ACT 1
Scene 1
Enter Valentine and Proteus.
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 honored 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 lov’st, love still and thrive therein,
Even as I would when I to love begin.
...thy beadsman, Valentine.
And on a love-book pray for my success?
...pray for thee.
That’s on some shallow story of deep love,
How young Leander crossed the Hellespont.
...shoes in love.
’Tis true, for you are over boots in love,
And yet you never swam the Hellespont.
...not the boots.
No, I will not, for it boots thee not.
... What?
To be in love, where scorn is bought with groans,
Coy looks with heart-sore sighs, one fading moment’s mirth
With twenty watchful, weary, tedious nights;
If haply won, perhaps a hapless gain;
If lost, why then a grievous labor won;
How ever, but a folly bought with wit,
Or else a wit by folly vanquishèd.
...call me fool.
So, by your circumstance, I fear you’ll prove.
...am not Love.
Love is your master, for he masters you;
And he that is so yokèd by a fool
Methinks should not be chronicled for wise.
...wits of all.
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 turned to folly, blasting in the bud,
Losing his verdure, even in the prime,
And all the fair effects of future hopes.
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 shipped.
...bring thee, Valentine.
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.
...thee in Milan.
As much to you at home. And so farewell.
He exits.
ACT 2
Scene 1
...it answers “no.”
Enter Valentine and Speed, carrying a glove.
...Sir, your glove.
Not mine. My gloves are on.
...is but one.
Ha? Let me see. Ay, give it me, it’s mine.
Sweet ornament that decks a thing divine!
Ah, Sylvia, Sylvia!
...Sylvia! Madam Sylvia!
How now, sirrah?
...within hearing, sir.
Why, sir, who bade you call her?
...else I mistook.
Well, you’ll still be too forward.
...being too slow.
Go to, sir. Tell me, do you know Madam
Sylvia?
...your Worship loves?
Why, how know you that I am in love?
...you my master.
Are all these things perceived in me?
...perceived without you.
Without me? They cannot.
...on your malady.
But tell me, dost thou know my Lady
Sylvia?
...sits at supper?
Hast thou observed that? Even she I mean.
...know her not.
Dost thou know her by my gazing on her
and yet know’st her not?
...not hard-favored, sir?
Not so fair, boy, as well-favored.
...that well enough.
What dost thou know?
...of you, well-favored.
I mean that her beauty is exquisite but her
favor infinite.
...of all count.
How painted? And how out of count?
...of her beauty.
How esteem’st thou me? I account of her
beauty.
...she was deformed.
How long hath she been deformed?
...you loved her.
I have loved her ever since I saw her, and
still I see her beautiful.
...cannot see her.
Why?
...for going ungartered!
What should I see then?
...on your hose.
Belike, boy, then you are in love, for last
morning you could not see to wipe my shoes.
...you for yours.
In conclusion, I stand affected to her.
...affection would cease.
Last night she enjoined me to write some
lines to one she loves.
...And have you?
I have.
...not lamely writ?
No, boy, but as well as I can do them.
Peace, here she comes.
...interpret to her.
Madam and mistress, a thousand
good-morrows.
...gives it him.
As you enjoined 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.
He gives her a paper.
...very clerkly done.
Now trust me, madam, it came hardly off,
For, being ignorant to whom it goes,
I writ at random, very doubtfully.
...so much pains?
No, madam. So it stead you, I will write,
Please you command, a thousand times as much,
And yet—
...yet another “yet.”
What means your Ladyship? Do you not like it?
...him the paper.
Madam, they are for you.
...writ more movingly.
taking the paper
Please you, I’ll write your Ladyship another.
...not, why, so.
If it please me, madam? What then?
...write the letter?
How now, sir? What, are you reasoning
with yourself?
...have the reason.
To do what?
...from Madam Sylvia.
To whom?
...by a figure.
What figure?
...I should say.
Why, she hath not writ to me!
...perceive the jest?
No, believe me.
...perceive her earnest?
She gave me none, except an angry word.
...you a letter.
That’s the letter I writ to her friend.
...there an end.
I would it were no worse.
...sir? ’Tis dinnertime.
I have dined.
...moved, be moved.
They exit.
Scene 4
...I will go.
Enter Valentine, Sylvia, Thurio, and Speed.
... Servant!
Mistress?
...frowns on you.
Ay, boy, it’s for love.
...Not of you.
Of my mistress, then.
...you are sad.
Indeed, madam, I seem so.
...you are not?
Haply I do.
...So do counterfeits.
So do you.
...I am not?
Wise.
...of the contrary?
Your folly.
...you my folly?
I quote it in your jerkin.
...is a doublet.
Well, then, I’ll double your folly.
...you change color?
Give him leave, madam. He is a kind of
chameleon.
...in your air.
You have said, sir.
...for this time.
