo, but of Merops ; III. i.
153.
Minion, a spoiled favourite; I.
ii. 88, 92.
MonetKs mind (fol. "month";
" moneth," archaic form pre-
served in phrase " moneth's
mind"), originally meant the
monthly anniversary of a
person's death ; hence " re-
membrance," and finally
"yearning"; I. ii. 137 (cp.
Notes).
Mood, rage; IV. i. 51.
Motion, puppet-show; II. i. 94.
Mouth, " a sweet mouth," i.e.
"a sweet tooth;" III. i. 323.
c^^^
From the MS. of the Romance of
Alexander (Bodl. Lib.).
Muse, wonder; I. iii. 64.
Mutton, a sheep; I. i. 98;
" laced mutton " seems to
have been a cant term for a
loose woman, but probably
used here in the sense of " a
fine piece of woman's flesh,"
" a finely trimmed woman " ;
I. i. 99.
From the " Herodiade " print by Israel
Van Mechlin (c. 1500).
Nicholas (Saint), the patron
saint of scholars; III. i. 296.
103
Glossary
TWO GENTLEMEN
Nick, reckoning (alluding to
the " nicks " or " notches "
on a wooden tally) ; IV. ii.
75-
Possessions, interpreted equivo-
cally in the sense of "men-
tal endowments;" V. ii. 25.
Post, messenger; I. i. 153.
An Exchequer Tally of the XIV. Cent.
Noddy (quibblingly for "nod-
ay"), simpleton; I. i. 117.
On (play upon " on " and
"one"), II. i. 1.
On, of; IV. ii. 72.
One, " one knave," i.e. " a sin-
gle, not a double knave " (re-
ferring perhaps to Proteus'
falsehood to both friend and
mistress) ; III. i. 263.
Omitting, neglecting ; II. iv. 65.
Onset, beginning; III. ii. 94.
O'erlook'd, perused ; I. ii. 50.
Ozve, own ; V. ii. 28.
Pageants, dramatic entertain-
ments ; IV. iv. 164.
Pardon, excuse your absence ;
III. ii. 98.
Parle, talk; I. ii. 5-
Passenger, passer-by; IV. i. 1.
Passioning, passionately griev-
ing; IV. iv. 172.
Peevish, wayward; III. i. 68;
V. ii. 49.
Per severs (accented on second
syllable) ; III. ii. 28.
Practising, plotting; IV. i. 48.
Presently, forthwith ; II. iv. 86.
Pretence, design ; III. i. 47.
Pretended, proposed ; II. vi. 37.
Principality, an angel of the
highest rank, next to divin-
ity; II. iv. 152.
Print; " in print " — " to the
letter, accurately " ; II. i. 166.
Proper, well-shaped; IV. i. 10.
Publisher, one who brings to
light; III. i. 47.
Puling, "like a beggar at Hal-
lowmas " ; it was a custom
on All Saints Day for the
poor to go from parish to
parish a-souling, i.e. " beg-
ging and puling for soul-
cakes"; II. i. 25.
Quaintly, cleverly; II. i. 120;
III. i. 117.
Quality, profession ; IV. i. 58.
Quips, sharp jests; IV. ii. 12.
Quote (pronounced "cote";
hence the quibble) ; II. iv. 18.
Ravel, become entangled; III.
ii. 52.
104
OF VERONA
Glossary
Reasoning, talking; II. i. 139.
Receive, acknowledge ; V. iv.
78.
Recking, caring for; IV. iii. 40.
Record, sing; V. iv. 6.
Remorseful, compassionate ;
IV. iii. 13.
Repeal, recall ; V. iv. 143.
Rcscmbleth (quadrisyllable,
" resemb(e)leth ") ; I. iii. 84.
Respect, regard, care for ; III.
i. 89; V. iv. 20.
Respective, worthy of respect;
IV. iv. 200.
Road, port, harbour; I. i. 53;
II. iv. 187.
Root (of the heart) ; V. iv. 103.
Sad, serious; I. iii. 1.
Servant, a term of gallantry,
from a lady to her admirer;
II. i. 99, 106.
Set, set to music; interpreted
playfully by Julia in the
sense of " to estimate " ; I. ii.
81.
Set, seated (used quibblingly) ;
II. i. 85.
Several, separate ; I. ii. 108.
Shapeless, purposeless ; I. i. 8.
Sheep (used quibblingly with
" ship," the two words be-
ing pronounced nearly the
same) ; I. i. 73.
From a token issued by William Eye
at the Shcepe, in Rye, 1652.
From a seal (XIV.
Cent.) discovered
in Sussex.
Shot, a tavern-reckoning (used
quibblingly) ; II. v. 9.
Silly, helpless; IV. i. 72.
Sluggardiscd, made lazy ; I. i. 7.
So, so be it,
well and
good; II.
i. 129.
Soho,t\\Qcvy
of hunters
on start-
ing a hare;
III. i. 189.
Sort, select;
III. ii. 92.
Speed, suc-
ceed; IV. iv. 112.
Squirrel (applied to a small
dog) ; IV. iv. 59-
Statue, image ; IV. iv. 206.
Stead, be of use to; II. i. in.
Still, ever ; V. iv. 43.
Still on end, perpetually; IV.
iv. 67.
Stock (used quibblingly) ; III.
i. 305 ; 306.
Stomach, used quibblingly in
sense of " temper " and of
" hunger " ; (observe also
the play upon " meat " and
" maid," pronounced nearly
alike) ; I. ii. 68.
Strange; "she makes it
strange " = " she pretends to
be shocked"; I. ii. 102.
Sudden, quick, sharp ; IV. ii.
12.
Suggested, tempted; III. i. 34.
Szvcct-suggesting, sweetly
tempting: II. vi. 7.
Swinged, whipped; II. i. 82.
105
Glossary
TWO GENTLEMEN
Table, tablet ; II. vii. 3.
Tender, compassionate; IV. iv.
145.
