Complete Plays, The (429 page)

Speed

Why, then, how stands the matter with them?

Launce

Marry, thus: when it stands well with him, it stands well with her.

Speed

What an ass art thou! I understand thee not.

Launce

What a block art thou, that thou canst not! My staff understands me.

Speed

What thou sayest?

Launce

Ay, and what I do too: look thee, I’ll but lean, and my staff understands me.

Speed

It stands under thee, indeed.

Launce

Why, stand-under and under-stand is all one.

Speed

But tell me true, will’t be a match?

Launce

Ask my dog: if he say ay, it will! if he say no, it will; if he shake his tail and say nothing, it will.

Speed

The conclusion is then that it will.

Launce

Thou shalt never get such a secret from me but by a parable.

Speed

’Tis well that I get it so. But, Launce, how sayest thou, that my master is become a notable lover?

Launce

I never knew him otherwise.

Speed

Than how?

Launce

A notable lubber, as thou reportest him to be.

Speed

Why, thou whoreson ass, thou mistakest me.

Launce

Why, fool, I meant not thee; I meant thy master.

Speed

I tell thee, my master is become a hot lover.

Launce

Why, I tell thee, I care not though he burn himself in love. If thou wilt, go with me to the alehouse; if not, thou art an Hebrew, a Jew, and not worth the name of a Christian.

Speed

Why?

Launce

Because thou hast not so much charity in thee as to go to the ale with a Christian. Wilt thou go?

Speed

At thy service.

Exeunt

S
CENE
V
I
. T
HE
SAME
. T
HE
D
UKE
’
S
PALACE
.

Enter Proteus

Proteus

To leave my Julia, shall I be forsworn;
To love fair Silvia, shall I be forsworn;
To wrong my friend, I shall be much forsworn;
And even that power which gave me first my oath
Provokes me to this threefold perjury;
Love bade me swear and Love bids me forswear.
O sweet-suggesting Love, if thou hast sinned,
Teach me, thy tempted subject, to excuse it!
At first I did adore a twinkling star,
But now I worship a celestial sun.
Unheedful vows may heedfully be broken,
And he wants wit that wants resolved will
To learn his wit to exchange the bad for better.
Fie, fie, unreverend tongue! to call her bad,
Whose sovereignty so oft thou hast preferr’d
With twenty thousand soul-confirming oaths.
I cannot leave to love, and yet I do;
But there I leave to love where I should love.
Julia I lose and Valentine I lose:
If I keep them, I needs must lose myself;
If I lose them, thus find I by their loss
For Valentine myself, for Julia Silvia.
I to myself am dearer than a friend,
For love is still most precious in itself;
And Silvia — witness Heaven, that made her fair!—
Shows Julia but a swarthy Ethiope.
I will forget that Julia is alive,
Remembering that my love to her is dead;
And Valentine I’ll hold an enemy,
Aiming at Silvia as a sweeter friend.
I cannot now prove constant to myself,
Without some treachery used to Valentine.
This night he meaneth with a corded ladder
To climb celestial Silvia’s chamber-window,
Myself in counsel, his competitor.
Now presently I’ll give her father notice
Of their disguising and pretended flight;
Who, all enraged, will banish Valentine;
For Thurio, he intends, shall wed his daughter;
But, Valentine being gone, I’ll quickly cross
By some sly trick blunt Thurio’s dull proceeding.
Love, lend me wings to make my purpose swift,
As thou hast lent me wit to plot this drift!

Exit

S
CENE
V
II
. V
ERONA
. J
ULIA
’
S
HOUSE
.

Enter Julia and Lucetta

Julia

Counsel, Lucetta; gentle girl, assist me;
And even in kind love I do conjure thee,
Who art the table wherein all my thoughts
Are visibly character’d and engraved,
To lesson me and tell me some good mean
How, with my honour, I may undertake
A journey to my loving Proteus.

Lucetta

Alas, the way is wearisome and long!

Julia

A true-devoted pilgrim is not weary
To measure kingdoms with his feeble steps;
Much less shall she that hath Love’s wings to fly,
And when the flight is made to one so dear,
Of such divine perfection, as Sir Proteus.

Lucetta

Better forbear till Proteus make return.

Julia

O, know’st thou not his looks are my soul’s food?
Pity the dearth that I have pined in,
By longing for that food so long a time.
Didst thou but know the inly touch of love,
Thou wouldst as soon go kindle fire with snow
As seek to quench the fire of love with words.

Lucetta

I do not seek to quench your love’s hot fire,
But qualify the fire’s extreme rage,
Lest it should burn above the bounds of reason.