I know it well, sir. You always end ere you
begin.
...quickly shot off.
’Tis indeed, madam. We thank the giver.
...is that, servant?
Yourself, sweet lady, for you gave the fire.
Sir Thurio borrows his wit from your Ladyship’s
looks and spends what he borrows kindly in your
company.
...your wit bankrupt.
I know it well, sir. You have an exchequer
of words and, I think, no other treasure to give your
followers, for it appears by their bare liveries that
they live by your bare words.
...much good news?
My lord, I will be thankful
To any happy messenger from thence.
...Antonio, your countryman?
Ay, my good lord, I know the gentleman
To be of worth and worthy estimation,
And not without desert so well reputed.
...not a son?
Ay, my good lord, a son that well deserves
The honor and regard of such a father.
...know him well?
I knew 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 unmellowed, but his judgment ripe;
And in a word—for far behind his worth
Comes all the praises that I now bestow—
He is complete in feature and in mind,
With all good grace to grace a gentleman.
...news to you.
Should I have wished a thing, it had been he.
...to you presently.
This is the gentleman I told your Ladyship
Had come along with me but that his mistress
Did hold his eyes locked in her crystal looks.
...pawn for fealty.
Nay, sure, I think she holds them prisoners still.
...seek out you?
Why, lady, love hath twenty pair of eyes.
...eye at all.
To see such lovers, Thurio, as yourself.
Upon a homely object, Love can wink.
... Enter Proteus.
Welcome, dear Proteus.—Mistress, I beseech you
Confirm his welcome with some special favor.
...to hear from.
Mistress, it is. Sweet lady, entertain him
To be my fellow-servant to your Ladyship.
...a worthy mistress.
Leave off discourse of disability.
Sweet lady, entertain him for your servant.
...upon your Ladyship.
Now tell me, how do all from whence you came?
...much commended.
And how do yours?
...all in health.
How does your lady? And how thrives your love?
...a love discourse.
Ay, Proteus, but that life is altered now.
I have done penance for contemning Love,
Whose high imperious thoughts have punished me
With bitter fasts, with penitential groans,
With nightly tears, and daily heartsore sighs,
For in revenge of my contempt of love,
Love hath chased sleep from my enthrallèd eyes
And made them watchers of mine own heart’s sorrow.
O gentle Proteus, Love’s a mighty lord
And hath so humbled me as I confess
There is no woe to his correction,
Nor, to his service, no such joy on Earth.
Now, no discourse except it be of love.
Now can I break my fast, dine, sup, and sleep
Upon the very naked name of Love.
...you worship so?
Even she. And is she not a heavenly saint?
...an earthly paragon.
Call her divine.
...not flatter her.
O, flatter me, for love delights in praises.
...like to you.
Then speak the truth by her; if not divine,
Yet let her be a principality,
Sovereign to all the creatures on the Earth.
...Except my mistress.
Sweet, except not any,
Except thou wilt except against my love.
...prefer mine own?
And I will help thee to prefer her too:
She shall be dignified with this high honor—
To bear my lady’s train, lest the base earth
Should from her vesture chance to steal a kiss
And, of so great a favor growing proud,
Disdain to root the summer-swelling flower
And make rough winter everlastingly.
...braggartism is this?
Pardon me, Proteus, all I can is nothing
To her whose worth makes other worthies nothing.
She is alone—
...let her alone.
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 seest 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.
...she loves you?
Ay, and we are betrothed; nay more, our marriage hour,
With all the cunning manner of our flight
Determined of: how I must climb her window,
The ladder made of cords, and all the means
Plotted and ’greed on for my happiness.
Good Proteus, go with me to my chamber,
In these affairs to aid me with thy counsel.
...presently attend you.
Will you make haste?
... I will.
Valentine and Speed exit.
ACT 3
Scene 1
...Valentine is coming.
Enter Valentine.
...away so fast?
Please it your Grace, there is a messenger
That stays to bear my letters to my friends,
And I am going to deliver them.
...of much import?
The tenor of them doth but signify
My health and happy being at your court.
...to my daughter.
I know it well, my lord, and sure the match
Were rich and honorable. 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?
...she esteems not.
What would your Grace have me to do in this?
...her sun-bright eye.
Win her with gifts if she respect not words;
Dumb jewels often in their silent kind
More than quick words do move a woman’s mind.
...I sent her.
A woman sometime 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,
Forwhy the fools are mad if left alone.
Take no repulse, whatever she doth say;
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.
...day to her.
Why, then, I would resort to her by night.
...her by night.
What lets but one may enter at her window?
...of his life.
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.
...such a ladder.
When would you use it? Pray sir, tell me that.
...can come by.
By seven o’clock I’ll get you such a ladder.
...the ladder thither?
It will be light, my lord, that you may bear it
Under a cloak that is of any length.
