Enter Valentine ⌜and⌝ Speed, ⌜carrying a glove.⌝SPEED Sir, your glove.VALENTINE Not mine. My gloves are on.SPEED Why, then, this may be yours, for this is but one.VALENTINE Ha? Let me see. Ay, give it me, it’s mine.5 Sweet ornament that decks a thing divine! Ah, Sylvia, Sylvia!SPEED, ⌜calling⌝ Madam Sylvia! Madam Sylvia!VALENTINE How now, sirrah?SPEED She is not within hearing, sir.VALENTINE 10Why, sir, who bade you call her?SPEED Your Worship, sir, or else I mistook.VALENTINE Well, you’ll still be too forward.SPEED And yet I was last chidden for being too slow.VALENTINE Go to, sir. Tell me, do you know Madam15 Sylvia?SPEED She that your Worship loves?VALENTINE Why, how know you that I am in love?SPEED Marry, by these special marks: first, you have learned, like Sir Proteus, to wreathe your arms like20 a malcontent; to relish a love song like a robin redbreast; to walk alone like one that had the
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pestilence; to sigh like a schoolboy that had lost his ABC; to weep like a young wench that had buried her grandam; to fast like one that takes diet; to25 watch like one that fears robbing; to speak puling like a beggar at Hallowmas. You were wont, when you laughed, to crow like a cock; when you walked, to walk like one of the lions. When you fasted, it was presently after dinner; when you looked sadly, it30 was for want of money. And now you are metamorphosed with a mistress, that when I look on you, I can hardly think you my master.VALENTINE Are all these things perceived in me?SPEED They are all perceived without you.VALENTINE 35Without me? They cannot.SPEED Without you? Nay, that’s certain, for without you were so simple, none else would. But you are so without these follies, that these follies are within you and shine through you like the water in an40 urinal, that not an eye that sees you but is a physician to comment on your malady.VALENTINE But tell me, dost thou know my Lady Sylvia?SPEED She that you gaze on so as she sits at supper?VALENTINE 45Hast thou observed that? Even she I mean.SPEED Why, sir, I know her not.VALENTINE Dost thou know her by my gazing on her and yet know’st her not?SPEED Is she not hard-favored, sir?VALENTINE 50Not so fair, boy, as well-favored.SPEED Sir, I know that well enough.VALENTINE What dost thou know?SPEED That she is not so fair as, of you, well-favored.VALENTINE I mean that her beauty is exquisite but her55 favor infinite.
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SPEED That’s because the one is painted, and the other out of all count.VALENTINE How painted? And how out of count?SPEED Marry, sir, so painted to make her fair, that no60 man counts of her beauty.VALENTINE How esteem’st thou me? I account of her beauty.SPEED You never saw her since she was deformed.VALENTINE How long hath she been deformed?SPEED 65Ever since you loved her.VALENTINE I have loved her ever since I saw her, and still I see her beautiful.SPEED If you love her, you cannot see her.VALENTINE Why?SPEED 70Because love is blind. O, that you had mine eyes, or your own eyes had the lights they were wont to have when you chid at Sir Proteus for going ungartered!VALENTINE What should I see then?SPEED 75Your own present folly and her passing deformity; for he, being in love, could not see to garter his hose, and you, being in love, cannot see to put on your hose.VALENTINE Belike, boy, then you are in love, for last80 morning you could not see to wipe my shoes.SPEED True, sir, I was in love with my bed. I thank you, you swinged me for my love, which makes me the bolder to chide you for yours.VALENTINE In conclusion, I stand affected to her.SPEED 85I would you were set, so your affection would cease.VALENTINE Last night she enjoined me to write some lines to one she loves.SPEED And have you?VALENTINE 90I have.
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SPEED Are they not lamely writ?VALENTINE No, boy, but as well as I can do them. Peace, here she comes.⌜Enter⌝ Sylvia.SPEED, ⌜aside⌝ O excellent motion! O exceeding puppet!95 Now will he interpret to her.VALENTINE Madam and mistress, a thousand good-morrows.SPEED, ⌜aside⌝ O, give ye good ev’n! Here’s a million of manners.SYLVIA 100Sir Valentine, and servant, to you two thousand.SPEED, ⌜aside⌝ He should give her interest, and she gives it him.VALENTINE As you enjoined me, I have writ your letter105 Unto the secret, nameless friend of yours, Which I was much unwilling to proceed in But for my duty to your Ladyship.⌜He gives her a paper.⌝SYLVIA I thank you, gentle servant, ’tis very clerkly done.VALENTINE Now trust me, madam, it came hardly off,110 For, being ignorant to whom it goes, I writ at random, very doubtfully.SYLVIA Perchance you think too much of so much pains?VALENTINE No, madam. So it stead you, I will write, Please you command, a thousand times as much,115 And yet—SYLVIA A pretty period. Well, I guess the sequel; And yet I will not name it And yet I care not.
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And yet take this again.⌜She holds out the paper.⌝ And yet I thank you,120 Meaning henceforth to trouble you no more.SPEED, ⌜aside⌝ And yet you will; and yet another “yet.”VALENTINE What means your Ladyship? Do you not like it?SYLVIA Yes, yes, the lines are very quaintly writ, But, since unwillingly, take them again.125 Nay, take them.⌜She again offers him the paper.⌝VALENTINE Madam, they are for you.SYLVIA Ay, ay. You writ them, sir, at my request, But I will none of them. They are for you. I would have had them writ more movingly.VALENTINE, ⌜taking the paper⌝ 130 Please you, I’ll write your Ladyship another.SYLVIA And when it’s writ, for my sake read it over, And if it please you, so; if not, why, so.VALENTINE If it please me, madam? What then?SYLVIA Why, if it please you, take it for your labor.135 And so good-morrow, servant.Sylvia exits.SPEED, ⌜aside⌝ O jest unseen, inscrutable, invisible As a nose on a man’s face, or a weathercock on a steeple! My master sues to her, and she hath taught her140 suitor, He being her pupil, to become her tutor. O excellent device! Was there ever heard a better? That my master, being scribe, to himself should write the letter?
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VALENTINE 145How now, sir? What, are you reasoning with yourself?SPEED Nay, I was rhyming. ’Tis you that have the reason.VALENTINE To do what?SPEED 150To be a spokesman from Madam Sylvia.VALENTINE To whom?SPEED To yourself. Why, she woos you by a figure.VALENTINE What figure?SPEED By a letter, I should say.VALENTINE 155Why, she hath not writ to me!SPEED What need she when she hath made you write to yourself? Why, do you not perceive the jest?VALENTINE No, believe me.SPEED No believing you indeed, sir. But did you perceive160 her earnest?VALENTINE She gave me none, except an angry word.SPEED Why, she hath given you a letter.VALENTINE That’s the letter I writ to her friend.SPEED And that letter hath she delivered, and there an165 end.VALENTINE I would it were no worse.SPEED I’ll warrant you, ’tis as well. For often have you writ to her, and she, in modesty Or else for want of idle time, could not again reply,170 Or fearing else some messenger that might her mind discover, Herself hath taught her love himself to write unto her lover. All this I speak in print, for in print I found it. Why175 muse you, sir? ’Tis dinnertime.VALENTINE I have dined.SPEED Ay, but hearken, sir, though the chameleon love can feed on the air, I am one that am nourished by
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my victuals and would fain have meat. O, be not like180 your mistress! Be moved, be moved.They exit.
The Two Gentlemen of Verona
