Complete Plays, The (431 page)

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.

Speed

For me?

Launce

For thee! ay, who art thou? he hath stayed for a better man than thee.

Speed

And must I go to him?

Launce

Thou must run to him, for thou hast stayed so long that going will scarce serve the turn.

Speed

Why didst not tell me sooner? pox of your love letters!

Exit

Launce

Now will he be swinged for reading my letter; an unmannerly slave, that will thrust himself into secrets! I’ll after, to rejoice in the boy’s correction.

Exit

S
CENE
II. T
HE
SAME
. T
HE
D
UKE
’
S
PALACE
.

Enter Duke and Thurio

Duke

Sir Thurio, fear not but that she will love you,
Now Valentine is banish’d from her sight.

Thurio

Since his exile she hath despised me most,
Forsworn my company and rail’d at me,
That I am desperate of obtaining her.

Duke

This weak impress of love is as a figure
Trenched in ice, which with an hour’s heat
Dissolves to water and doth lose his form.
A little time will melt her frozen thoughts
And worthless Valentine shall be forgot.

Enter Proteus

How now, Sir Proteus! Is your countryman
According to our proclamation gone?

Proteus

Gone, my good lord.

Duke

My daughter takes his going grievously.

Proteus

A little time, my lord, will kill that grief.

Duke

So I believe; but Thurio thinks not so.
Proteus, the good conceit I hold of thee —
For thou hast shown some sign of good desert —
Makes me the better to confer with thee.

Proteus

Longer than I prove loyal to your grace
Let me not live to look upon your grace.

Duke

Thou know’st how willingly I would effect
The match between Sir Thurio and my daughter.

Proteus

I do, my lord.

Duke

And also, I think, thou art not ignorant
How she opposes her against my will

Proteus

She did, my lord, when Valentine was here.

Duke

Ay, and perversely she persevers so.
What might we do to make the girl forget
The love of Valentine and love Sir Thurio?

Proteus

The best way is to slander Valentine
With falsehood, cowardice and poor descent,
Three things that women highly hold in hate.

Duke

Ay, but she’ll think that it is spoke in hate.

Proteus

Ay, if his enemy deliver it:
Therefore it must with circumstance be spoken
By one whom she esteemeth as his friend.

Duke

Then you must undertake to slander him.

Proteus

And that, my lord, I shall be loath to do:
’Tis an ill office for a gentleman,
Especially against his very friend.

Duke

Where your good word cannot advantage him,
Your slander never can endamage him;
Therefore the office is indifferent,
Being entreated to it by your friend.

Proteus

You have prevail’d, my lord; if I can do it
By ought that I can speak in his dispraise,
She shall not long continue love to him.
But say this weed her love from Valentine,
It follows not that she will love Sir Thurio.

Thurio

Therefore, as you unwind her love from him,
Lest it should ravel and be good to none,
You must provide to bottom it on me;
Which must be done by praising me as much
As you in worth dispraise Sir Valentine.

Duke

And, Proteus, we dare trust you in this kind,
Because we know, on Valentine’s report,
You are already Love’s firm votary
And cannot soon revolt and change your mind.
Upon this warrant shall you have access
Where you with Silvia may confer at large;
For she is lumpish, heavy, melancholy,
And, for your friend’s sake, will be glad of you;
Where you may temper her by your persuasion
To hate young Valentine and love my friend.

Proteus

As much as I can do, I will effect:
But you, Sir Thurio, are not sharp enough;
You must lay lime to tangle her desires
By wailful sonnets, whose composed rhymes
Should be full-fraught with serviceable vows.

Duke

Ay,
Much is the force of heaven-bred poesy.

Proteus

Say that upon the altar of her beauty
You sacrifice your tears, your sighs, your heart:
Write till your ink be dry, and with your tears
Moist it again, and frame some feeling line
That may discover such integrity:
For Orpheus’ lute was strung with poets’ sinews,
Whose golden touch could soften steel and stones,
Make tigers tame and huge leviathans
Forsake unsounded deeps to dance on sands.
After your dire-lamenting elegies,
Visit by night your lady’s chamber-window
With some sweet concert; to their instruments
Tune a deploring dump: the night’s dead silence
Will well become such sweet-complaining grievance.
This, or else nothing, will inherit her.

Duke

This discipline shows thou hast been in love.

Thurio

And thy advice this night I’ll put in practise.
Therefore, sweet Proteus, my direction-giver,
Let us into the city presently
To sort some gentlemen well skill’d in music.
I have a sonnet that will serve the turn
To give the onset to thy good advice.

Duke

About it, gentlemen!

Proteus

We’ll wait upon your grace till after supper,
And afterward determine our proceedings.

Duke

Even now about it! I will pardon you.

Exeunt

A
CT
IV

S
CENE
I. T
HE
FRONTIERS
OF
M
ANTUA
. A
FOREST
.

Enter certain Outlaws

First Outlaw

Fellows, stand fast; I see a passenger.

Second Outlaw

If there be ten, shrink not, but down with ’em.

Enter Valentine and Speed

Third Outlaw

Stand, sir, and throw us that you have about ye:
If not: we’ll make you sit and rifle you.

Speed

Sir, we are undone; these are the villains
That all the travellers do fear so much.

Valentine

My friends,—

First Outlaw

That’s not so, sir: we are your enemies.

