Enter Valentine, Sylvia, Thurio, ⌜and⌝ Speed.SYLVIA Servant!VALENTINE Mistress?SPEED Master, Sir Thurio frowns on you.VALENTINE Ay, boy, it’s for love.SPEED 5Not of you.VALENTINE Of my mistress, then.SPEED ’Twere good you knocked him.SYLVIA, ⌜to Valentine⌝ Servant, you are sad.VALENTINE Indeed, madam, I seem so.THURIO 10Seem 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 15Wise.THURIO What instance of the contrary?VALENTINE Your folly.THURIO And how quote you my folly?VALENTINE I quote it in your jerkin.THURIO 20My “jerkin” is a doublet.VALENTINE Well, then, I’ll double your folly.THURIO How!SYLVIA What, angry, Sir Thurio? Do you change color?VALENTINE Give him leave, madam. He is a kind of25 chameleon.THURIO That hath more mind to feed on your blood than live in your air.
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VALENTINE You have said, sir.THURIO Ay, sir, and done too for this time.VALENTINE 30I know it well, sir. You always end ere you begin.SYLVIA A fine volley of words, gentlemen, and quickly shot off.VALENTINE ’Tis indeed, madam. We thank the giver.SYLVIA 35Who 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 40Sir, 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 that45 they live by your bare words.SYLVIA No more, gentlemen, no more. Here comes my father.⌜Enter⌝ Duke.DUKE Now, daughter Sylvia, you are hard beset.— Sir Valentine, your father is in good health.50 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 you Don Antonio, your countryman?VALENTINE 55 Ay, my good lord, I know the gentleman To be of worth and worthy estimation, And not without desert so well reputed.
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DUKE Hath he not a son?VALENTINE Ay, my good lord, a son that well deserves60 The honor and regard of such a father.DUKE You know him well?VALENTINE I knew him as myself, for from our infancy We have conversed and spent our hours together, And though myself have been an idle truant,65 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;70 His head unmellowed, 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 75 Beshrew me, sir, but if he make this good, He is as worthy for an empress’ love, As meet to be an emperor’s counselor. Well, sir, this gentleman is come to me With commendation from great potentates,80 And here he means to spend his time awhile. I think ’tis no unwelcome news to you.VALENTINE Should I have wished a thing, it had been he.DUKE Welcome him then according to his worth. Sylvia, I speak to you—and you, Sir Thurio.85 For Valentine, I need not cite him to it. I will send him hither to you presently.⌜Duke exits.⌝VALENTINE This is the gentleman I told your Ladyship
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Had come along with me but that his mistress Did hold his eyes locked in her crystal looks.SYLVIA 90 Belike that now she hath enfranchised them Upon some other pawn for fealty.VALENTINE Nay, sure, I think she holds them prisoners still.SYLVIA Nay, then, he should be blind, and being blind How could he see his way to seek out you?VALENTINE 95 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.SYLVIA Have done, have done. Here comes the gentleman.⌜Enter⌝ Proteus.VALENTINE 100 Welcome, dear Proteus.—Mistress, I beseech you Confirm his welcome with some special favor.SYLVIA His worth is warrant for his welcome hither, If this be he you oft have wished to hear from.VALENTINE Mistress, it is. Sweet lady, entertain him105 To be my fellow-servant to your Ladyship.SYLVIA 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.
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VALENTINE Leave off discourse of disability.110 Sweet lady, entertain him for your servant.PROTEUS My duty will I boast of, nothing else.SYLVIA 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.SYLVIA 115That you are welcome?PROTEUS That you are worthless.⌜Enter Servant.⌝⌜SERVANT⌝ Madam, my lord your father would speak with you.SYLVIA I wait upon his pleasure. ⌜Servant exits.⌝ Come, Sir Thurio,120 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.⌜Sylvia and Thurio exit.⌝VALENTINE Now tell me, how do all from whence you came?PROTEUS 125 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?
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PROTEUS 130 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 altered now. I have done penance for contemning Love, Whose high imperious thoughts have punished me135 With bitter fasts, with penitential groans, With nightly tears, and daily heartsore sighs, For in revenge of my contempt of love, Love hath chased sleep from my enthrallèd eyes And made them watchers of mine own heart’s140 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.145 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 150 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 155 When I was sick, you gave me bitter pills, And I must minister the like to you.
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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 160 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:165 She shall be dignified with this high honor— To bear my lady’s train, lest the base earth Should from her vesture chance to steal a kiss And, of so great a favor growing proud, Disdain to root the summer-swelling flower170 And make rough winter everlastingly.PROTEUS Why, Valentine, what braggartism is this?VALENTINE Pardon me, Proteus, all I can is nothing To her whose worth ⌜makes⌝ other worthies nothing.175 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,180 The water nectar, and the rocks pure gold. Forgive me that I do not dream on thee, Because thou seest me dote upon my love. My foolish rival, that her father likes Only for his possessions are so huge,
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185 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 betrothed; nay more, our marriage hour,190 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,195 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 200Will you make haste?PROTEUS I will.⌜Valentine and Speed⌝ exit. Even as one heat another heat expels, Or as one nail by strength drives out another, So the remembrance of my former love205 Is by a newer object quite forgotten. ⌜Is it⌝ mine ⌜eye,⌝ 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—210 That I did love, for now my love is thawed, 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.215 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?
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’Tis but her picture I have yet beheld,220 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.⌜He⌝ exits.