Tender, dear; V. iv. 37.
Testerned, presented with a
tester, or sixpence; I. i. 145.
Turn, prove inconstant ; II. ii. 4.
Unadvised, inadvertently; IV.
iv. 127.
Up and dozvn, altogether, ex-
actly ; II. iii. 32.
Tester (Shilling) of Henry VIII. ; later the name was given to Sixpences.
From a specimen in the British Museum.
Throughly, thoroughly; I. ii.
US-
Timeless, untimely; III. i. 21.
Tire, head-dress ; IV. iv. 190.
To; " to Milan " = " by letters
addressed to Milan"; I. i.
57 : in comparison with ; II.
iv. 138, 139.
Tongues, languages; IV. i. 33.
Trenched, carved; III. ii. 7.
Triumphs, festive pageants; V.
iv. 161.
Very, true; III. ii. 41.
Weeds, garments ; II. vii. 42.
Where, whereas ; III. i. 74.
Wink, shut the eyes ; V. ii. 14.
With, by; II. i. 31.
Without (used quibblingly) ;
II. i. 34-38.
Wood, mad; II, iii. 30 (see
Notes).
106
OF VERONA
Critical Notes.
BY ISRAEL GOLLANCZ.
Dramatis Persons. ' The names of all the actors' are given at
the end of the play in the Folios ; the form ' Protheus ' is invari-
ably used for ' Proteus,' ' Anthonio ' for ' Antonio,' and ' Pan-
thion ' for ' Panthino.'
I. i. 19. ' On a love-book pray for my success ' ; an allusion to
the Roman Catholic custom of placing the beads on the prayer-
book, and of counting the beads with the prayers. ' The love-
book' is in this case to take the place of the prayer-book; some
have supposed that Shakespeare is here referring to Marlowe's
' Hero and Leander,' which, however, though entered on the Sta-
tioners' Registers in 1593, was not printed till 1598, after which
date many references occur to it in contemporary literature;
Shakespeare directly quotes from it in As You Like It, IV. i. 100.
I. ii. 53. 'What fool is she'; the first three Folios read 'what
'fool is she,' indicating the omission of the indefinite article, a not
uncommon Elizabethan idiom.
I. ii. 137. '/ see you have a moneth's mind to them'; Schmidt
in his ' Shakespeare Lexicon ' explains the phrase ' month's
mind ' as ' a woman's longing,' as though the expression had its
origin in the longing for particular articles of food shown by
women, but this interpretation seems to have no authority. John-
son rightly remarks on this passage: — 'A month's mind, in the
ritual sense, signifies not desire or inclination, but remembrance;
yet I suppose this is the true original of expression.' The Cam-
bridge ed. following Fol.' reads ' month's mind,' but the metre
clearly requires the contemporary archaic form.
I. iii. 27. ' Shakespeare has been guilty of no mistake in placing
the emperor's court at Milan. Several of the first German Em-
perors held their courts there occasionally, it being at that time
their immediate property, and the chief town of their Italian
dominions.' — Steevens.
II. i. 37. ' none else would'; i.e. 'no one else would perceive
them.'
107
Notes TWO GENTLEMEN
II. i. 78. 'to put on your hose'; various suggestions have been
made for the emendation of these words : — ' to beyond your nose,'
' to put spectacles on your nose/ ' to put on your shoes/ ' to button
your hose.' It is not certain that a rhyming couplet was intended.
Probably ' unable to see to put on one's hose ' was a proverbial ex-
pression meaning ' unable to tell which leg to put into one's hose
first/ i.e. ' not to have one's wits about one.'
II. i. 166. 'for in print I found it.' Probably these lines are
quoted from some old ballad or play, though their source has not
yet been found. One cannot help thinking that Shakespeare is
quoting from some play of the ' Two Italian Gentleman ' type ;
the reprinted extracts contain passages strongly reminding one of
these lines.
II. iii. 30. ' a good woman ' ; the Folios read ' a would-woman ' ;
Theobald first changed 'would' into 'wood' (i.e. mad); others
* an ould (i.e. old) woman.'
II. iv. 116. The Folios give this line to ' Thurio ' ; if the reading
be right, he must have quitted the stage during the scene, probably
immediately before the entrance of Proteus, after line 99.
II. iv. 130. ' Whose high imperious thoughts have punished me';
Johnson proposed to read ' those ' for ' whose,' as if the ' imperious
thoughts ' are Valentine's and not ' Love's.'
II. iv. 196. 'Is it mine eye or Valentines praise'; the Camb. ed.,
following the first Folio, reads, ' Is it mine, or Valentine's praise ' ;
the later Folios, 'Is it mine then, or Valentineans praise? ' Theo-
bald's suggestion, ' mine eye ' has been generally adopted ; ' if this
were unsatisfactory,' the Camb. editors remark, 'another guess
might be hazarded : —
Is it mine unstaid mind or Valentine's praise/
In the latter case ' Valentine's ' must be read as a dissyllable ; in
the former as a quadrisyllable ; it is not necessary to read, as has
been proposed, ' Valentino's ' or ' Valentinus'.' Two other inge-
nious emendations are noteworthy : — ' her mien,' ' mine eyne '
('thine eyne' occurs as a rhyme in Midsummer-Night's Dream,
III. ii. 138).
II. v. 1 ; III. i. 81 ; V. iv. 129. The Cambridge editors have re-
tained the reading of the Folios in these lines, ' Padua ' in the first
passage, and ' Verona ' in the second and third, ' because it is im-
possible that the words can be a mere printer's or transcriber's
error. These inaccuracies are interesting as showing that Shake-
108
OF VERONA
Notes
speare had written the whole of the play before he had finally-
determined where the scene was to be laid ; ' the scene is in each
case undoubtedly Milan (perhaps ' Milano,' mctri causa).
III. i. 273. 'Condition' ; so the first three Folios; the fourth
Folio reads ' conditions,' adopted in many editions ; ' condition ' is
generally used by Shakespeare in the sense of 'temper,' 'quality.'
