The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works Read online

  I think ’tis no unwelcome news to you.

  VALENTINE

  Should I have wished 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 locked 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.

  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 wished 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.

  ⌈Enter a Servant⌉

  ⌈SERVANT⌉

  Madam, my lord your father would speak with you.

  SILVIA

  I wait upon his pleasure. ⌈Exit the Servant⌉

  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.

  VALENTINE

  And how do yours?

  PROTEUS I left them all in health.

  VALENTINE

  How does your lady, and how thrives your love?

  PROTEUS

  My tales of love were wont to weary you.

  I know you joy not in a love-discourse.

  VALENTINE

  Ay, Proteus, but that life is altered now.

  I have done penance for contemning love,

  Whose high imperious thoughts have punished me

  With bitter fasts, with penitential groans,

  With nightly tears and daily heart-sore sighs.

  For in revenge of my contempt of love

  Love hath chased sleep from my enthralled eyes,

  And made them watchers of mine own heart’s sorrow.

  O gentle Proteus, love’s a mighty lord,

  And hath so humbled me as I confess

  There is no woe to his correction,

  Nor to his service no such joy on earth.

  Now, no discourse except it be of love.

  Now can I break my fast, dine, sup, and sleep

  Upon the very naked name of love.

  PROTEUS

  Enough. I read your fortune in your eye.

  Was this the idol that you worship so?

  VALENTINE

  Even she; and is she not a heavenly saint?

  PROTEUS

  No, but she is an earthly paragon.

  VALENTINE

  Call her divine.

  PROTEUS

  I will not flatter her.

  VALENTINE

  O flatter me; for love delights in praises.

  PROTEUS

  When I was sick you gave me bitter pills,

  And I must minister the like to you.

  VALENTINE

  Then speak the truth by her; if not divine,

  Yet let her be a principality,

  Sovereign to all the creatures on the earth.

  PROTEUS

  Except my mistress.

  VALENTINE Sweet, except not any,

  Except thou wilt except against my love.

  PROTEUS

  Have I not reason to prefer mine own?

  VALENTINE

  And I will help thee to prefer her, too.

  She shall be dignified with this high honour,

  To bear my lady’s train, lest the base earth

  Should from her vesture chance to steal a kiss

  And, of so great a favour growing proud,

  Disdain to root the summer-swelling flower,

  And make rough winter everlastingly.

  PROTEUS

  Why, Valentine, what braggartism is this?

  VALENTINE

  Pardon me, Proteus, all I can is nothing

  To her whose worth makes other worthies nothing.

  She is alone.

  PROTEUS

  Then let her alone.

  VALENTINE

  Not for the world. Why man, she is mine own,

  And I as rich in having such a jewel

  As twenty seas, if all their sand were pearl,

  The water nectar, and the rocks pure gold.

  Forgive me that I do not dream on thee

  Because thou seest me dote upon my love.

  My foolish rival, that her father likes

  Only for his possessions are so huge,

  Is gone with her along, and I must after;

  For love, thou know’st, is full of jealousy.

  PROTEUS But she loves you?

  VALENTINE

  Ay, and we are betrothed. Nay more, our marriage

  hour,

  With all the cunning manner of our flight,

  Determined of: how I must climb her window,

  The ladder made of cords, and all the means

  Plotted and ‘greed on for my happiness.

  Good Proteus, go with me to my chamber

  In these affairs to aid me with thy counsel.

  PROTEUS

  Go on before. I shall enquire you forth.

  I must unto the road, to disembark

  Some necessaries that I needs must use,

  And then I’ll presently attend you.

  VALENTINE Will you make haste?

  PROTEUS I will. Exit Valentine

  Even as one heat another heat expels,

  Or as one nail by strength drives out another,

  So the remembrance of my former love

  Is by a newer object quite forgotten.

  Is it mine eye, or Valentine’s praise,

  Her true perfection, or my false transgression

  That makes me, reasonless, to reason thus?

  She is fair, and so is Julia that I love—

  That I did love, for now my love is thawed,

  Which like a waxen image ‘g
ainst a fire

  Bears no impression of the thing it was.

  Methinks my zeal to Valentine is cold,

  And that I love him not as I was wont.

  O, but I love his lady too-too much,

  And that’s the reason I love him so little.

  How shall I dote on her with more advice,

  That thus without advice begin to love her?

