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,

60

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. Pro. 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. Aye,

Much is the force of heaven-bred poesy. Pro. Say that upon the altar of her beauty

71

You sacrifice your tears, your sighs, your heart:
Write till your ink be dry, and with your tears

53. As you unwind her love from him, make me the bottom on which you wind it. A bottom is the housewife's term for that upon which a ball of yarn or thread is wound. Thus in Grange's Garden:

"A bottom for your silk, it seems,

My letters are become,

Which, oft with winding off and on,

Are wasted whole and some."-H. N. H.

Moist it again; and frame some feeling line
That may discover such integrity:

For Orpheus' lute was strung with poets' sin

ews;

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,

80

Visit by night your lady's chamber-window
With some sweet consort; to their instruments
Tune a deploring dump: the night's dead si-
lence

Will well become such sweet-complaining
grievance.

This, or else nothing, will inherit her.

Duke. This discipline shows thou hast been in love. Thu. 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 skill'd in music.
I have a sonnet that will serve the turn
To give the onset to thy good advice.

Duke. About it, gentlemen!

91

77. Malone suggests that some such line as the following has been lost after "integrity":-"as her obdurate heart may penetrate,” but the meaning is perhaps rightly explained by Steevens:-"such ardor and sincerity as would be manifested by practising the directions given in the four preceding lines."-I. G.

84. The old copy has "consort," which, according to Bullokar and Phillips, signified "a set or company of musicians." If we print concert, as Malone would have it, the relative pronoun their has no correspondent word.-H. N. H.

Pro. We'll wait upon your Grace till after sup

per,

And afterward determine our proceedings. Duke. Even now about it! I will pardon you.

[Exeunt.

ACT FOURTH

SCENE I

The frontiers of Mantua. A forest.

Enter certain Outlaws.

First Out. Fellows, stand fast; I see a passenger. Sec. Out. If there be ten, shrink not, but down with 'em.

Enter Valentine and Speed.

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

If not, we'll make you sit, and rifle you. Speed. Sir, we are undone; these are the villains That all the travelers do fear so much.

Val. My friends,

First Out. That's not so, sir: we are your enemies. Sec. Out. Peace! we 'll hear him.

Third Out. Aye, by my beard, will we, for he's a

proper man.

10

Val. Then know that I have little wealth to lose: A man I am cross'd 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. Sec. Out. Whither travel you?

Val. To Verona.

First Out. Whence came you?

Val. From Milan.

Third Out. Have you long sojourned there?

20

Val. Some sixteen months, and longer might have stay'd,

If crooked fortune had not thwarted me.

First Out. What, were you banish'd thence?

Val. I was.

Sec. Out. For what offense?

Val. For that which now torments me to rehearse: I kill'd a man, whose death I much repent; But yet I slew him manfully in fight,

Without false vantage or base treachery. First Out. Why, ne'er repent it, if it were done

SO.

But were you banish'd for so small a fault? Val. I was, and held me glad of such a doom. Sec. Out. Have you the tongues?

30

Val. My youthful travel therein made me happy, Or else I often had been miserable.

Third Out. By the bare scalp of Robin Hood's fat friar,

This fellow were a king for our wild faction! First Out. We'll have him. Sirs, a word. Speed. Master, be one of them; it is an honorable kind of thievery.

Val. Peace, villain!

40

36. "Robin Hood's fat friar," i. e. Friar Tuck. This allusion to "Robin Hood's friar" by the Italian outlaw is somewhat unexpected; in the later play of As You Like It there is also an allusion to "Robin Hood," but Shakespeare is careful to add "of England" ("they live like the old Robin Hood of England").—I. G.