SPEED If you love her you cannot see her.

VALENTINE Why?

SPEED Because 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 Your 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 last 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 I 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 I have. 85

SPEED Are they not lamely writ?

VALENTINE No, boy, but as well as I can do them. Peace, here she comes.

Enter Silvia

SPEED (aside) O excellent motion! O exceeding puppet!

Now will he interpret to her.

VALENTINE

Madam and mistress, a thousand good-morrows.

SPEED (aside)

O, give ye good e’en! Here’s a million of manners.

SILVIA

Sir 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 letter

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 letter

SILVIA

I thank you, gentle servant. ‘Tis very clerkly done.

VALENTINE

Now trust me, madam, it came hardly off;

For being ignorant to whom it goes

I writ at random, very doubtfully.

SILVIA

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.

And yet . . .

SILVIA

A pretty period. Well, I guess the sequel.

And yet I will not name it. And yet I care not.

And yet, take this again.

She offers him the letter

And yet I thank you,

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?

SILVIA

Yes, yes. The lines are very quaintly writ,

But since unwillingly, take them again.

She presses the letter upon him

Nay, take them.

VALENTINE

Madam, they are for you.

SILVIA

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

Please you, I’ll write your ladyship another.

SILVIA

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?

SILVIA

Why, if it please you, take it for your labour.

And so good morrow, servant.

Exit

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 her 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.

VALENTINE How now, sir—what, are you reasoning with yourself?

SPEED Nay, I was rhyming. ‘Tis you that have the reason.

VALENTINE To do what?

SPEED To be a spokesman from Madam Silvia.

VALENTINE To whom?

SPEED To yourself. Why, she woos you by a figure.

VALENTINE What figure?

SPEED By a letter, I should say.

VALENTINE Why, 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 perceive 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 an 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,

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. Why

muse you, sir? ‘Tis dinner-time.

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 my victuals, and would fain have meat. O, be not like your mistress—be moved, be moved!

Exeunt

2.2 Enter Proteus and Julia

PROTEUS

Have patience, gentle Julia.

JULIA

I must where is no remedy.

PROTEUS

When possibly I can I will return.

JULIA

If you turn not, you will return the sooner.

She gives him a ring

Keep this remembrance for thy Julia’s sake.

PROTEUS

Why then, we’ll make exchange. Here, take you this.

He gives her a ring

JULIA

And seal the bargain with a holy kiss.

⌈They kiss⌉

PROTEUS

Here is my hand for my true constancy.

And when that hour o’erslips me in the day

Wherein I sigh not, Julia, for thy sake,

The next ensuing hour some foul mischance

Torment me for my love’s forgetfulness.

My father stays my coming. Answer not.

The tide is now. (Julia weeps) Nay, not thy tide of tears,

That tide will stay me longer than I should.

Julia, farewell.

Exit Julia

What, gone without a word?

Ay, so true love should do. It cannot speak,

For truth hath better deeds than words to grace it.

Enter Panthino

PANTHINO

Sir Proteus, you are stayed for.

PROTEUS

Go, I come, I come.—

Alas, this parting strikes poor lovers dumb.

Exeunt

2.3 Enter Lance with his dog Crab

LANCE (to the audience) Nay, ‘twill be this hour ere I have done weeping. All the kind of the Lances have this very fault. I have received my proportion, like the prodigious son, and am going with Sir Proteus to the Imperial’s court. I think Crab, my dog, be the sourest-natured dog that lives. My mother weeping, my father wailing, my sister crying, our maid howling, our cat wringing her hands, and all our house in a great perplexity, yet did not this cruel-hearted cur shed one tear. He is a stone, a very pebble-stone, and has no more pity in him than a dog. A Jew would have wept to have seen our parting. Why, my grandam, having no eyes, look you, wept herself blind at my parting. Nay, I’ll show you the manner of it. This shoe is my father. No, this left shoe is my father. No, no, this left shoe is my mother. Nay, that cannot be so, neither. Yes, it is so, it is so, it hath the worser sole. This shoe with the hole in it is my mother, and this my father. A vengeance on’t, there ‘tis. Now, sir, this staff is my sister, for, look you, she is as white as a lily and as small as a wand. This hat is Nan our maid. I am the dog. No, the dog is himself, and I am the dog. O, the dog is me, and I am myself. Ay, so, so. Now come I to my father. ‘Father, your blessing.’ Now should not the shoe speak a word for weeping. Now should I kiss my father. Well, he weeps on. Now come I to my mother. O that she could speak now, like a moved woman. Well, I kiss her. Why, there ‘tis. Here’s my mother’s breath up and down. Now come I to my sister. Mark the moan she makes.—Now the dog all this while sheds not a tear nor speaks a word. But see how I lay the dust with my tears.