O, how this Spring of love resembleth 5

Th' uncertain glory of an April day,

Which now shows all the beauty of the Sun,
And by-and-by a cloud takes all away!

Re-enter PANTHINO.

Pan. Sir Proteus, your father calls for you:

He is in haste; therefore, I pray you, go.

Pro. Why, this it is, my heart accords thereto,

And yet a thousand times it answers, No.

[Exeunt.

ACT II.

SCENE I. Milan. A Room in the DUKE'S Palace.

Enter VALENTINE and SPEED.

Speed. [Picking up a glove.] Sir, your glove.

Val.

Not mine; my gloves are on.

Speed. Why, then this may be yours, for this is but one.1 Val. Ha, let me see: ay, give it me, it's mine : Sweet ornament that decks a thing divine!

Ah, Silvia, Silvia !

Speed. [Calling.] Madam Silvia, Madam Silvia !
Val. How now, sirrah!

Speed. She is not within hearing, sir.

Val. Why, sir, who bade you call her?

Speed. Your Worship, sir; or else I mistook.

Val. Well, you'll still be too forward.

5 Resembleth is here meant to be a word of four syllables, as if it were spelt resembeleth.

1 On and one were formerly sounded alike, and sometimes written so. That is the ground of the poor quibble here.

2

Speed. And yet I was last chidden for being too slow. Val. Go to, sir: tell me, do you know Madam Silvia? Speed. She that your Worship loves?

Val. Why, how know you that I am in love?

3

Speed. Marry, by these special marks: First, you have learn'd, like Sir Proteus, to wreathe your arms, like a malcontent; to relish a love-song, like a robin-redbreast; to walk alone, like one that had the pestilence; to sigh, like a school-boy that had lost his A B C; to weep, like a young wench that had buried her grandam; to fast, like one that takes diet; to watch, like one that fears robbing; to speak puling, like a beggar at Hallowmas. You were wont, when you laugh'd, to crow like a cock; when you walk'd, to walk like one of the lions; when you fasted, it was presently after dinner; when you look'd sadly, it was for want of money: and now you are so metamorphosed with a mistress, that, when I look on you, I can hardly think you my master. Val. Are all these things perceived in me?

Speed. They are all perceived without ye.

Val. Without me! they cannot.

Speed. Without you! nay, that's certain, for, without 5 you were so simple, none else would but you are so without these follies, that these follies are within you, and shine

2 Go to is a phrase met with continually in old colloquial English; often meaning hush up, sometimes come on, and sometimes carrying a sense not easy to define; somewhat like the Latin age.

3 To take diet is to be under a regimen for a disease.

4 The feast of All-hallows or All Saints, at which time the poor in some places used to go from parish to parish a-souling, as they called it; that is, begging and puling, (or singing small, as Bailey explains puling,) for soul-cakes, and singing what they called the souler's song. All which means that the beggars were to pray for the souls of the giver's departed friends.

His

5 Speed is punning with all his speed. Here, without is unless. first without is meant in the sense of exterior, or on the outside; and Valentine takes it in the sense of absence, or without my presence.

through you like the water in an urinal, that not an eye that sees you but is a physician to comment on your malady.

Val. But tell me, dost thou know my lady Silvia?
Speed. She that you gaze on so, as she sits at supper?
Val. Hast thou observed that? even she I mean.

Speed. Why, sir, I know her not.

Val. Dost thou know her by my gazing on her, and yet

know'st her not?

Speed. Is she not hard-favour'd, sir?

Val. Not so fair, boy, as well-favour'd.
Speed. Sir, I know that well enough.

Val. What dost thou know?

Speed. That she is not so fair as, of you, well favour'd. Val. I mean, that her beauty is exquisite, but her favour infinite.

Speed. That's because the one is painted, and the other out of all count.

Val. How painted? and how out of count?

Speed. Marry, sir, so painted, to make her fair, that no man counts of her beauty.

Val. How esteem'st thou me? I account of her beauty. Speed. You never saw her since she was deform'd.

Val. How long hath she been deform'd?

Speed. Ever since you loved her.

Val. I have loved her ever since I saw her; and still I see her beautiful.

Speed. If you love her, you cannot see her.

Val. Why?

Speed. Because Love is blind. O, that you had mine eyes; or your own eyes had the lights they were wont to have when you chid at Sir Proteus for going ungarter'd !6

6 So, in As You Like It, iii. 2, Rosalind mentions going ungartered as one of the undoubted marks of love: Then your hose should be ungartered, your bonnet unbanded," &c.

Val. What should I see then?

Speed. Your own present folly, and her passing deformity: For he, being in love, could not see to garter his hose; And you, being in love, cannot see to beyond your nose.

Val. Belike, boy, then, you are in love; for last morning you could not see to wipe my shoes.

Speed. True, sir; I was in love with my bed: I thank you, you swinged me for my love, which makes me the bolder to chide you for yours.

Val. In conclusion, I stand affected to her.

Speed. I would you were set ;7 so your affection would

cease.

Val. Last night she enjoin'd me to write some lines to one she loves.

Speed. And have you?

Val. I have.

Speed. Are they not lamely writ?

Val. No, boy, but as well as I can do them. Peace! here she comes.

Speed. [Aside.] O excellent motion !8 O exceeding puppet! Now will he interpret to her.

Enter SILVIA.

Val. Madam and mistress, a thousand good-morrows! Speed. [Aside.] O, give ye good even here's a million.

of manners.

Sil. Sir Valentine and servant, to you two thousand. Speed. [Aside.] He should give her interest, and she gives it him.

Set for seated, in opposition to stand of the preceding line. An allusion seems implied also to the setting of the Sun, as the Sun then ceases to shine.

8 Motion was used of a puppet-show, and the showman was called the interpreter. Speed means, "What a fine puppet-show we shall have now! Here is the principal puppet, and my master will act as showman."

Val. As you enjoin'd me, I have writ your letter
Unto the secret nameless friend of yours;
Which I was much unwilling to proceed in,

But for my duty to your ladyship.

[Gives a letter.

Sil. I thank you, gentle servant: 'tis very clerkly done. Val. Now trust me, madam, it came hardly off;

For, being ignorant to whom it goes,

I writ at random, very doubtfully.

Sil. Perchance you think too much of so much pains?
Val. No, madam; so it stead you, I will write,

Please you command, a thousand times as much :
And yet -

Meaning henceforth to trouble you no more.

Speed. [Aside.] And yet you will; and yet another yet.

Val. What means your ladyship? do you not like it?

Sil. Yes, yes; the lines are very quaintly9 writ:

But, since unwillingly, take them again;

Nay, take them.

Val. Madam, they are for you.

[Gives back the letter.

Sil. Ay, ay, you writ them, sir, at my request; But I will none of them; they are for you :

I would have had them writ more movingly.

Val. Please you, I'll write your ladyship another.
Sil. And when it's writ, for my sake read it over:

And if it please you, so; if not, why, so.

Val. If it please me, madam! what then?

Sil. Why, if it please you, take it for your labour: And so, good morrow, servant.

[Exit.

9 Quaint and quaintly are used by Shakespeare very much like the Latin comptus, from which the words are probably derived; in the sense of artful, ingenious, elegant.

1