Speed
You never saw her since she was deformed.
Valentine
How long hath she been deformed?
Speed
Ever since you loved her.
Valentine
I have loved her ever since I saw her; and still I see her beautiful.
Speed
If you love her, you cannot see her.
Valentine
Why?
Speed
Because Love is blind. O, that you had mine eyes; or your own eyes had the lights they were wont to have when you chid at Sir Proteus for going ungartered!
Valentine
What should I see then?
Speed
Your own present folly and her passing deformity: for he, being in love, could not see to garter his hose, and you, being in love, cannot see to put on your hose.
Valentine
Belike, boy, then, you are in love; for last morning you could not see to wipe my shoes.
Speed
True, sir; I was in love with my bed: I thank you, you swinged me for my love, which makes me the bolder to chide you for yours.
Valentine
In conclusion, I stand affected to her.
Speed
I would you were set, so your affection would cease.
Valentine
Last night she enjoined me to write some lines to one she loves.
Speed
And have you?
Valentine
I have.
Speed
Are they not lamely writ?
Valentine
No, boy, but as well as I can do them. Peace! here she comes.
Speed
[Aside] O excellent motion! O exceeding puppet!
Now will he interpret to her.
Enter Silvia
Valentine
Madam and mistress, a thousand good-morrows.
Speed
[Aside] O, give ye good even! here’s a million of manners.
Silvia
Sir Valentine and servant, to you two thousand.
Speed
[Aside] He should give her interest and she gives it him.
Valentine
As you enjoin’d me, I have writ your letter
Unto the secret nameless friend of yours;
Which I was much unwilling to proceed in
But for my duty to your ladyship.
Silvia
I thank you gentle servant: ’tis very clerkly done.
Valentine
Now trust me, madam, it came hardly off;
For being ignorant to whom it goes
I writ at random, very doubtfully.
Silvia
Perchance you think too much of so much pains?
Valentine
No, madam; so it stead you, I will write
Please you command, a thousand times as much; And yet —
Silvia
A pretty period! Well, I guess the sequel;
And yet I will not name it; and yet I care not;
And yet take this again; and yet I thank you,
Meaning henceforth to trouble you no more.
Speed
[Aside] And yet you will; and yet another ‘yet.’
Valentine
What means your ladyship? do you not like it?
Silvia
Yes, yes; the lines are very quaintly writ;
But since unwillingly, take them again.
Nay, take them.
Valentine
Madam, they are for you.
Silvia
Ay, ay: you writ them, sir, at my request;
But I will none of them; they are for you;
I would have had them writ more movingly.
Valentine
Please you, I’ll write your ladyship another.
Silvia
And when it’s writ, for my sake read it over,
And if it please you, so; if not, why, so.
Valentine
If it please me, madam, what then?
Silvia
Why, if it please you, take it for your labour:
And so, good morrow, servant.
Exit
Speed
O jest unseen, inscrutable, invisible,
As a nose on a man’s face, or a weathercock on a steeple!
My master sues to her, and she hath taught her suitor,
He being her pupil, to become her tutor.
O excellent device! was there ever heard a better,
That my master, being scribe, to himself should write the letter?
Valentine
How now, sir? what are you reasoning with yourself?
Speed
Nay, I was rhyming: ’tis you that have the reason.
Valentine
To do what?
Speed
To be a spokesman for Madam Silvia.
Valentine
To whom?
Speed
To yourself: why, she wooes you by a figure.
Valentine
What figure?
Speed
By a letter, I should say.
Valentine
Why, she hath not writ to me?
Speed
What need she, when she hath made you write to yourself? Why, do you not perceive the jest?
Valentine
No, believe me.
Speed
No believing you, indeed, sir. But did you perceive her earnest?
Valentine
She gave me none, except an angry word.
Speed
Why, she hath given you a letter.
Valentine
That’s the letter I writ to her friend.
Speed
And that letter hath she delivered, and there an end.
Valentine
I would it were no worse.
Speed
I’ll warrant you, ’tis as well:
For often have you writ to her, and she, in modesty,
Or else for want of idle time, could not again reply;
Or fearing else some messenger that might her mind discover,
Herself hath taught her love himself to write unto her lover.
All this I speak in print, for in print I found it.
Why muse you, sir? ’tis dinner-time.
Valentine
I have dined.
Speed
Ay, but hearken, sir; though the chameleon Love can feed on the air, I am one that am nourished by my victuals, and would fain have meat. O, be not like your mistress; be moved, be moved.
Exeunt
SCENE II. VERONA. JULIA’S HOUSE.
Enter Proteus and Julia
Proteus
Have patience, gentle Julia.