...serve the turn?
Ay, my good lord.
...such another length.
Why, any cloak will serve the turn, my lord.
...cloak upon me.
Pulling off the cloak, he reveals a rope ladder and a paper.
...speed from hence.
And why not death, rather than living torment?
To die is to be banished from myself,
And Sylvia is myself; banished from her
Is self from self—a deadly banishment.
What light is light if Sylvia be not seen?
What joy is joy if Sylvia be not by—
Unless it be to think that she is by
And feed upon the shadow of perfection?
Except I be by Sylvia in the night,
There is no music in the nightingale.
Unless I look on Sylvia in the day,
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
Fostered, illumined, cherished, 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.
...a Valentine. Valentine?
No.
...then? His spirit?
Neither.
... What then?
Nothing.
...Valentine, a word.
My ears are stopped and cannot hear good news,
So much of bad already hath possessed them.
...untunable, and bad.
Is Sylvia dead?
... No, Valentine.
No Valentine indeed for sacred Sylvia.
Hath she forsworn me?
... No, Valentine.
No Valentine if Sylvia have forsworn me.
What is your news?
...me thy friend.
O, I have fed upon this woe already,
And now excess of it will make me surfeit.
Doth Sylvia know that I am banishèd?
...of biding there.
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 dolor.
...along with me.
I pray thee, Lance, an if thou seest my boy,
Bid him make haste and meet me at the North Gate.
...him out.—Come, Valentine.
O, my dear Sylvia! Hapless Valentine!
Valentine and Proteus exit.
ACT 4
Scene 1
...down with ’em.
Enter Valentine and Speed.
...fear so much.
My friends—
...a proper man.
Then know that I have little wealth to lose.
A man I am crossed 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.
...Whither travel you?
To Verona.
...Whence came you?
From Milan.
...long sojourned there?
Some sixteen months, and longer might have stayed
If crooked fortune had not thwarted me.
...you banished thence?
I was.
...For what offense?
For that which now torments me to rehearse;
I killed a man, whose death I much repent,
But yet I slew him manfully in fight
Without false vantage or base treachery.
...small a fault?
I was, and held me glad of such a doom.
...you the tongues?
My youthful travel therein made me happy,
Or else I often had been miserable.
...kind of thievery.
Peace, villain.
...to take to?
Nothing but my fortune.
...we have offered.
I take your offer and will live with you,
Provided that you do no outrages
On silly women or poor passengers.
...at thy dispose.
They exit.
ACT 5
Scene 4
...endure for thee!
Enter Valentine.
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.
Repair me with thy presence, Sylvia;
Thou gentle nymph, cherish thy forlorn swain.
Shouting and sounds of fighting.
What hallowing and what stir is this today?
These are my mates, that make their wills their law,
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?
He steps aside.
...you cannot give.
aside
How like a dream is this I see and hear!
Love, lend me patience to forbear awhile.
...to my desire.
advancing
Ruffian, let go that rude uncivil touch,
Thou friend of an ill fashion.
... Valentine!
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 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.
The private wound is deepest. O, time most accursed,
’Mongst all foes that a friend should be the worst!
...I did commit.
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;
By penitence th’ Eternal’s wrath’s appeased.
And that my love may appear plain and free,
All that was mine in Sylvia I give thee.
...to the boy.
Why, boy!
Why, wag, how now? What’s the matter? Look up. Speak.
...a constant eye?
to Julia and Proteus
Come, come, a hand from either.
Let me be blest to make this happy close.
’Twere pity two such friends should be long foes.
Valentine joins the hands of Julia and Proteus.
...prize, a prize!
Forbear, forbear, I say. It is my lord the Duke.
The Outlaws release the Duke and Thurio.
Your Grace is welcome to a man disgraced,
Banished Valentine.
...and Sylvia’s mine.
Thurio, give back, or else embrace thy death;
Come not within the measure of my wrath.
Do not name Sylvia thine; if once again,
Verona shall not hold thee. Here she stands;
Take but possession of her with a touch—
I dare thee but to breathe upon my love!
...hast deserved her.
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.
...whate’er it be.
These banished men, that I have kept withal,
Are men endued with worthy qualities.
Forgive them what they have committed here,
And let them be recalled from their exile;
They are reformèd, civil, full of good,
And fit for great employment, worthy lord.
...and rare solemnity.
And as we walk along, I dare be bold
With our discourse to make your Grace to smile.
Pointing to Julia.
What think you of this page, my lord?
...him; he blushes.
I warrant you, my lord, more grace than boy.
...by that saying?
Please you, I’ll tell you as we pass along,
That you will wonder what hath fortunèd.—
Come, Proteus, ’tis your penance but to hear
The story of your loves discoverèd.
That done, our day of marriage shall be yours,
One feast, one house, one mutual happiness.
They exit.