III. i. 311. 'World on Wheels/ a proverbial expression well
illustrated by the accompanying
drawing : —
III. ii. 77. Malone suggests that
some such line as the following
has been lost after ' integrity :' —
' as her obdurate heart may pene-
trate,' but the meaning is perhaps
rightly explained by Steevens : —
' such ardour and sincerity as
would be manifested by practising
the directions given in the four
preceding lines.'
IV. i. 36. 'Robin Hood's fat From Taylor the Water-Poet's tract
" 'I hP Wr^rlH rnnnae An W hoolc
friar/ i.e. Friar Tuck. This allu-
sion to ' Robin Hood's friar ' by
the Italian outlaw is somewhat
unexpected ; in the later play of
As You Like It there is also an
allusion to 'Robin Hood,' but Shakespeare is careful to add 'of
England' ('they live like the old Robin Hood of England,' I. i.
122) .
IV. i. 49. 'An heir, and near allied'; the Folios read 'niece,'
for which Theobald suggested ' near,' a reading generally ac-
cepted ; possibly, but doubtfully, ' niece ' may after all be correct,
being used occasionally by Elizabethan writers to signify almost
any relationship.
IV. iv. 60. 'Hangman boys' ; the Folios read 'hangmans boys ';
the reading in the text was given by Singer from a MS. note in
a copy of the second Folio in his possession.
IV. iv. 79. The first Folio misprints, 'not leave her token.'
IV. iv. 157.
"But since she did neglect her looking-glass,
And threw her sun-expelling mask away;'
cf. the accompanying illustration.
The World runnes on Wheels
(1623).
[The cut represents the ' chayn'd en-
sared world ' ( turned upside down)
being drawn to destruction by the
flesh and the devil.]
109
Notes
TWO GENTLEMEN
V. iv. 2. Probably a better
reading than the Folio is that
generally adopted, due to Col-
lier's MS.:—
' these shadowy, desert, unfre-
quented woods.'
V. iv. 47-50. 'Rend thy faith
. . . perjury, to love me.
Thou . . .' The lines seem
clear as they stand ; a sugges-
tion by Mr. Daniel is perhaps
worthy of mention : — ' rain .
perjury. To love me
Thou,' or ' hail . . . Dis-
candied into perjury. To love
me Thou . . .'
V. iv. 71. A difficult line to
scan ; Johnson proposed ' O
time most curst ' ; others omit ' most ' or ' O ' ; perhaps we have
here an Alexandrine, ' O ' counting as a monosyllabic foot ; the
second syllable of ' deepest ' being an extra syllable before the
pause : —
The pri'\vate wou'nd] is de'epest; \\ 0'-\ time mo'st\ accur'st,\
Part of ' My Lady Carey's Dumpe/ circa 1600 (to illustrate III.
ii. 85).
Looking-glass and Mask.
From a copperplate by Peter de Lode.
110
OF VERONA
Explanatory Notes.
The Explanatory Notes in this edition have been specially selected and
adapted, with emendations after the latest and best authorities, from the
most eminent Shakespearian scholars and commentators, including Johnson,
Malone, Steevens, Singer, Dyce, Hudson, White, Furness, Dowden, and
others. This method, here introduced for the first time, provides the best
annotation of Shakespeare ever embraced in a single edition.
ACT FIRST.
Scene I.
2. Milton has a like play upon words in his Comus : —
"It is for homely features to keep home;
They had their name thence."
8. Idleness is called shapeless, as preventing the shaping of the
character and manners.
18. A beadsman, as the word is here used, is one who is pledged
to pray on behalf of another. Thus we are told that Sir Henry
Lee, upon retiring from the office of Champion to Queen Eliza-
beth, said " his hands, instead of wielding the lance, should now
be held up in prayer for Her Majesty's welfare; and he trusted
she would allow him to be her beadsman, now that he had ceased
to incur knightly perils in her service." Bead is Anglo-Saxon
for prayer, and for the small wooden balls used in numbering
prayers, a string of which is called a rosary. Such the origin ot
the name, if not of the thing, " a string of beads."
114. that's noddy: — The poor quibble is more apparent in the
original, where, according to the mode of that time, the affirmative
particle, ay, is printed /. Noddy was a game at cards : applied to
a person, the word meant fool; Noddy being the name of what is
commonly called the Jack.
138-141. being so hard, etc. : — The meaning apparently is, "Since
III
Notes TWO GENTLEMEN
she has been so hard to me, the bearer of your mind, I fear she
will be equally hard to you whose mind I bore, when you yourself
address her." Malone points out the antithesis between brought
and telling.
145. testerncd : — " You have given me a testcrn." Testem, now
called tester, was the name of a coin of sixpence value, so named
from having a teste, that is, a head, stamped upon it. It was
originally valued at eighteen pence.
150. Being destined, etc. : — " It is worthy of remark," says
Clarke, " that Speed's flippancy exceeds the licensed pertness of
a jester, and degenerates into impertinence when speaking with
Proteus ; thus subtly conveying the dramatist's intention in the
character itself. Had Proteus not been the mean, unworthy man
he is, as gentleman and lover, Speed had not dared to twit him so
broadly with his niggardly and reluctant recompense, or to speak
in such free terms of the lady Proteus addresses."
Scene II.
19. Censure, in Shakespeare's time, was commonly used in the
sense of judging, passing judgement, giving one's judgement or
opinion. Thus in The Winter's Tale, II. i. 36, 37 : " How blest
am I in my just censure, in my true opinion ! "
30. Fire is here a dissyllable. The play has other like examples.
This and other words, as your, hour, power, etc., were continually
used thus by the poets of Shakespeare's time as one or two syl-
lables, as their verse required.
94,95. descant: — The simple air in music was called the plain
song, or ground; the descant was probably what is now called
variations; the mean was the part between treble and tenor. This
use of musical terms before a popular audience would seem to
infer, what was indeed the case, that taste and knowledge in
music was a characteristic trait of " merry England in the olden
time."
