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Dramatis Personae
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/ Home / Library / Complete Shakespeare / The Two Gentlemen of Verona / Act II Scene IV
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The Two Gentlemen of Verona: Act 2 Scene 4
Scene IV 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.
- [Exit THURIO]
- [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 wish'd 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.
- [Re-enter THURIO]
- THURIO
- Madam, my lord your father would speak with you.
- SILVIA
- I 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 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 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 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 braggardism 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 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.
- PROTEUS
- But she loves you?
- VALENTINE
- Ay, and we are betroth'd: 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 inquire 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, 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 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 cheque my erring love, I will;
- If not, to compass her I'll use my skill.
- [Exit]
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