The Complete Works of Shakspeare, Revised from the Best Authorities : with a Memoir, and Essay on His Genius

Duke. Thou know'st, how willingly I would Upon this warrant shall you have access,
Where you with Silvia may confer at large;

effect
The match between Sir Thurio and my daughter. For she is lumpish, heavy, melancholy,
Pro. I do, my lord.
And, for your friend's sake, will be glad of you;

Duke. And also, I think, thou art not ignorant Where you may temper her, by your persuasion, How she opposes her against my will.

Pro. She did, my lord, when Valentine was here.
Duke. Ay, and perversely she persévers so.
What might we do, to make the girl forget
The love of Valentine, and love Sir Thurio?

Pro. The best way is, to slander Valentine
With falsehood, cowardice, and poor descent;
Three things that women highly hold in hate.
Duke. Ay, but she 'll think that it is spoke in hate.
Pro. Ay, if his enemy deliver it:
Therefore it must, with circumstance, be spoken
By one whom she esteemeth as his friend.

Duke. Then you must undertake to slander him.
Pro. And that, my lord, I shall be loth to do:
"T is an ill-office for a gentleman;

Especially against his very friend.

To hate young Valentine, and love my friend.
Pro. As much as I can do, I will effect:-
But you, Sir Thurio, are not sharp enough;
You must lay line to tangle her desires,
By wailful sonnets, whose composéd rhymes
Should be full fraught with serviceable vows.
Duke. Ay, much is the force of heaven-bred

poesy.

Pro. Say, that upon the altar of her beauty
You sacrifice your tears, your sighs, your heart;
Write till your ink be dry; and with your tears
Moist it again; and frame some feeling line,
That may discover such integrity:

For Orpheus lute 'was strung with poets' sinews;
Whose golden touch could soften steel and stones,
Make tigers tame, and huge leviathans

Duke. Where your good word cannot advantage Forsake unsounded deeps to dance on sands.

him,

Your slander never can endamage him ;

Therefore the office is indifferent,

Being entreated to it by your friend.

After your dire lamenting elegies,

Visit by night your lady's chamber-window
With some sweet concert: to their instruments
Tune a deploring dump; the night's dead silence

Pro. You have prevailed, my lord: if I can do it, Will well become such sweet complaining grievance.

By aught that I can speak in his dispraise,
She shall not long continue love to him.
But say this weed her love from Valentine,
It follows not that she will love Sir Thurio.

Thu. Therefore, as you unwind her love from
him,

Lest it should ravel, and be good to none,
You must provide to bottom it on me:
Which must be done by praising me as much
As you in worth dispraise Sir Valentine.

Duke. And, Proteus, we dare trust you in this
kind

Because we know, on Valentine's report,
You are already love's firm votary,

And cannot soon revolt and change your mind.

This, or else nothing, will inherit her.

Duke. This discipline shews thou hast been in

love.

Thu. And thy advice this night I'll put in
practice:

Therefore, sweet Proteus, my direction-giver,
Let us into the city presently,

To sort some gentlemen well-skilled in music:
I have a sonnet that will serve the turn,
To give the onset to thy good advice.
Duke. About it, gentlemen.

Pro. We'll wait upon your grace till after supper.
And afterward determine our proceedings.
Duke. Even now about it; I will pardon you.

[Exeunt.

3rd Out. Stand, sir, and throw us that you have Or else I often had been miserable,

about you;

If not, we'll make you sir, and rifle you.

3rd Out. By the bare scalp of Robin Hood's fat friar,

Speed. Sir, we are undone! these are the vil- This fellow were a king for our wild faction.

To make a virtue of necessity,

And live, as we do, in this wilderness?

3rd Out. What say'st thou? wilt thou be of our consórt?

Say, ay, and be the captain of us all :
We'll do thee homage, and be ruled by thee,
Love thee as our commander, and our king.

1st Out. But if thou scorn our courtesy, thou diest.

2nd Out. Thou shalt not live to brag what we have offered.

Val. I take your offer, and will live with you; Provided that you do no outrages On silly women, or poor passengers.

3rd Out. No, we detest such vile base practices. Come, go with us, we 'll bring the to our crews, And shew thee all the treasures we have got; Which, with ourselves, all rest at thy dispose.

[Exeunt.

SCENE II.

- Milan. Court of the Palace. Enter PROTEUS.

Host. Hark! hark!

Jul. Is he among these?

[Music plays.

Pro. Already have I been false to Valentine,
And now I must be as unjust to Thurio.
Under the color of commending him,

I have access my own love to prefer;
But Silvia is too fair, too true, too holy,
To be corrupted with my worthless gifts.
When I protest true loyalty to her,

She twits me with my falsehood to my friend;
When to her beauty I commend my vows,
She bids me think, how I have been forsworn
In breaking faith with Julia whom I loved:
And, notwithstanding all her sudden quips,
The least whereof would quell a lover's hope,
Yet, spaniel-like, the more she spurns my love,
The more it grows, and fawneth on her still.

But here comes Thurio: now must we to her window,

And give some evening music to her ear.

Enter THURIO and Musicians.

Thu. How now, Sir Proteus? are you crept before us?

Pro. Ay, gentle Thurio; for you know that love Will creep in service where it cannot go.

Host. Ay; but peace, let's hear 'em.

SONG.

Who is Silvia? what is she,

That all our swains commend her?

Holy, fair, and wise is she,

The heavens such grace did lend her,

That she might admired be.

Is she kind, as she is fair?

For beauty lives with kindness: Love doth to her eyes repair,

To help him of his blindness; And, being helped, inhabits there.

Then to Silvia let us sing,

That Silvia is excelling; She excels each mortal thing Upon the dull earth dwelling: To her let us garlands bring.

Host. How now? are you sadder than you were before?