97. / bid the base: — Lucetta is still quibbling, and turns the
allusion off upon the rustic game of base, or prison-base, in which
one ran and challenged another to catch him.
126. Sith : — Since.
136. for catching cold: — That is, lest they should catch cold;
anciently a common form of expression.
112
OF VERONA Notes
Scene III.
8-10. Some to the wars, etc. : — This passage is all alive with the
spirit of Shakespeare's own time, when enterprise, adventure, and
study were everywhere the order of the day, and all ranks were
stirred with noble agitations ; the mind's life being then no longer
exhausted in domestic broils, nor as yet stifled by a passion for
gain. And, to say nothing of foreign discoveries, where wonder
and curiosity were ever finding new stores of food, and still grew
hungry by what they fed on ; or of Flemish campaigns, where
chivalrous honour and mental accomplishment " kissed each
other ; " what a tremendous perturbation must have run through
the national mind, what a noble fury must have enriched the
nation's brain, to make it effervesce in such a flood as has rolled
down to us in the works of Spenser, Hooker, Shakespeare, and
Bacon !
27. the emperor: — "Some of the first German emperors," says
Steevens, " were crowned kings of Italy at Milan before they
received the imperial crown at Rome. Nor has the Poet fallen
into any contradiction by giving a duke to Milan at the same time
that the emperor held his court there. The first dukes of that
and all the other great cities in Italy were not sovereign princes,
as they afterwards became, but were merely governors, or vice-
roys, under the emperors, and removable at their pleasure."
30 et seq. Here again the Poet is alluding to the practices of his
own time. At an earlier period, when war was expressly con-
ducted by the laws of knighthood, " the tournay, with all its
magnificence, its minstrels, and heralds, and damosels in lofty
towers, had its hard blows, its wounds, and sometimes its deaths."
But the tournaments of Shakespeare's time, and such as Proteus
was sent to practise, were " the tournaments of gay pennons and
pointless lances ;" as magnificent indeed as the old knightly en-
counters, but "as harmless to the combatants as those between
other less noble actors, the heroes of the stage." The Poet had
no doubt witnessed some of these " courtly pastimes," as held by
her Majesty in the tiltyard at Westminster, or by proud Leicester
in the tiltyard at Kenilworth.
44. break with him : — This use of break for broach or open (the
matter to him) is one of many instances showing how much the
use of prepositions has changed. To break with a person, now
wears a very different meaning.
84-87. O, how this spring, etc.: — Note with what accuracy and
113
Notes TWO GENTLEMEN
vividness the Poet here paints the manners of April. The play
was written in his youth, when he was more at home with ex-
ternal nature than with man, his mind not having yet climbed the
height of this latter argument. The fine ecstasy with which, in
his earlier plays, as in his poems, he dwells on the movements and
aspects of nature may well send one's thoughts to a passage of
Wordsworth, describing his youthful self : —
" For nature then
To me was all in all. I cannot paint
What then I was. The sounding cataract
Haunted me like a passion : the tall rock,
The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,
Their colours and their forms, were then to me
An appetite ; a feeling and a love."
ACT SECOND.
Scene I.
2. -'one: — On and one were sometimes pronounced alike, and
also- written so; this is but a quibble based on such identity of
pronunciation.
24. takes diet: — To take diet is to be under a regimen for a
disease.
26. Hallowmas: — The feast of All-hallows, or All Saints, at
which time the poor in some places went from parish to parish
a-souling, as they called it ; that is, begging and puling (or singing
small, as Bailey's Dictionary explains puling), for soul-cakes, and
singing what they called the souler's song. These terms point out
the condition of this benevolence, which was, that the beggars
should pray for the souls of the giver's departed friends.
73- going ungartered : — This is mentioned by Rosalind (As You
Like It, III. iii.) as one of the undoubted marks of love: "Then
your hose should be ungartered, your bonnet unhanded," etc.
85. Set for seated, in opposition to stand in the preceding line.
It appears, however, to be used metaphorically in the sense ap-
plied to the sun when it sinks below the horizon.
94. As motion signified a puppet-show, whereat the showman
was called the interpreter, Speed means, " What a fine puppet -
114
OF VERONA Notes
show shall we have now ! Here is the principal puppet to whom
my master will act as showman."
99. Sir Valentine and servant : — "Here," says Sir J. Hawkins,
" Silvia calls her lover servant, and again her gentle servant. This
was the common language of ladies to their lovers, at the time
when Shakespeare wrote." Henry James Pye, in his Comments
on the Commentators, observes that, "in the Noble Gentlemen of
Beaumont and Fletcher, the lady's gallant has no other name in the
dramatis personam than servant," and that " mistress and servant
are always used for lovers in Dryden's plays." Knight, however,
believes " that Shakespeare here uses the words in a much more
general sense than that which expresses the relations between two
lovers. At the very moment that Valentine calls Silvia mistress
he says that he has written for her a letter — ' some lines to one
she loves ' — unto a ' secret nameless friend ' ; and what is still
stronger evidence that the word ' servant ' had not the full mean-
ing of lover, but meant a much more general admirer, Valentin
introducing Proteus to Silvia, says
' Sweet lady, entertain him
To be my fellow-servant to your ladyship;'
and Silvia, consenting, says to Proteus,
' Servant, you are welcome to a worthless mistress;
" Now, when Silvia says this, which, according to the meaning
which has been attached to the words servant and mistress, would
be a speech of endearment, she had accepted Valentine really as
her betrothed lover, and she had been told by Valentine that
Proteus
' Had come along with me, but that his mistress
Did hold his eyes lock'd in her crystal looks.'
" It appears, therefore, that we must receive these words in a
very vague sense, and regard them as titles of courtesy, derived,
perhaps, from the chivalric times, when many a harnessed knight
and sportive troubadour described the lady whom they had gazed
upon in the tiltyard as their ' mistress,' and the same lady looked
upon each of the gallant train as a ' servant ' dedicated to the
defence of her honour, or the praise of her beauty."