Julia

The more thou damm’st it up, the more it burns.
The current that with gentle murmur glides,
Thou know’st, being stopp’d, impatiently doth rage;
But when his fair course is not hindered,
He makes sweet music with the enamell’ed stones,
Giving a gentle kiss to every sedge
He overtaketh in his pilgrimage,
And so by many winding nooks he strays
With willing sport to the wild ocean.
Then let me go and hinder not my course
I’ll be as patient as a gentle stream
And make a pastime of each weary step,
Till the last step have brought me to my love;
And there I’ll rest, as after much turmoil
A blessed soul doth in Elysium.

Lucetta

But in what habit will you go along?

Julia

Not like a woman; for I would prevent
The loose encounters of lascivious men:
Gentle Lucetta, fit me with such weeds
As may beseem some well-reputed page.

Lucetta

Why, then, your ladyship must cut your hair.

Julia

No, girl, I’ll knit it up in silken strings
With twenty odd-conceited true-love knots.
To be fantastic may become a youth
Of greater time than I shall show to be.

Lucetta

What fashion, madam shall I make your breeches?

Julia

That fits as well as ‘Tell me, good my lord,
What compass will you wear your farthingale?’
Why even what fashion thou best likest, Lucetta.

Lucetta

You must needs have them with a codpiece, madam.

Julia

Out, out, Lucetta! that would be ill-favour’d.

Lucetta

A round hose, madam, now’s not worth a pin,
Unless you have a codpiece to stick pins on.

Julia

Lucetta, as thou lovest me, let me have
What thou thinkest meet and is most mannerly.
But tell me, wench, how will the world repute me
For undertaking so unstaid a journey?
I fear me, it will make me scandalized.

Lucetta

If you think so, then stay at home and go not.

Julia

Nay, that I will not.

Lucetta

Then never dream on infamy, but go.
If Proteus like your journey when you come,
No matter who’s displeased when you are gone:
I fear me, he will scarce be pleased withal.

Julia

That is the least, Lucetta, of my fear:
A thousand oaths, an ocean of his tears
And instances of infinite of love
Warrant me welcome to my Proteus.

Lucetta

All these are servants to deceitful men.

Julia

Base men, that use them to so base effect!
But truer stars did govern Proteus’ birth
His words are bonds, his oaths are oracles,
His love sincere, his thoughts immaculate,
His tears pure messengers sent from his heart,
His heart as far from fraud as heaven from earth.

Lucetta

Pray heaven he prove so, when you come to him!

Julia

Now, as thou lovest me, do him not that wrong
To bear a hard opinion of his truth:
Only deserve my love by loving him;
And presently go with me to my chamber,
To take a note of what I stand in need of,
To furnish me upon my longing journey.
All that is mine I leave at thy dispose,
My goods, my lands, my reputation;
Only, in lieu thereof, dispatch me hence.
Come, answer not, but to it presently!
I am impatient of my tarriance.

Exeunt

A
CT
III

S
CENE
I. M
ILAN
. T
HE
D
UKE
’
S
PALACE
.

Enter Duke, Thurio, and Proteus

Duke

Sir Thurio, give us leave, I pray, awhile;
We have some secrets to confer about.

Exit Thurio

Now, tell me, Proteus, what’s your will with me?

Proteus

My gracious lord, that which I would discover
The law of friendship bids me to conceal;
But when I call to mind your gracious favours
Done to me, undeserving as I am,
My duty pricks me on to utter that
Which else no worldly good should draw from me.
Know, worthy prince, Sir Valentine, my friend,
This night intends to steal away your daughter:
Myself am one made privy to the plot.
I know you have determined to bestow her
On Thurio, whom your gentle daughter hates;
And should she thus be stol’n away from you,
It would be much vexation to your age.
Thus, for my duty’s sake, I rather chose
To cross my friend in his intended drift
Than, by concealing it, heap on your head
A pack of sorrows which would press you down,
Being unprevented, to your timeless grave.

Duke

Proteus, I thank thee for thine honest care;
Which to requite, command me while I live.
This love of theirs myself have often seen,
Haply when they have judged me fast asleep,
And oftentimes have purposed to forbid
Sir Valentine her company and my court:
But fearing lest my jealous aim might err
And so unworthily disgrace the man,
A rashness that I ever yet have shunn’d,
I gave him gentle looks, thereby to find
That which thyself hast now disclosed to me.
And, that thou mayst perceive my fear of this,
Knowing that tender youth is soon suggested,
I nightly lodge her in an upper tower,
The key whereof myself have ever kept;
And thence she cannot be convey’d away.

Proteus

Know, noble lord, they have devised a mean
How he her chamber-window will ascend
And with a corded ladder fetch her down;
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.

Proteus

Adieu, my Lord; Sir Valentine is coming.

Exit

Enter Valentine

Duke

Sir Valentine, whither away so fast?

Valentine

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?

Valentine

The tenor 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
To match my friend Sir Thurio to my daughter.

Valentine

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, froward,
Proud, disobedient, stubborn, lacking duty,
Neither regarding that she is my child
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.

Valentine

What would your Grace have me to do in this?

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.

Valentine