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 2
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 3
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 4
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.