115
Notes TWO GENTLEMEN
Scene II.
[Verona.] About fifteen months elapse between the first Scene
and this. For in that, the ship waits for Valentine to embark for
Milan, while on the next day after the occurrences in this, Proteus
also leaves Verona for the same city, where he arrives in the
middle of Act II., and where the subsequent events of that Act
and of Act III. occupy but a few days ; and as in the first Scene
of Act IV. Valentine tells the Outlaws that he sojourned in
Milan " some sixteen months," nearly all of that period must have
passed before the departure of Proteus from Verona. The divi-
sion of this comedy into acts might be improved ; but we have no
right to remove this evidence of Shakespeare's inexperience when
he wrote it, even if we admit that he was much solicitous at any
period about the probabilities of time.
5 et seq. Keep this remembrance, etc. : — The ceremonial of be-
trothing, for which a ritual was formerly provided, is thus set
down by the Priest in Twelfth Night, V. i. : —
" A contract of eternal bond of love,
Confirm'd by mutual joinder of your hands,
Attested by the holy close of lips,
Strengthen'd by interchangement of your rings," etc.
Scene III.
17. this left shoe: — This shows that in the Poet's time each
foot had its several shoe ; which fashion, once laid aside, has
grown into general use again almost within the recollection of
the present generation.
24-26. / am the dog, etc. : — Launce here gets entangled with his
own ingenuity, and the Poet probably did not mean to extricate
him.
30. like a wood woman : — Wood is an old word for frantic
or mad : so that the speaker means that his mother was frantic
with grief at parting with so hopeful a son. Perhaps the sense
would be clearer, if we read, " O, that the shoe could speak now,"
etc.
55, 56. The first, tide, refers to the river; the last, tied, to the
dog. In the original tide and tied are both spelt the same way,
tide, which renders the quibble more obvious.
116
OF VERONA Notes
Scene IV.
20. My jerkin is a doublet: — "The jerkin, or jacket," observes
Knight, " was generally worn over the doublet ; but occasionally
the doublet was worn alone, and, in many instances, is confounded
with the jerkin. Either had sleeves or not, as the wearer fancied;
for by the inventories and wardrobe accounts of the time, we find
that the sleeves were frequently separate articles of dress, and
attached to the doublet, jerkin, coat, or even woman's gown, by
laces or ribbands, at the pleasure of the wearer. A ' doblet jaquet '
and hose of blue velvet, cut upon cloth of gold, embroidered, and
a 'doblet hose and jaquet' of purple velvet, embroidered, and cut
upon cloth of gold, and lined with black satin, are entries in an
inventory of the wardrobe of Henry VIII. In 1535, a jerkin of
purple velvet, with purple satin sleeves, embroidered all over
with Venice gold, was presented to the king by Sir Richard
Cromwell; and another jerkin of crimson velvet, with wide
sleeves of the same coloured satin, is mentioned in the same inven-
tory."
73. He is complete in feature : — Feature, originally meaning
form, making, was applied by Shakespeare and his contempo-
raries to the whole person. Thus in Heywood's Helen to Paris,
1609 : —
" Three goddesses stripp'd naked to your eye,
I scarce believe those high immortal creatures
Would to 'your eye expose their naked features."
So also Spenser : " Which the fair feature of her limbs did hide."
138. There is no woe to, etc. : — That is, no misery in comparison
with that inflicted by love ; a form of speech formerly not unusual.
Thus an old ballad : " There is no comfort in the world to women
that are kind."
209. 'Tis but her picture : — Dr. Johnson criticized the Poet for
making Proteus say he has but seen the picture of Silvia, when
he has just been talking with the lady herself. But the blunder
was the critic's, not Shakespeare's. Proteus wants to get deeper
in love with Silvia, and so resorts to the argument that the little
he has seen of her is as though he had but seen her picture. The
figure is not more apt for his purpose than beautiful in itself.
117
Notes TWO GENTLEMEN
Scene V.
38,39. how sayest thou:— -That is, "What say'st thou to this
circumstance? " So in Macbeth, III. iv. : "How say'st thou, that
Macduff denies his person at our great bidding?"
Scene VI.
35. Competitor, here meaning confederate, associate, or partner,
is likewise used in Antony and Cleopatra, V. i. : —
" That thou, my brother, my competitor
In top of all design, my mate in empire,
Friend and companion in the front of war."
Scene VII.
3. table: — That is, table-book, or book of tablets. They were
carried in the pockets and used for noting down memoranda.
Thus the well-known lines in Hamlet, I. v. : —
" from the table of my memory
I '11 wipe away all trivial fond records."
And again : —
" My tables, — meet it is I set it down,
That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain."
9,10. A true-devoted pilgrim, etc.: — An allusion to the pil-
grimages formerly made by religious enthusiasts, often to Rome,
Compostella, and Jerusalem, but oftener still to "the House of
our Lady at Loretto." In that age, when there were few roads
and many robbers, to go afoot and alone through all the pains and
perils of a passage from England to either of those shrines, was
deemed proof that the person was thoroughly in earnest.
51. your farthingale: — The farthingale, according to Fairholt,
as quoted by White, was originally a broad roll, which made the
person full about the hips. It came to be applied to the gown so
widened.
70. Infinite is here used for infinity. So in Much Ado About
Nothing, II. iii., we find " the infinite of thought ;" and Chaucer
has "Although the life of it be stretched with infinite of time."
118
OF VERONA Notes
85. my longing journey: — "The journey that I long to be
making;" or, it may mean, "the journey that I shall make with
continual longing to reach the end of it."
88. in lieu thereof: — That is, in consideration thereof, or in
return for. This use of lieu is not uncommon in the old writers.