Julia
I must, where is no remedy.
Proteus
When possibly I can, I will return.
Julia
If you turn not, you will return the sooner.
Keep this remembrance for thy Julia’s sake.
Giving a ring
Proteus
Why then, we’ll make exchange; here, take you this.
Julia
And seal the bargain with a holy kiss.
Proteus
Here is my hand for my true constancy;
And when that hour o’erslips me in the day
Wherein I sigh not, Julia, for thy sake,
The next ensuing hour some foul mischance
Torment me for my love’s forgetfulness!
My father stays my coming; answer not;
The tide is now: nay, not thy tide of tears;
That tide will stay me longer than I should.
Julia, farewell!
Exit Julia
What, gone without a word?
Ay, so true love should do: it cannot speak;
For truth hath better deeds than words to grace it.
Enter Panthino
Panthino
Sir Proteus, you are stay’d for.
/> Proteus
Go; I come, I come.
Alas! this parting strikes poor lovers dumb.
Exeunt
SCENE III. THE SAME. A STREET.
Enter Launce, leading a dog
Launce
Nay, ’twill be this hour ere I have done weeping; all the kind of the Launces have this very fault. I have received my proportion, like the prodigious son, and am going with Sir Proteus to the Imperial’s court. I think Crab, my dog, be the sourest-natured dog that lives: my mother weeping, my father wailing, my sister crying, our maid howling, our cat wringing her hands, and all our house in a great perplexity, yet did not this cruel-hearted cur shed one tear: he is a stone, a very pebble stone, and has no more pity in him than a dog: a Jew would have wept to have seen our parting; why, my grandam, having no eyes, look you, wept herself blind at my parting. Nay, I’ll show you the manner of it. This shoe is my father: no, this left shoe is my father: no, no, this left shoe is my mother: nay, that cannot be so neither: yes, it is so, it is so, it hath the worser sole. This shoe, with the hole in it, is my mother, and this my father; a vengeance on’t! there ’tis: now, sit, this staff is my sister, for, look you, she is as white as a lily and as small as a wand: this hat is Nan, our maid: I am the dog: no, the dog is himself, and I am the dog — Oh! the dog is me, and I am myself; ay, so, so. Now come I to my father; Father, your blessing: now should not the shoe speak a word for weeping: now should I kiss my father; well, he weeps on. Now come I to my mother: O, that she could speak now like a wood woman! Well, I kiss her; why, there ’tis; here’s my mother’s breath up and down. Now come I to my sister; mark the moan she makes. Now the dog all this while sheds not a tear nor speaks a word; but see how I lay the dust with my tears.
Enter Panthino
Panthino
Launce, away, away, aboard! thy master is shipped and thou art to post after with oars. What’s the matter? why weepest thou, man? Away, ass! You’ll lose the tide, if you tarry any longer.
Launce
It is no matter if the tied were lost; for it is the unkindest tied that ever any man tied.
Panthino
What’s the unkindest tide?
Launce
Why, he that’s tied here, Crab, my dog.
Panthino
Tut, man, I mean thou’lt lose the flood, and, in losing the flood, lose thy voyage, and, in losing thy voyage, lose thy master, and, in losing thy master, lose thy service, and, in losing thy service,— Why dost thou stop my mouth?
Launce
For fear thou shouldst lose thy tongue.
Panthino
Where should I lose my tongue?
Launce
In thy tale.
Panthino
In thy tail!
Launce
Lose the tide, and the voyage, and the master, and the service, and the tied! Why, man, if the river were dry, I am able to fill it with my tears; if the wind were down, I could drive the boat with my sighs.
Panthino
Come, come away, man; I was sent to call thee.
Launce
Sir, call me what thou darest.
Panthino
Wilt thou go?
Launce
Well, I will go.
Exeunt
SCENE IV. MILAN. THE DUKE’S PALACE.
Enter Silvia, Valentine, Thurio, and Speed
Silvia
Servant!
Valentine
Mistress?
Speed
Master, Sir Thurio frowns on you.
Valentine
Ay, boy, it’s for love.
Speed
Not of you.
Valentine
Of my mistress, then.
Speed
’Twere good you knocked him.
Exit
Silvia
Servant, you are sad.
Valentine
Indeed, madam, I seem so.
Thurio
Seem you that you are not?
Valentine
Haply I do.
Thurio
So do counterfeits.
Valentine
So do you.
Thurio
What seem I that I am not?
Valentine
Wise.
Thurio
What instance of the contrary?
Valentine
Your folly.
Thurio
And how quote you my folly?
Valentine
I quote it in your jerkin.
Thurio
My jerkin is a doublet.