  ‘Tis but her picture I have yet beheld,

  And that hath dazzled my reason’s light.

  But when I look on her perfections

  There is no reason but I shall be blind.

  If I can check my erring love I will,

  If not, to compass her I’ll use my skill. Exit

  2.5 Enter Speed, and Lance with his dog Crab

  SPEED Lance, by mine honesty, welcome to Milan.

  LANCE Forswear not thyself, sweet youth, for I am not welcome. I reckon this always, that a man is never undone till he be hanged, nor never welcome to a place till some certain shot be paid and the hostess say ‘Welcome’.

  SPEED Come on, you madcap. I’ll to the alehouse with you presently, where, for one shot of five pence, thou shalt have five thousand welcomes. But sirrah, how did thy master part with Madam Julia?

  LANCE Marry, after they closed in earnest they parted very fairly in jest.

  SPEED But shall she marry him?

  LANCE No.

  SPEED How then, shall he marry her?

  LANCE No, neither.

  SPEED What, are they broken?

  LANCE No, they are both as whole as a fish.

  SPEED Why then, how stands the matter with them?

  LANCE Marry, thus: when it stands well with him it stands well with her.

  SPEED What an ass art thou! I understand thee not.

  LANCE What a block art thou, that thou canst not! My staff understands me.

  SPEED What thou sayst?

  LANCE Ay, and what I do too. Look thee, I’ll but lean, and my staff under-stands me.

  SPEED It stands under thee indeed.

  LANCE Why, stand-under and under-stand is all one. SPEED But tell me true, will’t be a match?

  LANCE Ask my dog. If he say ‘Ay’, it will. If he say ‘No’, it will. If he shake his tail and say nothing, it will.

  SPEED The conclusion is, then, that it will.

  LANCE Thou shalt never get such a secret from me but by a parable.

  SPEED ‘Tis well that I get it so. But Lance, how sayst thou that my master is become a notable lover?

  LANCE I never knew him otherwise.

  SPEED Than how?

  LANCE A notable lubber, as thou reportest him to be.

  SPEED Why, thou whoreson ass, thou mistak’st me.

  LANCE Why, fool, I meant not thee, I meant thy master.

  SPEED I tell thee my master is become a hot lover.

  LANCE Why, I tell thee I care not, though he burn himself in love. If thou wilt, go with me to the alehouse. If not, thou art an Hebrew, a Jew, and not worth the name of a Christian.

  SPEED Why?

  LANCE Because thou hast not so much charity in thee as to go to the ale with a Christian. Wilt thou go?

  SPEED At thy service.

  Exeunt

  2.6 Enter Proteus

  PROTEUS

  To leave my Julia shall I be forsworn;

  To love fair Silvia shall I be forsworn;

  To wrong my friend I shall be much forsworn.

  And e‘en that power which gave me first my oath

  Provokes me to this threefold perjury.

  Love bade me swear, and love bids me forswear.

  O sweet-suggesting love, if thou hast sinned

  Teach me, thy tempted subject, to excuse it.

  At first I did adore a twinkling star,

  But now I worship a celestial sun.

  Unheedful vows may heedfully be broken,

  And he wants wit that wants resolved will

  To learn his wit t’exchange the bad for better.

  Fie, fie, unreverent tongue, to call her bad

  Whose sovereignty so oft thou hast preferred

  With twenty thousand soul-confirming oaths.

  I cannot leave to love, and yet I do.

  But there I leave to love where I should love.

  Julia I lose, and Valentine I lose.

  If I keep them I needs must lose myself.

  If I lose them, thus find I by their loss

  For Valentine, myself, for Julia, Silvia.

  I to myself am dearer than a friend,

  For love is still most precious in itself,

  And Silvia—witness heaven that made her fair—

  Shows Julia but a swarthy Ethiope.

  I will forget that Julia is alive,

  Rememb’ring that my love to her is dead,

  And Valentine I’ll hold an enemy,

  Aiming at Silvia as a sweeter friend.

  I cannot now prove constant to myself

  Without some treachery used to Valentine.

  This night he meaneth with a corded ladder

  To climb celestial Silvia’s chamber-window,

  Myself in counsel his competitor.

  Now presently I’ll give her father notice

  Of their disguising and pretended flight,

  Who, all enraged, will banish Valentine;

  For Thurio he intends shall wed his daughter.

