VAL. Why, lady, Love hath twenty pair of eyes.
THU. They say that Love hath not an eye at all.
VAL. To see such lovers, Thurio, as yourself:
Upon a homely object Love can wink.
Enter PROTEUS.
SIL. Have done, have done: here comes the gentleman.
VAL. Welcome, dear Proteus !-Mistress, I beseech
Confirm his welcome with some special favour.
SIL. His worth is warrant for his welcome hither,
If this be he you oft have wish'd to hear from.
VAL. Mistress, it is: sweet Lady, entertain him
To be my fellow-Servant to your Ladyship.
SIL. Too low a Mistress for so high a Servant.
PRO. Not so, sweet Lady; but too mean a Servant
To have a look of such a worthy Mistress.
VAL. Leave off discourse of disability :-
Sweet Lady, entertain him for your Servant.
PRO. My duty will I boast of, nothing else.
SIL. And duty never yet did want his meed.
Servant, you are welcome to a worthless Mistress.
PRO. I'll die on him that says so, but yourself.
SIL. That you are welcome?
PRO.
No; that you are worthless.
Enter a Servant.
SERV. Madam, my Lord your father would speak with you.
SIL. I'll 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
PRO. We'll both attend upon your Ladyship.
[Exeunt SILVIA, THURIO, and SPEED.
VAL. Now, tell me, how do all from whence you came?
PRO. Your friends are well, and have them much com-
mended.
VAL. And how do yours?
PRO.
I left them all in health.
VAL. How does your Lady? and how thrives your love?
PRO. My tales of woe were wont to weary you:
I know you joy not in a love discourse.
VAL. Ay, Proteus, but that life is alter'd now :
I have done penance for contemning Love,
Whose high-imperious thoughts have punish'd 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 chas'd sleep from my enthralled eyes,
And made them watchers of mine own heart's sorrow.
PRO. Why, Valentine, what braggardism is this?
VAL. Pardon me, Proteus: all I can is nothing
To her, whose worth makes other worthies nothing:
She is alone.
PRO. Then let her alone.
VAL. 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 see'st 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.
PRO. But she loves you?
VAL.
Ay, and we are betroth'd:
Nay, more, our marriage hour,
With all the cunning manner of our flight,
Determin'd 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.
PRO. Go on before; I shall inquire you forth:
I must unto the Road, to disembark
Some necessaries that I needs must use;
And then I'll presently attend you.
VAL. Will you make haste?
PRO. I will.
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 his praise,
Her true perfection or my false transgression,
That makes me, reasonless, to reason thus?
She's fair; and so is Julia, that I love-
That I did love, for now my love is thaw'd:
Which, like a waxen image 'gainst 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.
SCENE V. The Same. A Street.
Enter SPEED and LAUNCE.
SPEED. Launce! by mine honesty, welcome to Milan! LAUNCE. Forswear not thyself, sweet youth; for I am not welcome. I reckon this always,-that a man is never undone till he be hang'd; 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?
LAUNCE. Marry, after they closed in earnest, they parted very fairly in jest.
SPEED. But shall she marry him?
LAUNCE. No.
SPEED. How, then? Shall he marry her?
LAUNCE. No, neither.
SPEED. What, are they broken?
LAUNCE. No, they are both as whole as a fish.
SPEED. Why, then how stands the matter with them?
LAUNCE. Marry, thus: when it stands well with him, it
stands well with her.
21
SPEED. What an ass art thou! I understand thee not.
LAUNCE. What a block art thou, that thou canst not! ACT II
Sc. V
My staff understands me. SPEED. What thou say'st?
LAUNCE. Ay, and what I do too: look thee, I'll but lean,
and my staff understands me.
SPEED. It stands under thee, indeed.
30
LAUNCE. Why, stand-under and under-stand is all one.
SPEED. But tell me true, will 't be a match?
LAUNCE. 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.
LAUNCE. Thou shalt never get such a secret from me
but by a parable.
SPEED. 'Tis well that I get it so. But, Launce, how
say'st thou that my master is become a notable lover?
LAUNCE. I never knew him otherwise.
SPEED. Than how?
LAUNCE. A notable lubber, as thou reportest him to be.
SPEED. Why, thou whoreson ass, thou mistak'st me.
LAUNCE. Why, fool, I meant not thee: I meant thy
4I
master.
SPEED. I tell thee, my master is become a hot lover. LAUNCE. Why, I tell thee, I care not though he burn himself in love. If thou wilt go with me to the alehouse, so; if not, thou art an Ebrew, a Jew, and not worth the name of a Christian.
SPEED. Why?
LAUNCE. Because thou hast not so much charity in thee
as to go to the ale1 with a Christian. Wilt thou go? 51
SPEED. At thy service.
[exeunt.
SCENE VI. The Same. An Apartment in the Palace.
Enter PROTEUS.
PRO. To leave my Julia, shall I be forsworn 1;
To love fair Silvia, shall I be forsworn;
To wrong my friend, I shall be much forsworn;
And ev❜n that power, which gave me first my oath,
Provokes me to this threefold perjury:
1 church-ale, i.e. an old Church festival.
|