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SCENE I.-Milan. A Room in the Duke's Palace.

SPEED. Sir, your glove.

Enter VALENTINE and SPEED.

VAL. Not mine; my gloves are on.

SPEED. Why then this may be yours, for this is but one".

VAL. Ha! let me see: ay, give it me, it's mine :—

Sweet ornament that decks a thing divine!

Ah Silvia! Silvia!

SPEED. 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.

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?

SPEED. Marry, by these special marks: First, you have learned, like sir Proteus,

• The quibble here depends upon the pronunciation of one, which was anciently pronounced as if it were written on.

to wreath your arms like a malecontent; to relish a love-song like a robinredbreast; to walk alone, like one that had the pestilence; to sigh, like a schoolboy that had lost his A B C; to weep, like a young wench that had buried her grandam; to fast, like one that takes dieta; to watch, like one that fears robbing; to speak puling, like a beggar at Hallowmas ". You were wont, when you laughed, to crow like a cock; when you walked, to walk like one of the lions; when you fasted, it was presently after dinner; when looked sadly, it was for want of money: and now you are 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?

you

SPEED. They are all perceived without ye.

VAL. Without me? they cannot.

:

SPEED. Without you? nay, that's certain, for without you were so simple, none else would but you are so without these follies, that these follies are within you, and shine 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 favoured, sir?

VAL. Not so fair, boy, as well favoured.
SPEED. Sir, I know that well enough.

VAL. What dost thou know?

SPEED. That she is not so fair as (of you) well favoured.

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 esteemest thou me? I account of her beauty.

SPEED. You never saw her since she was deformed?

VAL. How long hath she been deformed?

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 ungartered!

• Takes diet-is under regimen.

To walk like one of the lions is thus commented on by Ritson: "If Shakspere had not been thinking of the lions in the Tower, he would have written 'like a lion.'"-Shakspere was thinking dramatically; and he therefore made Speed use an image with which he might be familiar. The "clownish servant" might compare his master to a caged lion without being poetical, which Shakspere did not intend him to be.

VOL. I.

B

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 12; and you, being in love, cannot see to put on your hose.

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; so your affection would cease.

VAL. Last night she enjoined 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.

Enter SILVIA.

SPEED. O excellent motion a! O exceeding puppet!

Now will he interpret to her.

VAL. Madam and mistress, a thousand good-morrows.
SPEED. O, 'give ye good ev'n! here's a million of manners.
SIL. Sir Valentine and servant 13, to you two thousand ».
SPEED. He should give her interest, and she gives it him.
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.

SIL. I thank you, gentle servant: 't is 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,

SIL. A pretty period! Well, I guess the sequel;

And yet I will not name it ;-and yet I care not;—
And yet take this again; and yet I thank you;
Meaning henceforth to trouble you no more.

[Aside.

• Motion-a puppet-show. Silvia is the puppet, and Valentine will interpret for her. The master of the show was, in Shakspere's time, often called interpreter to the puppets.

Much of the dialogue between Valentine and Speed is printed metrically in the original. This is sometimes obviously enough wrong: but in other instances, such as these, we have some free dramatic versification which ought to be retained.

SPEED. 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 quaintly writ:
But since unwillingly, take them again;
Nay, take them.

VAL. Madam, they are for you.

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.

SPEED. O jest unseen, inscrutable, invisible,

As a nose on a man's face, or a weathercock on a steeple !

My master sues to her; and she hath taught her suitor,

He being her pupil, to become her tutor.

O excellent device! was there ever heard a better,

[Aside.

[Exit SILVIA.

That my master, being scribe, to himself should write the letter?

VAL. How now, sir? what are you reasoning with yourself?

SPEED. Nay, I was rhyming; 't is you that have the reason.

VAL. To do what?

SPEED. To be a spokesman from madam Silvia.

VAL. To whom?

SPEED. To yourself: why, she woos you by a figure.

VAL. What figure?

SPEED. By a letter I should say.

VAL. Why, she hath not writ to me?

SPEED. What needs she, when she hath made you write to yourself? Why, do

you not perceive the jest?

VAL. No, believe me.

SPEED. No believing you, indeed, sir: But did you perceive her earnest ?

VAL. She gave me none, except an angry word.

SPEED. Why, she hath given you a letter.

VAL. That's the letter I writ to her friend.

SPEED. And that letter hath she deliver'd, and there an end.

VAL. I would it were no worse.

SPEED. I'll warrant you 't is as well.

For often have you writ to her; and she, in modesty,

Or else for want of idle time, could not again reply;
Or fearing else some messenger, that might her mind discover,
Herself hath taught her love himself to write unto her lover.—

All this I speak in printa, for in print I found it.—

Why muse you, sir? 't is dinner-time.

VAL. I have dined.

SPEED. Ay, but hearken, sir; though the cameleon Love can feed on the air, I am one that am nourished by my victuals, and would fain have meat. O, be not like your mistress; be moved, be moved".

SCENE II.-Verona. A Room in Julia's House.

Enter PROTEUS and JULIA.

[Exeunt.

PRO. Have patience, gentle Julia.

JUL. I must, where is no remedy.

PRO. When possibly I can, I will return.

JUL. If you turn not, you will return the sooner:
Keep this remembrance for thy Julia's sake.

PRO. Why then we 'll make exchange, here, take you this.
JUL. And seal the bargain with a holy kiss.
PRO. Here is my hand for my true constancy;

And when that hour o'erslips me in the day,
Wherein I sigh not, Julia, for thy sake,
The next ensuing hour some foul mischance
Torment me for my love's forgetfulness!
My father stays my coming; answer not;
The tide is now: nay, not thy tide of tears;
That tide will stay me longer than I should:
Julia, farewell.-What! gone without a word?
Ay, so true love should do: it cannot speak;
For truth hath better deeds than words to grace it.

Enter PANTHINO.

PAN. Sir Proteus, you are stay'd for.

PRO. Go; I come, I come :

Alas! this parting strikes poor lovers dumb.

SCENE III.-The same. A Street..

Enter LAUNCE, leading a Dog.

[Giving a ring.

[Exit JULIA.

[Exeunt.

LAUN. Nay, 't will be this hour ere I have done weeping; all the kind of the Launces have this very fault: I have received my proportion, like the prodigious son, and am going with sir Proteus to the Imperial's court. I think

• In print-with exactness. Speed is repeating, or affects to be repeating, some lines which he

has read.

Be moved-have compassion on me.

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