  But Valentine being gone, I’ll quickly cross

  By some sly trick blunt Thurio’s dull proceeding.

  Love, lend me wings to make my purpose swift,

  As thou hast lent me wit to plot this drift. Exit

  2.7 Enter Julia and Lucetta

  JULIA

  Counsel, Lucetta. Gentle girl, assist me,

  And e’en in kind love I do conjure thee,

  Who art the table wherein all my thoughts

  Are visibly charactered and engraved,

  To lesson me, and tell me some good mean

  How with my honour I may undertake

  A journey to my loving Proteus.

  LUCETTA

  Alas, the way is wearisome and long.

  JULIA

  A true-devoted pilgrim is not weary

  To measure kingdoms with his feeble steps.

  Much less shall she that hath love’s wings to fly,

  And when the flight is made to one so dear,

  Of such divine perfection as Sir Proteus.

  LUCETTA

  Better forbear till Proteus make return.

  JULIA

  O, know’st thou not his looks are my soul’s food?

  Pity the dearth that I have pined in

  By longing for that food so long a time.

  Didst thou but know the inly touch of love

  Thou wouldst as soon go kindle fire with snow

  As seek to quench the fire of love with words.

  LUCETTA

  I do not seek to quench your love’s hot fire,

  But qualify the fire’s extreme rage,

  Lest it should burn above the bounds of reason.

  JULIA

  The more thou damm‘st it up, the more it burns.

  The current that with gentle murmur glides,

  Thou know’st, being stopped, impatiently doth rage.

  But when his fair course is not hindered

  He makes sweet music with th’enamelled stones,

  Giving a gentle kiss to every sedge

  He overtaketh in his pilgrimage.

  And so by many winding nooks he strays

  With willing sport to the wild ocean.

  Then let me go, and hinder not my course.

  I’ll be as patient as a gentle stream,

  And make a pastime of each weary step

  Till the last step have brought me to my love.

  And there I’ll rest as after much turmoil

  A blessed soul doth in Elysium.

  LUCETTA

  But in what habit will you go along?

  JULIA

 
; Not like a woman, for I would prevent

  The loose encounters of lascivious men.

  Gentle Lucetta, fit me with such weeds

  As may beseem some well-reputed page.

  LUCETTA

  Why then, your ladyship must cut your hair.

  JULIA

  No, girl, I’ll knit it up in silken strings

  With twenty odd-conceited true-love knots.

  To be fantastic may become a youth

  Of greater time than I shall show to be.

  LUCETTA

  What fashion, madam, shall I make your breeches?

  JULIA

  That fits as well as ‘Tell me, good my lord,

  What compass will you wear your farthingale?’

  Why, e’en what fashion thou best likes, Lucetta.

  LUCETTA

  You must needs have them with a codpiece, madam.

  JULIA

  Out, out, Lucetta. That will be ill-favoured.

  LUCETTA

  A round hose, madam, now’s not worth a pin

  Unless you have a codpiece to stick pins on.

  JULIA

  Lucetta, as thou lov‘st me let me have

  What thou think’st meet and is most mannerly.

  But tell me, wench, how will the world repute me

  For undertaking so unstaid a journey?

  I fear me it will make me scandalized.

  LUCETTA

  If you think so, then stay at home, and go not.

  JULIA Nay, that I will not.

  LUCETTA

  Then never dream on infamy, but go.

  If Proteus like your journey when you come,

  No matter who’s displeased when you are gone.

  I fear me he will scarce be pleased withal.

  JULIA

  That is the least, Lucetta, of my fear.

  A thousand oaths, an ocean of his tears,

  And instances of infinite of love

  Warrant me welcome to my Proteus.

  LUCETTA

  All these are servants to deceitful men.

  JULIA

  Base men, that use them to so base effect.

  But truer stars did govern Proteus’ birth.

  His words are bonds, his oaths are oracles,

  His love sincere, his thoughts immaculate,

  His tears pure messengers sent from his heart,

  His heart as far from fraud as heaven from earth.

  LUCETTA

  Pray heaven he prove so when you come to him.

  JULIA

  Now, as thou lov’st me, do him not that wrong

  To bear a hard opinion of his truth.

  Only deserve my love by loving him,

  And presently go with me to my chamber

  To take a note of what I stand in need of

  To furnish me upon my longing journey.

  All that is mine I leave at thy dispose,