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Home > Two Gentlemen of Verona > ACT II - SCENE IV. Milan. The DUKE's palace.

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ACT II - SCENE IV. Milan. The DUKE's palace.
Enter SILVIA, VALENTINE, THURIO, and SPEED

SILVIA
1    Servant!
VALENTINE
2    Mistress?
SPEED
3    Master, Sir Thurio frowns on you.
VALENTINE
4    Ay, boy, it's for love.
SPEED
5    Not of you.
VALENTINE
6    Of my mistress, then.
SPEED
7    'Twere good you knocked him.
Exit

SILVIA
8    Servant, you are sad.
VALENTINE
9    Indeed, madam, I seem so.
THURIO
10   Seem you that you are not?
VALENTINE
11   Haply I do.
THURIO
12   So do counterfeits.
VALENTINE
13   So do you.
THURIO
14   What seem I that I am not?
VALENTINE
15   Wise.
THURIO
16   What instance of the contrary?
VALENTINE
17   Your folly.
THURIO
18   And how quote you my folly?
VALENTINE
19   I quote it in your jerkin.
THURIO
20   My jerkin is a doublet.
VALENTINE
21   Well, then, I'll double your folly.
THURIO
22   How?
SILVIA
23   What, angry, Sir Thurio! do you change colour?
VALENTINE
24   Give him leave, madam; he is a kind of chameleon.
THURIO
25   That hath more mind to feed on your blood than live
26   in your air.
VALENTINE
27   You have said, sir.
THURIO
28   Ay, sir, and done too, for this time.
VALENTINE
29   I know it well, sir; you always end ere you begin.
SILVIA
30   A fine volley of words, gentlemen, and quickly shot off.
VALENTINE
31   'Tis indeed, madam; we thank the giver.
SILVIA
32   Who is that, servant?
VALENTINE
33   Yourself, sweet lady; for you gave the fire. Sir
34   Thurio borrows his wit from your ladyship's looks,
35   and spends what he borrows kindly in your company.
THURIO
36   Sir, if you spend word for word with me, I shall
37   make your wit bankrupt.
VALENTINE
38   I know it well, sir; you have an exchequer of words,
39   and, I think, no other treasure to give your
40   followers, for it appears by their bare liveries,
41   that they live by your bare words.
SILVIA
42   No more, gentlemen, no more:--here comes my father.
Enter DUKE

DUKE
43   Now, daughter Silvia, you are hard beset.
44   Sir Valentine, your father's in good health:
45   What say you to a letter from your friends
46   Of much good news?
VALENTINE
47   My lord, I will be thankful.
48   To any happy messenger from thence.
DUKE
49   Know ye Don Antonio, your countryman?
VALENTINE
50   Ay, my good lord, I know the gentleman
51   To be of worth and worthy estimation
52   And not without desert so well reputed.
DUKE
53   Hath he not a son?
VALENTINE
54   Ay, my good lord; a son that well deserves
55   The honour and regard of such a father.
DUKE
56   You know him well?
VALENTINE
57   I know him as myself; for from our infancy
58   We have conversed and spent our hours together:
59   And though myself have been an idle truant,
60   Omitting the sweet benefit of time
61   To clothe mine age with angel-like perfection,
62   Yet hath Sir Proteus, for that's his name,
63   Made use and fair advantage of his days;
64   His years but young, but his experience old;
65   His head unmellow'd, but his judgment ripe;
66   And, in a word, for far behind his worth
67   Comes all the praises that I now bestow,
68   He is complete in feature and in mind
69   With all good grace to grace a gentleman.
DUKE
70   Beshrew me, sir, but if he make this good,
71   He is as worthy for an empress' love
72   As meet to be an emperor's counsellor.
73   Well, sir, this gentleman is come to me,
74   With commendation from great potentates;
75   And here he means to spend his time awhile:
76   I think 'tis no unwelcome news to you.
VALENTINE
77   Should I have wish'd a thing, it had been he.
DUKE
78   Welcome him then according to his worth.
79   Silvia, I speak to you, and you, Sir Thurio;
80   For Valentine, I need not cite him to it:
81   I will send him hither to you presently.
Exit

VALENTINE
82   This is the gentleman I told your ladyship
83   Had come along with me, but that his mistress
84   Did hold his eyes lock'd in her crystal looks.
SILVIA
85   Belike that now she hath enfranchised them
86   Upon some other pawn for fealty.
VALENTINE
87   Nay, sure, I think she holds them prisoners still.
SILVIA
88   Nay, then he should be blind; and, being blind
89   How could he see his way to seek out you?
VALENTINE
90   Why, lady, Love hath twenty pair of eyes.
THURIO
91   They say that Love hath not an eye at all.
VALENTINE
92   To see such lovers, Thurio, as yourself:
93   Upon a homely object Love can wink.
SILVIA
94   Have done, have done; here comes the gentleman.
Exit THURIO

Enter PROTEUS

VALENTINE
95   Welcome, dear Proteus! Mistress, I beseech you,
96   Confirm his welcome with some special favour.
SILVIA
97   His worth is warrant for his welcome hither,
98   If this be he you oft have wish'd to hear from.
VALENTINE
99   Mistress, it is: sweet lady, entertain him
100  To be my fellow-servant to your ladyship.
SILVIA
101  Too low a mistress for so high a servant.
PROTEUS
102  Not so, sweet lady: but too mean a servant
103  To have a look of such a worthy mistress.
VALENTINE
104  Leave off discourse of disability:
105  Sweet lady, entertain him for your servant.
PROTEUS
106  My duty will I boast of; nothing else.
SILVIA
107  And duty never yet did want his meed:
108  Servant, you are welcome to a worthless mistress.
PROTEUS
109  I'll die on him that says so but yourself.
SILVIA
110  That you are welcome?
PROTEUS
111  That you are worthless.
Re-enter THURIO

