PROTEUS

I’ll die on him that says so but yourself.

SILVIA

That you are welcome?

PROTEUS That you are worthless.

⌈Enter a Servant⌉

⌈SERVANT⌉

Madam, my lord your father would speak with you.

SILVIA

I wait upon his pleasure. ⌈Exit the Servant⌉

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 altered now.

I have done penance for contemning love,

Whose high imperious thoughts have punished 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 braggartism 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 seest 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 betrothed. 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 enquire 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 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—

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.

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 check my erring love I will,

If not, to compass her I’ll use my skill. Exit

2.5 Enter Speed, and Lance with his dog Crab

SPEED Lance, by mine honesty, welcome to Milan.

LANCE Forswear not thyself, sweet youth, for I am not welcome. I reckon this always, that a man is never undone till he be hanged, nor never welcome to a place till some certain shot be paid and the hostess say ‘Welcome’.