Complete Plays, The

by William Shakespeare

  ‘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

  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.

  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

  ACT IV

  SCENE I. THE FRONTIERS OF MANTUA. 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

  SCENE II. MILAN. OUTSIDE THE DUKE’S PALACE, UNDER SILVIA’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.

  Host

  How now! are you sadder than you were before? How do you, man? the music likes you not.

  Julia

  You mistake; the musician likes me not.

  Host

  Why, my pretty youth?

  Julia

  He plays false, father.

  Host

  How? out of tune on the strings?

  Julia

  Not so; but yet so false that he grieves my very heart-strings.

  Host

  You have a quick ear.

  Julia

  Ay, I would
I were deaf; it makes me have a slow heart.

  Host

  I perceive you delight not in music.

  Julia

  Not a whit, when it jars so.

  Host

  Hark, what fine change is in the music!

  Julia

  Ay, that change is the spite.

  Host

  You would have them always play but one thing?

  Julia

  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.

  Julia

  Where is Launce?

  Host

  Gone to seek his dog; which tomorrow, by his master’s command, he must carry for a present to his lady.

  Julia

  Peace! stand aside: the company parts.

  Proteus

  Sir Thurio, fear not you: I will so plead

  That you shall say my cunning drift excels.

  Thurio

  Where meet we?

  Proteus

  At Saint Gregory’s well.

  Thurio

  Farewell.

  Exeunt Thurio and Musicians

  Enter Silvia above

  Proteus

  Madam, good even to your ladyship.

  Silvia

  I thank you for your music, gentlemen.

  Who is that that spake?

  Proteus

  One, lady, if you knew his pure heart’s truth,

  You would quickly learn to know him by his voice.

  Silvia

  Sir Proteus, as I take it.

  Proteus

  Sir Proteus, gentle lady, and your servant.

  Silvia

  What’s your will?

  Proteus

  That I may compass yours.

  Silvia

  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

  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.

  Proteus

  I grant, sweet love, that I did love a lady;

  But she is dead.

  Julia

  [Aside] ’Twere false, if I should speak it;

  For I am sure she is not buried.

  Silvia

  Say that she be; yet Valentine thy friend

  Survives; to whom, thyself art witness,

  I am betroth’d: and art thou not ashamed

  To wrong him with thy importunacy?

  Proteus

  I likewise hear that Valentine is dead.

  Silvia

  And so suppose am I; for in his grave

  Assure thyself my love is buried.