So in Hooker's Eccle. Pol., I. xi. 5 : " But be it that God of his
great liberality had determined in lieu of man's endeavours to
bestow the same." And in Spenser's dedication of his Four
Hymns : " Beseeching you to accept this my humble service, in lieu
of the great graces and honourable favours which ye daily show
unto me."
AGT THIRD.
Scene I.
185. to fly : — That is, by flying, or in flying.
191. hair: — Launce is still quibbling: he is running down the
hare he started when he first entered.
296. Saint Nicholas be thy speed! — Saint Nicholas had many
weighty cares, but was best known as the patron saint of scholars,
in which office he is here invoked. He is said to have gained this
honour by restoring to life three scholars, whom a wicked host
had murdered while on their way to school. By the statutes of
St. Paul's School, London, the scholars are required to attend
divine service in the cathedral on the anniversary of Saint Nicho-
las. The parish clerks of London, probably because scholars were
called clerks, formed themselves into a guild, with this saint for
their patron. In 1 Henry IV. thieves are called Saint Nicholas's
clerks ; whether from the similarity of the names Nicholas and
Old Nick, or from some similarity of conduct in thieves and
scholars in the old days of learned beggary does not fully appear.
305, 306. stock : — Launce's play on this word is explained by
Hudson as follows : " The last stock means stocking ; the other,
dower, or stock of goods, probably."
345. liberal: — That is, free beyond the allowings of modesty.
Liberal was frequently used as meaning licentious.
358. The cover of the salt : — " The ancient English salt-cellar,"
says Malone, " was very different from the modern, being a large
piece of plate, generally much ornamented, with a cover, to keep
the salt clean. There was but one salt-cellar on the dinner-table,
119
Notes TWO GENTLEMEN
which was placed near the top of the table ; and those who sat
below the salt were, for the most part, of an inferior condition
to those who sat above it."
Scene II.
53. bottom it: — "As you unwind her love from him, make me
the bottom on which you wind it. A bottom is the housewife's
term for that upon which a ball of yarn or thread is wound. Thus
in Grange's Garden, 1557: —
"A bottom for your silk, it seems,
My letters are become,
Which, oft with winding off and on,
Are wasted whole and some."
87. inherit her: — To inherit is sometimes used by Shakespeare
for to gain possession of, without any notion of inheritance. Mil-
ton, in Comus, has " disinherit Chaos," meaning only to dispos-
sess it.
92. To sort, to choose out.
ACT FOURTH.
Scene I.
33. Have you the tongues? — That is, do you speak foreign lan-
guages ?
36. Robin Hood's fat friar: — Friar Tuck, the chaplain of Robin.
Hood's merry crew ; that ancient specimen of clerical baldness and
plumpness and jollity, who figures so largely in old ballads and
in Ivanhoe. Recall what Drayton says : —
" Of Tuck, the merry friar, which many a sermon made
In praise of Robin Hood, his outlaws, and his trade."
46. awful men : — Men full of awe, or reverence for j ust author-
ity, the duties of life, and the laws of society. See Milton's Hymn
of the Nativity : —
" And kings sat still with awful eye,
As if they surely knew their sovereign Lord was by."
120
OF VERONA Notes
Scene II.
12. sudden quips : — Quips, meaning bitter retorts, or sharp sar-
casms, thus occurs in Much Ado About Nothing, II. iii. 241-243:
" Shall quips and sentences and these paper bullets of the brain
awe a man from the career of his humour? "
75. out of all nick : — That is, beyond all reckoning. Accounts
were formerly kept by cutting nicks or notches in a tally-stick.
Thus in A Woman Never Vexed, 1532 : " I have carried these
tallies at my girdle seven years together ; for I did ever love to
deal honestly in the nick." The time is not very remote when
such tallies were finally disused in the English Exchequer ; being
laid aside, no doubt, because the accounts grew to be out of all
nick.
83. Saint Gregory's well: — This was probably one of the "holy
wells " to which popular belief attributed supernatural virtues,
and which were visited something as our fashionable watering-
places are, but usually, no doubt, with different feelings. The
town in which is Saint Winifred's well, in North Wales, is called
Holywell. The well is still inclosed by the Gothic temple erected
by the mother of Henry VII.
135. halidom : — Nares says that this word is properly derived
from holy and dom, like kingdom, making the oath mean some-
thing like by my faith. Some complete it thus : " By my faith
as a Christian."
140. most heaviest: — The double superlative, as well as the
double comparative, was often used in Shakespeare's time.
Scene III.
21. thou vow'dst pure chastity : — It was common in former ages
for widowers and widows to make vows of chastity in honour of
their deceased wives or husbands, and sometimes, perhaps, of
those only betrothed, as Sir Eglamour probably was.
Scene IV.
10. trencher: — A wooden platter. That the daughter of a duke
should eat from a trencher need not seem strange, since in
Shakespeare's day this utensil was used by persons of the highest
121
Notes TWO GENTLEMEN
rank. In the privy-purse expenses of Henry VIII. are entries
pointing to the service of trenchers on the king's table.
158. sun-expelling mask : — Alluding, probably, to the custom
thus noticed by Stubbes in his Anatomie of Abuses: "When they
use to ride abroad, they have masks or visors made of velvet,
wherewith they cover their faces, having holes made in them
against their eyes, whereout they look."
170. agood: — This word, meaning in good earnest, heartily,
though used by Shakespeare only in this place, is met with occa-
sionally in contemporary and earlier writers. So in Drayton's
Dowsabell, 1593: —
" But then the shepherd pip'd a- good,
That all his sheep forsook their food
To hear his melody."
196. periwig : — False hair was much worn by ladies in Shake-
speare's time, probably on account of a general desire to have hair
like Queen Elizabeth's. The fashion is thus referred to in The
Merchant of Venice, III. ii. : —
" So are those crisped snaky golden locks
Which make such wanton gambols with the wind,
Upon supposed fairness, often known
To be the dowry of a second head,
The skull that bred them in the sepulchre."
