Though the play was presumably acted in Shakespeare’s time, its first recorded performance is in 1762, in a rewritten version at Drury Lane. Later performances have been sparse, and the play has succeeded best when subjected to adaptation, increasing its musical content, adjusting the emphasis of the last scene so as to reduce the shock of Valentine’s donation of Silvia to Proteus, and updating the setting. It can be seen as a dramatic laboratory in which Shakespeare first experimented with conventions of romantic comedy which he would later treat with a more subtle complexity, but it has its own charm. If the whole is not greater than the parts, some of the parts—such as Lance’s brilliant monologues, and the delightful scene (4.2) in which Proteus serenades his new love with ‘Who is Silvia?’ while his disguised old love, Julia, looks wistfully on—are wholly successful. And Lance’s dog, Crab, has the most scene-stealing non-speaking role in the canon: this is an experiment that Shakespeare did not repeat.

THE PERSONS OF THE PLAY

DUKE of Milan

SILVIA, his daughter

PROTEUS, a gentleman of Verona

LANCE, his clownish servant

VALENTINE, a gentleman of Verona

SPEED, his clownish servant

THURIO, a foolish rival to Valentine

ANTONIO, father of Proteus

PANTHINO, his servant

JULIA, beloved of Proteus

LUCETTA, her waiting-woman

HOST, where Julia lodges

EGLAMOUR, agent for Silvia in her escape

OUTLAWS

Servants, musicians

The Two Gentlemen of Verona

1.1 Enter Valentine and Proteus

VALENTINE

Cease to persuade, my loving Proteus.

Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits.

Were’t not affection chains thy tender days

To the sweet glances of thy honoured love,

I rather would entreat thy company

To see the wonders of the world abroad

Than, living dully sluggardized at home,

Wear out thy youth with shapeless idleness.

But since thou lov’st, love still, and thrive therein—

Even as I would, when I to love begin.

PROTEUS

Wilt thou be gone? Sweet Valentine, adieu.

Think on thy Proteus when thou haply seest

Some rare noteworthy object in thy travel.

Wish me partaker in thy happiness

When thou dost meet good hap; and in thy danger—

If ever danger do environ thee—

Commend thy grievance to my holy prayers;

For I will be thy beadsman, Valentine.

VALENTINE

And on a love-book pray for my success?

PROTEUS

Upon some book I love I’ll pray for thee.

VALENTINE

That’s on some shallow story of deep love—

How young Leander crossed the Hellespont.

PROTEUS

That’s a deep story of a deeper love,

For he was more than over-shoes in love.

VALENTINE

‘Tis true, for you are over-boots in love,

And yet you never swam the Hellespont.

PROTEUS

Over the boots? Nay, give me not the boots.

VALENTINE

No, I will not; for it boots thee not.

PROTEUS

What?

VALENTINE

To be in love, where scorn is bought with groans,

Coy looks with heart-sore sighs, one fading moment’s

mirth

With twenty watchful, weary, tedious nights.

If haply won, perhaps a hapless gain;

If lost, why then a grievous labour won;

However, but a folly bought with wit,

Or else a wit by folly vanquished.

PROTEUS

So by your circumstance you call me fool.

VALENTINE

So by your circumstance I fear you’ll prove.

PROTEUS

‘Tis love you cavil at. I am not love.

VALENTINE

Love is your master, for he masters you,

And he that is so yoked by a fool

Methinks should not be chronicled for wise.

PROTEUS

Yet writers say ‘As in the sweetest bud

The eating canker dwells, so doting love

Inhabits in the finest wits of all.’

VALENTINE

And writers say ‘As the most forward bud

Is eaten by the canker ere it blow,

Even so by love the young and tender wit

Is turned to folly, blasting in the bud,

Losing his verdure even in the prime,

And all the fair effects of future hopes.’

But wherefore waste I time to counsel thee

That art a votary to fond desire?

Once more adieu. My father at the road

Expects my coming, there to see me shipped.

PROTEUS

And thither will I bring thee, Valentine.

VALENTINE

Sweet Proteus, no. Now let us take our leave.

To Milan let me hear from thee by letters

Of thy success in love, and what news else

Betideth here in absence of thy friend;

And I likewise will visit thee with mine.

PROTEUS

All happiness bechance to thee in Milan.

VALENTINE

As much to you at home; and so farewell. Exit

PROTEUS

He after honour hunts, I after love.

He leaves his friends to dignify them more,

I leave myself, my friends, and all, for love.

Thou, Julia, thou hast metamorphosed me,

Made me neglect my studies, lose my time,

War with good counsel, set the world at naught;

Made wit with musing weak, heart sick with thought.

Enter Speed

SPEED

Sir Proteus, save you. Saw you my master?

PROTEUS

But now he parted hence to embark for Milan.

SPEED

Twenty to one, then, he is shipped already,

And I have played the sheep in losing him.

PROTEUS

Indeed, a sheep doth very often stray,

An if the shepherd be a while away.

SPEED

You conclude that my master is a shepherd, then,

and I a sheep?