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