Valentine
Well, then, I’ll double your folly.
Thurio
How?
Silvia
What, angry, Sir Thurio! do you change colour?
Valentine
Give him leave, madam; he is a kind of chameleon.
Thurio
That hath more mind to feed on your blood than live in your air.
Valentine
You have said, sir.
Thurio
Ay, sir, and done too, for this time.
Valentine
I know it well, sir; you always end ere you begin.
Silvia
A fine volley of words, gentlemen, and quickly shot off.
Valentine
’Tis indeed, madam; we thank the giver.
Silvia
Who is that, servant?
Valentine
Yourself, sweet lady; for you gave the fire. Sir Thurio borrows his wit from your ladyship’s looks, and spends what he borrows kindly in your company.
Thurio
Sir, if you spend word for word with me, I shall make your wit bankrupt.
Valentine
I know it well, sir; you have an exchequer of words, and, I think, no other treasure to give your followers, for it appears by their bare liveries, that they live by your bare words.
Silvia
No more, gentlemen, no more:— here comes my father.
Enter Duke
Duke
Now, daughter Silvia, you are hard beset.
Sir Valentine, your father’s in good health:
What say you to a letter from your friends
Of much good news?
Valentine
My lord, I will be thankful.
To any happy messenger from thence.
Duke
Know ye Don Antonio, your countryman?
Valentine
Ay, my good lord, I know the gentleman
To be of worth and worthy estimation
And not without desert so well reputed.
Duke
Hath he not a son?
Valentine
Ay, my good lord; a son that well deserves
The honour and regard of such a father.
Duke
You know him well?
Valentine
I know him as myself; for from our infancy
We have conversed and spent our hours together:
And though myself have been an idle truant,
Omitting the sweet benefit of time
To clothe mine age with angel-like perfection,
Yet hath Sir Proteus, for that’s his name,
Made use and fair advantage of his days;
His years but young, but his experience old;
His head unmellow’d, but his judgment ripe;
And, in a word, for far behind his worth
Comes all the praises that I now bestow,
He is complete in feature and in mind
With all good grace to grace a gentleman.
Duke
Beshrew me, sir, but if he make this good,
He is as worthy for an empress’ love
As meet to be an emperor’s counsellor.
Well, sir, this gentleman is come to me,
With commendation from great potentates;
And here he means to spend his time awhile:
I think ’tis no unwelcome news to you.
>
Valentine
Should I have wish’d a thing, it had been he.
Duke
Welcome him then according to his worth.
Silvia, I speak to you, and you, Sir Thurio;
For Valentine, I need not cite him to it:
I will send him hither to you presently.
Exit
Valentine
This is the gentleman I told your ladyship
Had come along with me, but that his mistress
Did hold his eyes lock’d in her crystal looks.
Silvia
Belike that now she hath enfranchised them
Upon some other pawn for fealty.
Valentine
Nay, sure, I think she holds them prisoners still.
Silvia
Nay, then he should be blind; and, being blind
How could he see his way to seek out you?
Valentine
Why, lady, Love hath twenty pair of eyes.
Thurio
They say that Love hath not an eye at all.
Valentine
To see such lovers, Thurio, as yourself:
Upon a homely object Love can wink.
Silvia
Have done, have done; here comes the gentleman.
Exit Thurio
Enter Proteus
Valentine
Welcome, dear Proteus! Mistress, I beseech you,
Confirm his welcome with some special favour.
Silvia
His worth is warrant for his welcome hither,
If this be he you oft have wish’d to hear from.
Valentine
Mistress, it is: sweet lady, entertain him
To be my fellow-servant to your ladyship.
Silvia
Too low a mistress for so high a servant.
Proteus
Not so, sweet lady: but too mean a servant
To have a look of such a worthy mistress.
Valentine
Leave off discourse of disability:
Sweet lady, entertain him for your servant.
Proteus
My duty will I boast of; nothing else.
Silvia
And duty never yet did want his meed:
Servant, you are welcome to a worthless mistress.
Proteus
I’ll die on him that says so but yourself.
Silvia
That you are welcome?
Proteus
That you are worthless.
Re-enter Thurio
Thurio
Madam, my lord your father would speak with you.
Silvia
I wait upon his pleasure. Come, Sir Thurio,
Go with me. Once more, new servant, welcome:
I’ll leave you to confer of home affairs;
When you have done, we look to hear from you.
Proteus
We’ll both attend upon your ladyship.
Exeunt Silvia and Thurio
Valentine
Now, tell me, how do all from whence you came?
Proteus
Your friends are well and have them much commended.
Complete Plays, The Page 341