How do you, man? the music likes you not.
Jul. You mistake; the musician likes me not.
Host. Why, my pretty youth?

Jul. He plays false, father.

Host. How? out of tune on the strings?

Jul. Not so; but yet so false that he grieves my For me,―by this pale queen of night I swear, very heart-strings. I am so far from granting thy request, That I despise thee for thy wrongful suit;

Host. You have a quick ear.

Jul. Ay, I would I were deaf! it makes me have And by and by intend to chide myself,

a slow heart.

Host. I perceive you delight not in music.
Jul. Not a whit, when it jars so.

Host. Hark, what fine change is in the music!

Jul. Ay; that change is the spite.

Host. You would have them always play but one thing?

Sil. Say that she be; yet Valentine, thy friend, Survives; to whom, thyself art witness,

Jul. I would always have one play but one I am betrothed: And art thou not ashamed

thing.

But, host, doth this Sir Proteus, that we talk on, often resort unto this gentlewoman?

To wrong him with thy importúnacy?

Pro. I likewise hear that Valentine is dead.
Sil. And so suppose am I; for in his grave

Host. I tell you what Launce, his man, told me; Assure thyself my love is buried. he loved her out of all nick.

Jul. Where is Launce?

Host. Gone to seek his dog; which, to-morrow, by his master's command, he must carry for a present to his lady.

Jul. Peace! stand aside! the company parts.
Pro. Sir Thurio, fear not you! I will so plead,
That you shall say, my cunning drift excels.
Thu. Where meet we?

Pro. At Saint Gregory's well.

Thu. Farewell.

Pro. Sweet lady, let me rake it from the earth. Sil. Go to thy lady's grave, and call her's thence;

[Aside.

Or, at the least, in her's sepulchre thine.
Jul. He heard not that.
Pro. Madam, if your heart be so obdúrate,
Vouchsafe me yet your picture for my love,
The picture that is hanging in your chamber;
To that I'll speak, to that I'll sigh and weep:
For, since the substance of your perfect self
Is else devoted, I am but a shadow;

[Exeunt THURIO and Musicians. And to your shadow I will make true love.

SILVIA appears above, at her window.

Pro. Madam, good even to your ladyship.

Sil. I thank you for your music, gentlemen;

Who is that, that spake?

But, since your falsehood shall become you well
To worship shadows, and adore false shapes,

Pro. One, lady, if you knew his pure heart's Send to me in the morning, and I'll send it:

truth,

You'd quickly learn to know him by his voice.

Sil. Sir Proteus, as I take it.

Pro. Sir Proteus, gentle lady, and your servant.
Sil. What is your will?

Pro. That I may compass yours.

Sil. You have your wish; my will is even this,
That presently you hie you home to bed.
Thou subtle, perjured, false, disloyal man!
Think'st thou, I am so shallow, so conceitless,
To be seduced by thy flattery,
That hast deceived so many with thy vows?
Return, return, and make thy love amends.

Egl. As many, worthy lady, to yourself.
According to your ladyship's impose,
I am thus early come, to know what service
It is your pleasure to command me in.

Sil. O, Eglamour, thou art a gentleman!
(Think not, I flatter, for I swear I do not),
Valiant, wise, remorseful, well-accomplished.
Thou art not ignorant, what dear good will
I bear unto the banished Valentine;
Nor how my father would enforce me marry
Vain Thurio, whom my very soul abhorred.
Thyself hast loved; and I have heard thee say,
No grief did ever come so near thy heart,
As when thy lady and thy true love died,
Upon whose grave thou vowedst pure chastity.
Sir Eglamour, I would to Valentine,

To Mantua, where I hear he makes abode;
And, for the ways are dangerous to pass,
I do desire thy worthy company,
Upon whose faith and honor I repose.
Urge not my father's anger, Eglamour,
But think upon my grief, a lady's grief:
And on the justice of my flying hence,
To keep me from a most unholy match,

Laun. When a man's servant shall play the cur with him, look you, it goes hard: one that I brought up of a puppy; one that I saved from drowning, when three or four of his blind brothers and sisters went to it! I have taught him — even as one would say precisely, "Thus I would teach a dog." I was sent to deliver him, as a present to Mistress Silvia, from my master; and I came no sooner into the dining-chamber, but he steps me to her trencher, and steals her capon's leg. O, 't is a foul thing, when a cur cannot keep himself in all companies! I would have, as one would say, one that takes upon him to be a dog indeed, to be, as it were, a dog at all things. If I had not had more wit than he, to take a fault upon me that he did, I think verily he had been hanged for 't; sure as I live he had suffered for 't, you shall judge. He thrusts me himself into the company of three or four gentlemenlike dogs, under the Duke's table: he had not been there (bless the mark!) a pissing while, but all the chamber smelt him. "Out with the dog," says one; "What cur is that? says another; "Whip him out," says the third; "Hang

Which heaven and fortune still reward with plagues. him up," says the Duke. I, having been ac

I do desire thee, even from a heart

As full of sorrows as the sea of sands,
To bear me company, and go with me:
If not, to hide what I have said to thee,
That I may venture to depart alone.

Egl. Madam, I pity much your grievances;
Which since I know they virtuously are placed,
I give consent to go along with you;
Recking as little what betideth me

quainted with the smell before, knew it was Crab; and goes me to the fellow that whips the dogs; "Friend," quoth I, "you mean to whip the dog?" "Ay, marry, do I," quoth he. "You do him the more wrong," quoth I; "'t was I did the thing you wot of." He makes me no more ado, but whips me out of the chamber. How many masters would do this for their servant? Nay, I'll be sworn, I have sat in the stocks for puddings he

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The Complete Works of Shakspeare, Revised from the Best Authorities ..., Jilid 2