Second Outlaw

Peace! we’ll hear him.

Third Outlaw

Ay, by my beard, will we, for he’s a proper man.

Valentine

Then know that I have little wealth to lose:
A man I am cross’d with adversity;
My riches are these poor habiliments,
Of which if you should here disfurnish me,
You take the sum and substance that I have.

Second Outlaw

Whither travel you?

Valentine

To Verona.

First Outlaw

Whence came you?

Valentine

From Milan.

Third Outlaw

Have you long sojourned there?

Valentine

Some sixteen months, and longer might have stay’d,
If crooked fortune had not thwarted me.

First Outlaw

What, were you banish’d thence?

Valentine

I was.

Second Outlaw

For what offence?

Valentine

For that which now torments me to rehearse:
I kill’d a man, whose death I much repent;
Bu t yet I slew him manfully in fight,
Without false vantage or base treachery.

First Outlaw

Why, ne’er repent it, if it were done so.
But were you banish’d for so small a fault?

Valentine

I was, and held me glad of such a doom.

Second Outlaw

Have you the tongues?

Valentine

My youthful travel therein made me happy,
Or else I often had been miserable.

Third Outlaw

By the bare scalp of Robin Hood’s fat friar,
This fellow were a king for our wild faction!

First Outlaw

We’ll have him. Sirs, a word.

Speed

Master, be one of them; it’s an honourable kind of thievery.

Valentine

Peace, villain!

Second Outlaw

Tell us this: have you any thing to take to?

Valentine

Nothing but my fortune.

Third Outlaw

Know, then, that some of us are gentlemen,
Such as the fury of ungovern’d youth
Thrust from the company of awful men:
Myself was from Verona banished
For practising to steal away a lady,
An heir, and near allied unto the duke.

Second Outlaw

And I from Mantua, for a gentleman,
Who, in my mood, I stabb’d unto the heart.

First Outlaw

And I for such like petty crimes as these,
But to the purpose — for we cite our faults,
That they may hold excus’d our lawless lives;
And partly, seeing you are beautified
With goodly shape and by your own report
A linguist and a man of such perfection
As we do in our quality much want —

Second Outlaw

Indeed, because you are a banish’d man,
Therefore, above the rest, we parley to you:
Are you content to be our general?
To make a virtue of necessity
And live, as we do, in this wilderness?

Third Outlaw

What say’st thou? wilt thou be of our consort?
Say ay, and be the captain of us all:
We’ll do thee homage and be ruled by thee,
Love thee as our commander and our king.

First Outlaw

But if thou scorn our courtesy, thou diest.

Second Outlaw

Thou shalt not live to brag what we have offer’d.

Valentine

I take your offer and will live with you,
Provided that you do no outrages
On silly women or poor passengers.

Third Outlaw

No, we detest such vile base practises.
Come, go with us, we’ll bring thee to our crews,
And show thee all the treasure we have got,
Which, with ourselves, all rest at thy dispose.

Exeunt

S
CENE
II. M
ILAN
. O
UTSIDE
THE
D
UKE
’
S
PALACE
,
UNDER
S
ILVIA
’
S
CHAMBER
.

Enter Proteus

Proteus

Already have I been false to Valentine
And now I must be as unjust to Thurio.
Under the colour of commending him,
I have access my own love to prefer:
But Silvia is too fair, too true, too holy,
To be corrupted with my worthless gifts.
When I protest true loyalty to her,
She twits me with my falsehood to my friend;
When to her beauty I commend my vows,
She bids me think how I have been forsworn
In breaking faith with Julia whom I loved:
And notwithstanding all her sudden quips,
The least whereof would quell a lover’s hope,
Yet, spaniel-like, the more she spurns my love,
The more it grows and fawneth on her still.
But here comes Thurio: now must we to her window,
And give some evening music to her ear.

Enter Thurio and Musicians

Thurio

How now, Sir Proteus, are you crept before us?

Proteus

Ay, gentle Thurio: for you know that love
Will creep in service where it cannot go.

Thurio

Ay, but I hope, sir, that you love not here.

Proteus

Sir, but I do; or else I would be hence.

Thurio

Who? Silvia?

Proteus

 
Ay, Silvia; for your sake.

Thurio

I thank you for your own. Now, gentlemen,
Let’s tune, and to it lustily awhile.

Enter, at a distance, Host, and Julia in boy’s clothes

Host

Now, my young guest, methinks you’re allycholly: I pray you, why is it?

Julia

Marry, mine host, because I cannot be merry.

Host

Come, we’ll have you merry: I’ll bring you where you shall hear music and see the gentleman that you asked for.

Julia

But shall I hear him speak?

Host

Ay, that you shall.

Julia

That will be music.

Music plays

Host

Hark, hark!

Julia

Is he among these?

Host

Ay: but, peace! let’s hear ’em.
Song.
Who is Silvia? what is she,
That all our swains commend her?
Holy, fair and wise is she;
The heaven such grace did lend her,
That she might admired be.
Is she kind as she is fair?
For beauty lives with kindness.
Love doth to her eyes repair,
To help him of his blindness,
And, being help’d, inhabits there.
Then to Silvia let us sing,
That Silvia is excelling;
She excels each mortal thing
Upon the dull earth dwelling:
To her let us garlands bring.