Verona. An open place. | |
| |
| Enter VALENTINE and PROTEUS. | |
| Val. Cease to persuade, my loving Proteus: | |
| Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits. | 4 |
| Were’t not affection chains thy tender days | |
| To the sweet glances of thy honour’d love, | |
| I rather would entreat thy company | |
| To see the wonders of the world abroad | 8 |
| Than, living dully sluggardiz’d 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. | 12 |
| Pro. Wilt thou be gone? Sweet Valentine, adieu! | |
| Think on thy Proteus, when thou haply seest | |
| Some rare note-worthy object in thy travel: | |
| Wish me partaker in thy happiness | 16 |
| When thou dost meet good hap; and in thy danger, | |
| If ever danger do environ thee, | |
| Commend thy grievance to my holy prayers, | |
| For I will be thy beadsman, Valentine. | 20 |
| Val. And on a love-book pray for my success? | |
| Pro. Upon some book I love I’ll pray for thee. | |
| Val. That’s on some shallow story of deep love, | |
| How young Leander cross’d the Hellespont. | 24 |
| Pro. That’s a deep story of a deeper love; | |
| For he was more than over shoes in love. | |
| Val. ’Tis true; for you are over boots in love, | |
| And yet you never swum the Hellespont. | 28 |
| Pro. Over the boots? nay, give me not the boots. | |
| Val. No, I will not, for it boots thee not. | |
| Pro. What? | |
| Val. To be in love, where scorn is bought with groans; | 32 |
| 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 labour won: | 36 |
| However, but a folly bought with wit, | |
| Or else a wit by folly vanquished. | |
| Pro. So, by your circumstance, you call me fool. | |
| Val. So, by your circumstance, I fear you’ll prove. | 40 |
| Pro. ’Tis love you cavil at: I am not Love. | |
| Val. Love is your master, for he masters you; | |
| And he that is so yoked by a fool, | |
| Methinks, should not be chronicled for wise. | 44 |
| Pro. Yet writers say, as in the sweetest bud | |
| The eating canker dwells, so eating love | |
| Inhabits in the finest wits of all. | |
| Val. And writers say, as the most forward bud | 48 |
| 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, | 52 |
| 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 | 56 |
| Expects my coming, there to see me shipp’d. | |
| Pro. And thither will I bring thee, Valentine. | |
| Val. Sweet Proteus, no; now let us take our leave. | |
| To Milan let me hear from thee by letters | 60 |
| Of thy success in love, and what news else | |
| Betideth here in absence of thy friend; | |
| And I likewise will visit thee with mine. | |
| Pro. All happiness bechance to thee in Milan! | 64 |
| Val. As much to you at home! and so, farewell. [Exit. | |
| Pro. He after honour hunts, I after love: | |
| He leaves his friends to dignify them more; | |
| I leave myself, my friends and all, for love. | 68 |
| Thou, Julia, thou hast metamorphos’d me;— | |
| Made me neglect my studies, lose my time, | |
| War with good counsel, set the world at nought; | |
| Made wit with musing weak, heart sick with thought. | 72 |
| |
| Enter SPEED. | |
| Speed. Sir Proteus, save you! Saw you my master? | |
| Pro. But now he parted hence, to embark for Milan. | |
| Speed. Twenty to one, then, he is shipp’d already, | 76 |
| And I have play’d the sheep, in losing him. | |
| Pro. Indeed, a sheep doth very often stray, | |
| An if the shepherd be a while away. | |
| Speed. You conclude that my master is a shepherd, then, and I a sheep? | 80 |
| Pro. I do. | |
| Speed. Why then my horns are his horns, whether I wake or sleep. | |
| Pro. A silly answer, and fitting well a sheep. | |
| Speed. This proves me still a sheep. | 84 |
| Pro. True, and thy master a shepherd. | |
| Speed. Nay, that I can deny by a circumstance. | |
| Pro. It shall go hard but I’ll prove it by another. | |
| Speed. The shepherd seeks the sheep, and not the sheep the shepherd; but I seek my master, and my master seeks not me: therefore I am no sheep. | 88 |
| Pro. The sheep for fodder follow the shepherd, the shepherd for food follows not the sheep; thou for wages followest thy master, thy master for wages follows not thee: therefore thou art a sheep. | |
| Speed. Such another proof will make me cry ‘baa.’ | |
| Pro. But, dost thou hear? gavest thou my letter to Julia? | |
| Speed. Ay, sir: I, a lost mutton, gave your letter to her, a laced mutton; and she, a laced mutton, gave me, a lost mutton, nothing for my labour. | 92 |
| Pro. Here’s too small a pasture for such store of muttons. | |
| Speed. If the ground be overcharged, you were best stick her. | |
| Pro. Nay, in that you are astray; ’twere best pound you. | |
| Speed. Nay, sir, less than a pound shall serve me for carrying your letter. | 96 |
| Pro You mistake: I mean the pound,—a pinfold. | |
| Speed. From a pound to a pin? fold it over and over, | |
| ’Tis threefold too little for carrying a letter to your lover. | |
| Pro. But what said she? [SPEED nods.] Did she nod? | 100 |
| Speed. Ay. | |
| Pro. Nod, ay? why, that’s noddy. | |
| Speed. You mistook, sir: I say she did nod; and you ask me if she did nod; and I say, Ay. | |
| Pro And that set together is—noddy. | 104 |
| Speed. Now you have taken the pains to set it together, take it for your pains. | |
| Pro. No, no; you shall have it for bearing the letter. | |
| Speed. Well, I perceive I must be fain to bear with you. | |
| Pro. Why, sir, how do you bear with me? | 108 |
| Speed. Marry, sir, the letter very orderly; having nothing but the word ‘noddy’ for my pains. | |
| Pro. Beshrew me, but you have a quick wit. | |
| Speed. And yet it cannot overtake your slow purse. | |
| Pro. Come, come; open the matter in brief: what said she? | 112 |
| Speed. Open your purse, that the money and the matter may be both at once delivered. | |
| Pro. Well, sir, here is for your pains [giving him money]. What said she? | |
| Speed. Truly, sir, I think you’ll hardly win her. | |
| Pro. Why? couldst thou perceive so much from her? | 116 |
| Speed. Sir, I could perceive nothing at all from her; no, not so much as a ducat for delivering your letter. And being so hard to me that brought your mind, I fear she’ll prove as hard to you in telling your mind. Give her no token but stones, for she’s as hard as steel. | |
| Pro. What! said she nothing? | |
| Speed. No, not so much as ‘Take this for thy pains.’ To testify your bounty, I thank you, you have testerned me; in requital whereof, henceforth carry your letters yourself. And so, sir, I’ll commend you to my master. | |
| Pro. Go, go, be gone, to save your ship from wrack; | 120 |
| Which cannot perish, having thee aboard, | |
| Being destin’d to a drier death on shore.— [Exit SPEED. | |
| I must go send some better messenger: | |
| I fear my Julia would not deign my lines, | 124 |
| Receiving them from such a worthless post. [Exit. | |