THURIO
112  Madam, my lord your father would speak with you.
SILVIA
113  I wait upon his pleasure. Come, Sir Thurio,
114  Go with me. Once more, new servant, welcome:
115  I'll leave you to confer of home affairs;
116  When you have done, we look to hear from you.
PROTEUS
117  We'll both attend upon your ladyship.
Exeunt SILVIA and THURIO

VALENTINE
118  Now, tell me, how do all from whence you came?
PROTEUS
119  Your friends are well and have them much commended.
VALENTINE
120  And how do yours?
PROTEUS
121  I left them all in health.
VALENTINE
122  How does your lady? and how thrives your love?
PROTEUS
123  My tales of love were wont to weary you;
124  I know you joy not in a love discourse.
VALENTINE
125  Ay, Proteus, but that life is alter'd now:
126  I have done penance for contemning Love,
127  Whose high imperious thoughts have punish'd me
128  With bitter fasts, with penitential groans,
129  With nightly tears and daily heart-sore sighs;
130  For in revenge of my contempt of love,
131  Love hath chased sleep from my enthralled eyes
132  And made them watchers of mine own heart's sorrow.
133  O gentle Proteus, Love's a mighty lord,
134  And hath so humbled me, as, I confess,
135  There is no woe to his correction,
136  Nor to his service no such joy on earth.
137  Now no discourse, except it be of love;
138  Now can I break my fast, dine, sup and sleep,
139  Upon the very naked name of love.
PROTEUS
140  Enough; I read your fortune in your eye.
141  Was this the idol that you worship so?
VALENTINE
142  Even she; and is she not a heavenly saint?
PROTEUS
143  No; but she is an earthly paragon.
VALENTINE
144  Call her divine.
PROTEUS
145  I will not flatter her.
VALENTINE
146  O, flatter me; for love delights in praises.
PROTEUS
147  When I was sick, you gave me bitter pills,
148  And I must minister the like to you.
VALENTINE
149  Then speak the truth by her; if not divine,
150  Yet let her be a principality,
151  Sovereign to all the creatures on the earth.
PROTEUS
152  Except my mistress.
VALENTINE
153  Sweet, except not any;
154  Except thou wilt except against my love.
PROTEUS
155  Have I not reason to prefer mine own?
VALENTINE
156  And I will help thee to prefer her too:
157  She shall be dignified with this high honour--
158  To bear my lady's train, lest the base earth
159  Should from her vesture chance to steal a kiss
160  And, of so great a favour growing proud,
161  Disdain to root the summer-swelling flower
162  And make rough winter everlastingly.
PROTEUS
163  Why, Valentine, what braggardism is this?
VALENTINE
164  Pardon me, Proteus: all I can is nothing
165  To her whose worth makes other worthies nothing;
166  She is alone.
PROTEUS
167  Then let her alone.
VALENTINE
168  Not for the world: why, man, she is mine own,
169  And I as rich in having such a jewel
170  As twenty seas, if all their sand were pearl,
171  The water nectar and the rocks pure gold.
172  Forgive me that I do not dream on thee,
173  Because thou see'st me dote upon my love.
174  My foolish rival, that her father likes
175  Only for his possessions are so huge,
176  Is gone with her along, and I must after,
177  For love, thou know'st, is full of jealousy.
PROTEUS
178  But she loves you?
VALENTINE
179  Ay, and we are betroth'd: nay, more, our,
180  marriage-hour,
181  With all the cunning manner of our flight,
182  Determined of; how I must climb her window,
183  The ladder made of cords, and all the means
184  Plotted and 'greed on for my happiness.
185  Good Proteus, go with me to my chamber,
186  In these affairs to aid me with thy counsel.
PROTEUS
187  Go on before; I shall inquire you forth:
188  I must unto the road, to disembark
189  Some necessaries that I needs must use,
190  And then I'll presently attend you.
VALENTINE
191  Will you make haste?
PROTEUS
192  I will.
Exit VALENTINE
193  Even as one heat another heat expels,
194  Or as one nail by strength drives out another,
195  So the remembrance of my former love
196  Is by a newer object quite forgotten.
197  Is it mine, or Valentine's praise,
198  Her true perfection, or my false transgression,
199  That makes me reasonless to reason thus?
200  She is fair; and so is Julia that I love--
201  That I did love, for now my love is thaw'd;
202  Which, like a waxen image, 'gainst a fire,
203  Bears no impression of the thing it was.
204  Methinks my zeal to Valentine is cold,
205  And that I love him not as I was wont.
206  O, but I love his lady too too much,
207  And that's the reason I love him so little.
208  How shall I dote on her with more advice,
209  That thus without advice begin to love her!
210  'Tis but her picture I have yet beheld,
211  And that hath dazzled my reason's light;
212  But when I look on her perfections,
213  There is no reason but I shall be blind.
214  If I can cheque my erring love, I will;
215  If not, to compass her I'll use my skill.
Exit

< (Previous) ACT II, SCENE IIIACT II, V (Next) >
Scene Index
ACT I
  • SCENE I
  • SCENE II
  • SCENE III


  • ACT II
  • SCENE I
  • SCENE II
  • SCENE III
  • SCENE IV
  • SCENE V
  • SCENE VI
  • SCENE VII


  • ACT III
  • SCENE I
  • SCENE II


  • ACT IV
  • SCENE I
  • SCENE II
  • SCENE III
  • SCENE IV


  • ACT V
  • SCENE I
  • SCENE II
  • SCENE III
  • SCENE IV

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