With falsehood, cowardice, and poor descent,

Three things that women highly hold in hate.

DUKE

Ay, but she’ll think that it is spoke in hate.

PROTEUS

Ay, if his enemy deliver it.

Therefore it must with circumstance be spoken

By one whom she esteemeth as his friend.

DUKE

Then you must undertake to slander him.

PROTEUS

And that, my lord, I shall be loath to do.

’Tis an ill office for a gentleman,

Especially against his very friend.

DUKE

Where your good word cannot advantage him

Your slander never can endamage him.

Therefore the office is indifferent,

Being entreated to it by your friend.

PROTEUS

You have prevailed, my lord. If I can do it

By aught that I can speak in his dispraise

She shall not long continue love to him.

But say this weed her love from Valentine,

It follows not that she will love Sir Thurio.

THURIO

Therefore, as you unwind her love from him,

Lest it should ravel and be good to none

You must provide to bottom it on me;

Which must be done by praising me as much

As you in worth dispraise Sir Valentine.

DUKE

And Proteus, we dare trust you in this kind

Because we know, on Valentine’s report,

You are already love’s firm votary,

And cannot soon revolt, and change your mind.

Upon this warrant shall you have access

Where you with Silvia may confer at large.

For she is lumpish, heavy, melancholy,

And for your friend’s sake will be glad of you;

Where you may temper her, by your persuasion,

To hate young Valentine and love my friend.

PROTEUS

As much as I can do, I will effect.

But you, Sir Thurio, are not sharp enough.

You must lay lime to tangle her desires

By wailful sonnets, whose composed rhymes

Should be full-fraught with serviceable vows.

DUKE

Ay, much is the force of heaven-bred poesy.

PROTEUS

Say that upon the altar of her beauty

You sacrifice your tears, your sighs, your heart.

Write till your ink be dry, and with your tears

Moist it again; and frame some feeling line

That may discover such integrity;

For Orpheus’ lute was strung with poets’ sinews,

Whose golden touch could soften steel and stones,

Make tigers tame, and huge leviathans

Forsake unsounded deeps to dance on sands.

After your dire-lamenting elegies,

Visit by night your lady’s chamber-window

With some sweet consort. To their instruments

Tune a deploring dump. The night’s dead silence

Will well become such sweet-complaining grievance.

This, or else nothing, will inherit her.

DUKE

This discipline shows thou hast been in love.

THURIO

And thy advice this night I’ll put in practice.

Therefore, sweet Proteus, my direction-giver,

Let us into the city presently

To sort some gentlemen well skilled in music.

I have a sonnet that will serve the turn

To give the onset to thy good advice.

DUKE About it, gentlemen.

PROTEUS

We’ll wait upon your grace till after supper,

And afterward determine our proceedings.

DUKE

Even now about it. I will pardon you.

Exeunt Thurio and Proteus at one door, and the Duke at another

4.1 Enter the Outlaws

FIRST OUTLAW

Fellows, stand fast. I see a passenger.

SECOND OUTLAW

If there be ten, shrink not, but down with ‘em.

Enter Valentine and Speed

THIRD OUTLAW

Stand, sir, and throw us that you have about ye.

If not, we’ll make you sit, and rifle you.

SPEED (to Valentine)

Sir, we are undone. These are the villains

That all the travellers do fear so much.

VALENTINE (to the Outlaws) My friends.

FIRST OUTLAW

That’s not so, sir. We are your enemies.

SECOND OUTLAW Peace. We’ll hear him.

THIRD OUTLAW Ay, by my beard will we. For he is a proper man.

VALENTINE

Then know that I have little wealth to lose.

A man I am, crossed with adversity.

My riches are these poor habiliments,

Of which if you should here disfurnish me

You take the sum and substance that I have.

SECOND OUTLAW Whither travel you?

VALENTINE To Verona.

FIRST OUTLAW Whence came you?

VALENTINE From Milan. 20

THIRD OUTLAW Have you long sojourned there?

VALENTINE

Some sixteen months, and longer might have stayed

If crooked fortune had not thwarted me.

FIRST OUTLAW

What, were you banished thence?

VALENTINE I was.

SECOND OUTLAW For what offence?

VALENTINE

For that which now torments me to rehearse.

I killed a man, whose death I much repent,

But yet I slew him manfully, in fight,

Without false vantage or base treachery.

FIRST OUTLAW

Why, ne’er repent it, if it were done so.

But were you banished for so small a fault?

VALENTINE

I was, and held me glad of such a doom.

SECOND OUTLAW Have you the tongues?

VALENTINE

My youthful travel therein made me happy,

Or else I had been often miserable.

THIRD OUTLAW

By the bare scalp of Robin Hood’s fat friar,

This fellow were a king for our wild faction.

FIRST OUTLAW

We’ll have him. Sirs, a word.

The Outlaws confer

SPEED (to Valentine) Master, be one of them.

It’s an honourable kind of thievery.

VALENTINE Peace, villain.

SECOND OUTLAW

Tell us this: have you anything to take to?

VALENTINE Nothing but my fortune.

THIRD OUTLAW