197. grey as glass : — The grey eyes of the Poet's time were the
same as the blue eyes of ours. Glass was not colourless then, as
we have it, but of a light-blue tint. So that eyes as grey as glass
were of the soft azure or cerulean, such as usually go with the
auburn and yellow hair of Silvia and Julia.
198. her forehead's low, etc.: — "Forehead," says White, "was
formerly used, as it now too often is, for brow ; and to the beauty
of a broad, low brow (which may exist with a high fore-head, as
we see in the finest antique statues) the folk of Shakespeare's day
seem to have been blind. Perhaps in this too they paid their
court to the bald-browed Virgin Queen. There are fashions even
in beauty."
206. statue : — The words statue and picture were sometimes
used interchangeably. Thus Stowe, speaking of Elizabeth's
funeral, says : " When they beheld her statue or picture lying upon
the coffin there was a general sighing." And in Massinger's City
122
OF VERONA Notes
Madam, Frugal wishes his daughters to " take leave of their late
suitors' statues " ; and Luke answers, " There they hang."
ACT FIFTH.
Scene II.
7. But love, etc. : — In the Folios this speech is given to Proteus,
and the next speech of Julia to Thurio. Boswell corrected the
first, and Rowe the other.
Scene IV.
6. record: — Commonly used as meaning to sing. So in Dray-
ton's Eclogues : —
" Fair Philomel, night-music of the spring,
Sweetly records her tuneful harmony."
Cotgrave and others speak of the birds recording, that is, war-
bling.
83. All that was mine, etc. : — This is a strange passage. Many
commentators have tried hard, in different ways, to make it look
reasonable; but there is an extravagance about it that will not
yield to editorial skill. Here is a remark upon it in Charles and
Mary Lamb's Tales from the Plays of Shakespeare : " Proteus
expressed such a lively sorrow for the injuries he had done to
Valentine, that Valentine, whose nature was noble and generous
even to a romantic degree, not only forgave and restored him to
his former place in his friendship, but in a sudden flight of hero-
ism he said, ' I freely do forgive you ; and all the interest I have
in Silvia I give it up to you ! ' ' Dyce, speaking of " this over-
strained and too generous act of friendship," no doubt more cor-
rectly says : " Nor would Shakespeare probably, if the play had
been written in his maturer years, have made Valentine give way
to such ' a sudden flight of heroism ' : but the Two Gentlemen of
Verona was undoubtedly an early production of the Poet ; and in
stories popular during his youth he may have found similar in-
stances of romantic generosity." White's remark is : " Much of
little worth has been written upon this singular passage. But it
appears to be uncorrupted, and it has a plain meaning. Comment
123
Notes TWO GENTLEMEN
upon it, therefore, seems to be the function, not of the editor of
Shakespeare's works, but of the philosophical critic upon his
poetry and dramatic art. It is proper to remark, however, that
Valentine displays a similar overstrained generosity when, on the
arrival of Proteus (II. iv.) he twice earnestly entreats Silvia to
receive his friend as her lover, on equal terms with him — as his
' fellow-servant ' to her."
94. cry you mercy : — That is, ask your pardon.
101-103. gave aim, etc. : — Allusion to archery. That which gave
aim was the mark at which the archer shot. The root means the
pin, to cleave which was to hit the centre of the mark.
106, 107. if shame live, etc. : — That is, if it be any shame to wear
a disguise in such a cause.
129. Verona shall not hold thee: — "To Valentine's apprehen-
sion," says White, " the whole party were on their way from
Milan to Verona, as he was when the Outlaws stayed him ; and
therefore his threat to Thurio that he shall never reach his des-
tination. Theobald, not perceiving this, and seeing only that
' Thurio is a Milanese, and has no concern, as it appears, with
Verona,' in his perplexity reads ' Milan shall not behold thee.'
This is cutting the knot, with a vengeance.* But the difficulty and
the solution have, with too little thought, been accepted by suc-
ceeding editors. Mr. Singer even adds that ' the Scene, too, is
between the confines of Milan and Mantua,' as support for the
rejection of any allusion to Verona. This, however, is not the
case, as appears from the fact that Silvia takes flight before sun-
set in Sc. i. of this Act, is pursued immediately, as we see by the
Duke's speech in Sc. ii., is seized by the Outlaws in the next scene,
and is rescued in the next. The events evidently pass with great
rapidity ; and the same safety from pursuit which Sir Eglamour
promised Silvia in the forest ' not three leagues ' from Milan, had
been previously found there by the Outlaws.
152. men that I have kept withal: — That is, that I have been
living with. Shakespeare often uses kept for lived or dwelt.
124
OF VERONA
Questions on
Two Gentlemen of Verona.
1. What is the probable date of the composition of this play?
When was the play first published?
2. From what sources was the play derived?
3. What is the time covered in the play?
ACT FIRST.
4. With what situation does it open?
5. What has Valentine to say of stay-at-homes? Is it a truth
of general application?
6. How does Proteus report himself as a lover? What is said
to be the object of Valentine's hunt?
7. What excess of manner over matter does this Scene contain
that marks the play as early work? Mention some of the verbal
conceits.
8. What does Speed report of Julia, to whom he was sent to
deliver Proteus's letter? How do we know that he did not see
Julia? What two dramatic effects are secured by this mistake?
9. What epithets does Julia apply to the suitors she presents
for Lucetta's approval? Is there any covert implication that Pro-
teus is preferred?
10. May Lucetta be regarded as the prototype of the Nurse in
Romeo and Juliet? 1
11. What traits of character does Julia display? Does she pos-
sess charm?
12. Does Shakespeare show more art than nature in the first
two Scenes?
13. What comment on the activities of the Elizabethan era do
you see in Sc. iii.?
14. Did Julia send a reply to Proteus's letter? What part does
the letter play in the action?
15. Is there adequate motive assigned for the precipitate de-
125
Questions TWO GENTLEMEN
parture of Proteus? Compare Antonio with Capulet (Romeo and
Juliet), Frederick (As You Like It).
