And so by many winding nooks he strays

With willing sport to the wild ocean.

Then let me go, and hinder not my course.

I’ll be as patient as a gentle stream,

And make a pastime of each weary step

Till the last step have brought me to my love.

And there I’ll rest as after much turmoil

A blessed soul doth in Elysium.

LUCETTA

But in what habit will you go along?

JULIA

Not like a woman, for I would prevent

The loose encounters of lascivious men.

Gentle Lucetta, fit me with such weeds

As may beseem some well-reputed page.

LUCETTA

Why then, your ladyship must cut your hair.

JULIA

No, girl, I’ll knit it up in silken strings

With twenty odd-conceited true-love knots.

To be fantastic may become a youth

Of greater time than I shall show to be.

LUCETTA

What fashion, madam, shall I make your breeches?

JULIA

That fits as well as ‘Tell me, good my lord,

What compass will you wear your farthingale?’

Why, e’en what fashion thou best likes, Lucetta.

LUCETTA

You must needs have them with a codpiece, madam.

JULIA

Out, out, Lucetta. That will be ill-favoured.

LUCETTA

A round hose, madam, now’s not worth a pin

Unless you have a codpiece to stick pins on.

JULIA

Lucetta, as thou lov‘st me let me have

What thou think’st meet and is most mannerly.

But tell me, wench, how will the world repute me

For undertaking so unstaid a journey?

I fear me it will make me scandalized.

LUCETTA

If you think so, then stay at home, and go not.

JULIA Nay, that I will not.

LUCETTA

Then never dream on infamy, but go.

If Proteus like your journey when you come,

No matter who’s displeased when you are gone.

I fear me he will scarce be pleased withal.

JULIA

That is the least, Lucetta, of my fear.

A thousand oaths, an ocean of his tears,

And instances of infinite of love

Warrant me welcome to my Proteus.

LUCETTA

All these are servants to deceitful men.

JULIA

Base men, that use them to so base effect.

But truer stars did govern Proteus’ birth.

His words are bonds, his oaths are oracles,

His love sincere, his thoughts immaculate,

His tears pure messengers sent from his heart,

His heart as far from fraud as heaven from earth.

LUCETTA

Pray heaven he prove so when you come to him.

JULIA

Now, as thou lov’st me, do him not that wrong

To bear a hard opinion of his truth.

Only deserve my love by loving him,

And presently go with me to my chamber

To take a note of what I stand in need of

To furnish me upon my longing journey.

All that is mine I leave at thy dispose,

My goods, my lands, my reputation;

Only in lieu thereof dispatch me hence.

Come, answer not, but to it presently.

I am impatient of my tarriance.

Exeunt

3.1 Enter Duke, Thurio, and Proteus

DUKE

Sir Thurio, give us leave, I pray, awhile.

We have some secrets to confer about. Exit Thurio

Now tell me, Proteus, what’s your will with me?

PROTEUS

My gracious lord, that which I would discover

The law of friendship bids me to conceal.

But when I call to mind your gracious favours

Done to me, undeserving as I am,

My duty pricks me on to utter that

Which else no worldly good should draw from me.

Know, worthy prince, Sir Valentine my friend

This night intends to steal away your daughter.

Myself am one made privy to the plot.

I know you have determined to bestow her

On Thurio, whom your gentle daughter hates,

And should she thus be stol’n away from you

It would be much vexation to your age.

Thus, for my duty’s sake, I rather chose

To cross my friend in his intended drift

Than by concealing it heap on your head

A pack of sorrows which would press you down,

Being unprevented, to your timeless grave.

DUKE

Proteus, I thank thee for thine honest care,

Which to requite command me while I live.

This love of theirs myself have often seen,

Haply, when they have judged me fast asleep,

And oftentimes have purposed to forbid

Sir Valentine her company and my court.

But fearing lest my jealous aim might err,

And so unworthily disgrace the man—

A rashness that I ever yet have shunned—

I gave him gentle looks, thereby to find

That which thyself hast now disclosed to me.

And that thou mayst perceive my fear of this,

Knowing that tender youth is soon suggested,

I nightly lodge her in an upper tower,

The key whereof myself have ever kept;

And thence she cannot be conveyed away.

PROTEUS

Know, noble lord, they have devised a mean

How he her chamber-window will ascend,

And with a corded ladder fetch her down,

For which the youthful lover now is gone,

And this way comes he with it presently,