SPEED Come on, you madcap. I’ll to the alehouse with you presently, where, for one shot of five pence, thou shalt have five thousand welcomes. But sirrah, how did thy master part with Madam Julia?

LANCE Marry, after they closed in earnest they parted very fairly in jest.

SPEED But shall she marry him?

LANCE No.

SPEED How then, shall he marry her?

LANCE No, neither.

SPEED What, are they broken?

LANCE No, they are both as whole as a fish.

SPEED Why then, how stands the matter with them?

LANCE Marry, thus: when it stands well with him it stands well with her.

SPEED What an ass art thou! I understand thee not.

LANCE What a block art thou, that thou canst not! My staff understands me.

SPEED What thou sayst?

LANCE Ay, and what I do too. Look thee, I’ll but lean, and my staff under-stands me.

SPEED It stands under thee indeed.

LANCE Why, stand-under and under-stand is all one. SPEED But tell me true, will’t be a match?

LANCE Ask my dog. If he say ‘Ay’, it will. If he say ‘No’, it will. If he shake his tail and say nothing, it will.

SPEED The conclusion is, then, that it will.

LANCE Thou shalt never get such a secret from me but by a parable.

SPEED ‘Tis well that I get it so. But Lance, how sayst thou that my master is become a notable lover?

LANCE I never knew him otherwise.

SPEED Than how?

LANCE A notable lubber, as thou reportest him to be.

SPEED Why, thou whoreson ass, thou mistak’st me.

LANCE Why, fool, I meant not thee, I meant thy master.

SPEED I tell thee my master is become a hot lover.

LANCE Why, I tell thee I care not, though he burn himself in love. If thou wilt, go with me to the alehouse. If not, thou art an Hebrew, a Jew, and not worth the name of a Christian.

SPEED Why?

LANCE Because thou hast not so much charity in thee as to go to the ale with a Christian. Wilt thou go?

SPEED At thy service.

Exeunt

2.6 Enter Proteus

PROTEUS

To leave my Julia shall I be forsworn;

To love fair Silvia shall I be forsworn;

To wrong my friend I shall be much forsworn.

And e‘en that power which gave me first my oath

Provokes me to this threefold perjury.

Love bade me swear, and love bids me forswear.

O sweet-suggesting love, if thou hast sinned

Teach me, thy tempted subject, to excuse it.

At first I did adore a twinkling star,

But now I worship a celestial sun.

Unheedful vows may heedfully be broken,

And he wants wit that wants resolved will

To learn his wit t’exchange the bad for better.

Fie, fie, unreverent tongue, to call her bad

Whose sovereignty so oft thou hast preferred

With twenty thousand soul-confirming oaths.

I cannot leave to love, and yet I do.

But there I leave to love where I should love.

Julia I lose, and Valentine I lose.

If I keep them I needs must lose myself.

If I lose them, thus find I by their loss

For Valentine, myself, for Julia, Silvia.

I to myself am dearer than a friend,

For love is still most precious in itself,

And Silvia—witness heaven that made her fair—

Shows Julia but a swarthy Ethiope.

I will forget that Julia is alive,

Rememb’ring that my love to her is dead,

And Valentine I’ll hold an enemy,

Aiming at Silvia as a sweeter friend.

I cannot now prove constant to myself

Without some treachery used to Valentine.

This night he meaneth with a corded ladder

To climb celestial Silvia’s chamber-window,

Myself in counsel his competitor.

Now presently I’ll give her father notice

Of their disguising and pretended flight,

Who, all enraged, will banish Valentine;

For Thurio he intends shall wed his daughter.

But Valentine being gone, I’ll quickly cross

By some sly trick blunt Thurio’s dull proceeding.

Love, lend me wings to make my purpose swift,

As thou hast lent me wit to plot this drift. Exit

2.7 Enter Julia and Lucetta

JULIA

Counsel, Lucetta. Gentle girl, assist me,

And e’en in kind love I do conjure thee,

Who art the table wherein all my thoughts

Are visibly charactered and engraved,

To lesson me, and tell me some good mean

How with my honour I may undertake

A journey to my loving Proteus.

LUCETTA

Alas, the way is wearisome and long.

JULIA

A true-devoted pilgrim is not weary

To measure kingdoms with his feeble steps.

Much less shall she that hath love’s wings to fly,

And when the flight is made to one so dear,

Of such divine perfection as Sir Proteus.

LUCETTA

Better forbear till Proteus make return.

JULIA

O, know’st thou not his looks are my soul’s food?

Pity the dearth that I have pined in

By longing for that food so long a time.

Didst thou but know the inly touch of love

Thou wouldst as soon go kindle fire with snow

As seek to quench the fire of love with words.

LUCETTA

I do not seek to quench your love’s hot fire,

But qualify the fire’s extreme rage,

Lest it should burn above the bounds of reason.

JULIA

The more thou damm‘st it up, the more it burns.

The current that with gentle murmur glides,

Thou know’st, being stopped, impatiently doth rage.

But when his fair course is not hindered

He makes sweet music with th’enamelled stones,

Giving a gentle kiss to every sedge

He overtaketh in his pilgrimage.