16. What feeling had Proteus about going away and leaving
Julia?
ACT SECOND.
17. What does Sc. i. develop of Valentine's new love? What
humorous comments on the state of a lover does Speed make?
18. How does Shakespeare balance passion and drollery in this
scene?
19. How does Silvia convict Valentine of self-consciousness?
20. What is Speed's comment after Silvia's exit? How does it
apply to Valentine?
21. How does Speed enlarge upon the conceit with which Silvia
quits the scene?
22. What does Sc. ii. deal with? What token does Julia give to
Proteus? What evidences does this scene contain that Proteus is
an insincere lover? Compare him with Valentine.
23. What mental kinship does Launce share with the First
Grave-digger in Hamlet"?
24. What part in the action does Sir Thurio play? What occa-
sion does he take to pick a quarrel with Valentine? What is the
result of their battle of wits?
25. What exaggeration of friendly praise of Proteus does
Valentine indulge in? How does the Duke answer this?
26. How does Valentine's rhapsody on love (Sc. iv.) differ
from Romeo's rhapsody beneath Juliet's balcony?
27. Proteus says to Valentine, when I was sick, you gave me
bitter pills; and I must minister the like to you. Infer the flavor
of the bitter pill from the natures of the two men.
28. What plan for his marriage does Valentine confide to
Proteus?
29. Analyze the state of mind displayed by Proteus in the solilo-
quy with which Sc. iv. closes.
30. What is your estimate of his reasons for turning false to
love and friendship?
31. Explain the dramatic effect of Sc. v.
32. Does Proteus prove himself an egoist in his soliloquy in
Sc. vi.? Compare him with Meredith's Sir Willoughby Patterne.
Is he capable of any real love?
33. What traitorous plan does he reveal?
126
OF VERONA Questions
34. Where is Sc. vii. laid? What journey and in what disguise
is Julia about to take?
35. What fears for her reputation does she express?
36. What reassurance does Lucetta offer?
37. Is Lucetta a wise counsellor?
ACT THIRD.
38. How does Proteus excuse his falsity to his friend in inform-
ing the Duke?
39. What precautionary measures had the Duke taken against
Valentine's rashness?
40. What preparation for the scene between the Duke and
Valentine does Proteus furnish?
41. What double motive (i. 44 et seq.) do you find in Pro-
teus's words?
42. What effect of contrast between Valentine and Proteus
(line 63) is secured in what Valentine says to the Duke of
Thurio ?
43. By what trick does the Duke uncover the purposes of
Valentine? Does Valentine become too easy a prey?
44. Of what does the Duke accuse him?
45. Where is the climax of the drama?
46. What dramatic effect is produced (line 189 et seq.) by
making Launce the centre of interest for the moment?
47. Compare the love-despair of Valentine with that of Romeo.
Which is treated more imaginatively?
48. In what other respect is the plight of Valentine similar to
that of Romeo?
49. How do Proteus and Valentine separate?
50. Who first detects villainy in Proteus?
51. What is the dramatic effect of this dialogue between Speed
and Launce? What justifies its length?
52. Summarize this Scene and note the rise and fall of emotion.
Where is the highest pitch? What saves the Scene from anti-
climax?
53. Is Proteus superior to the Duke in intellect? What means
does he take with the Duke to get his own plans adopted? Illus-
trate by Sc. ii.
54. What is the metrical form of Proteus's speech, beginning
with line 73?
127
Questions TWO GENTLEMEN
ACT FOURTH
55. What reason does Valentine give the Outlaws for his ban-
ishment?
56. How is his untruth made absurd by the first Outlaw who
accounts for his own banishment?
57. On account of what qualities is Valentine made chief of the
Outlaws ?
58. What part of this Scene has a forward glance?
59. Is Proteus (Sc. ii.) troubled by genuine rebuke of con-
science or chagrin that Silvia has not accepted his suit?
60. How is the faithlessness of Proteus made known to Julia?
Is there any moment of the play when Shakespeare's art is more
perfect ?
61. What do you understand to be the change in the music to
which the Host refers?
62. How is Proteus received by Silvia? How does he further
entangle himself by falsehoods?
63. What boon is finally granted by Silvia?
64. What ironic touch does the Host supply ?
65. What points of resemblance do you see between Sir Egla-
mour and Prospero of The Tempest?
66. Is there an element of satire in the episode (Sc. iv.) of
Launce and his dog? Explain its implication.
67. In what later play of Shakespeare is the situation of this
Scene repeated?
68. Does Julia carry out her purpose to plead coldly in Pro-
teus's behalf?
ACT FIFTH.
69. Give your opinion of the humorous interludes spoken by
Julia in Sc. ii. What later play repeats this situation?
70. Is the defection of Sir Eglamour consistent with the view
of him given in the preceding Act?
71. What is the temper of Valentine's reflections in Sc. iv.?
What later drama do they anticipate?
72. Describe the resolution of the drama.
73. After Silvia had been rescued from the Outlaws, do you see
any weakening of her protest against the wooing of Proteus?
128
OF VERONA Questions
74. Account for the willingness of Valentine to surrender Silvia
to Proteus.
75. By the tightening of cords that involve Proteus up to the last
is there any conclusion, consistent with comedy, other than the
one Shakespeare uses? Where then is the structural defect of
the play?
76. Compare this play with the two earlier comedies, Love's
Labour's Lost and Comedy of Errors, and note the similarities
and differences in metrical form.
77. What evidences of the growth of the Poet's art do you
discover?
78. Is Shakespeare here more intent in perfecting his art than
in developing character? Compare a play like this with the early
volume of Tennyson.
79. Mention other plays containing situations similar to some in
this play. What does this comparison show regarding Shake-
speare's power of inventing incident?
80. Compare Valentine with Romeo ; Julia with Viola and
Imogen.
81. Is there any more humorous clown in Shakespeare than
Launce ?
82. What allusion to nature do you find in this play?
129
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