Act IV
Scene I
The frontiers of Mantua. A forest.
Enter certain 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:
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Speed |
Sir, we are undone; these are the villains
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Valentine | 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’s a proper man. |
Valentine |
Then know that I have little wealth to lose:
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Second Outlaw | Whither travel you? |
Valentine | To Verona. |
First Outlaw | Whence came you? |
Valentine | From Milan. |
Third Outlaw | Have you long sojourned there? |
Valentine |
Some sixteen months, and longer might have stay’d,
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First Outlaw | What, were you banish’d thence? |
Valentine | I was. |
Second Outlaw | For what offence? |
Valentine |
For that which now torments me to rehearse:
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First Outlaw |
Why, ne’er repent it, if it were done so.
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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,
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Third Outlaw |
By the bare scalp of Robin Hood’s fat friar,
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First Outlaw | We’ll have him. Sirs, a word. |
Speed | Master, be one of them; it’s an honourable kind of thievery. |
Valentine | Peace, villain! |
Second Outlaw | Tell us this: have you any thing to take to? |
Valentine | Nothing but my fortune. |
Third Outlaw |
Know, then, that some of us are gentlemen,
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Second Outlaw |
And I from Mantua, for a gentleman,
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First Outlaw |
And I for such like petty crimes as these,
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Second Outlaw |
Indeed, because you are a banish’d man,
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Third Outlaw |
What say’st thou? wilt thou be of our consort?
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First Outlaw | But if thou scorn our courtesy, thou diest. |
Second Outlaw | Thou shalt not live to brag what we have offer’d. |
Valentine |
I take your offer and will live with you,
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Third Outlaw |
No, we detest such vile base practices.
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Scene II
Milan. Outside the Duke’s palace, under Silvia’s chamber.
Enter Proteus. | |
Proteus |
Already have I been false to Valentine
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Enter Thurio and Musicians. | |
Thurio | How now, Sir Proteus, are you crept before us? |
Proteus |
Ay, gentle Thurio: for you know that love
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Thurio | Ay, but I hope, sir, that you love not here. |
Proteus | Sir, but I do; or else I would be hence. |
Thurio | Who? Silvia? |
Proteus | Ay, Silvia; for your sake. |
Thurio |
I thank you for your own. Now, gentlemen,
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Enter, at a distance, Host, and Julia in boy’s clothes. | |
Host | Now, my young guest, methinks you’re allycholly: I pray you, why is it? |
Julia | Marry, mine host, because I cannot be merry. |
Host | Come, we’ll have you merry: I’ll bring you where you shall hear music and see the gentleman that you asked for. |
Julia | But shall I hear him speak? |
Host | Ay, that you shall. |
Julia | That will be music. Music plays. |
Host | Hark, hark! |
Julia | Is he among these? |
Host | Ay: but, peace! let’s hear ’em. |
Song. | |
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Host | How now! are you sadder than you were before? How do you, man? the music likes you not. |
Julia | You mistake; the musician likes me not. |
Host | Why, my pretty youth? |
Julia | He plays false, father. |
Host | How? out of tune on the strings? |
Julia | Not so; but yet so false that he grieves my very heart-strings. |
Host | You have a quick ear. |
Julia | Ay, I would I were deaf; it makes me have a slow heart. |
Host | I perceive you delight not in music. |
Julia | Not a whit, when it jars so. |
Host | Hark, what fine change is in the music! |
Julia | Ay, that change is the spite. |
Host | You would have them always play but one thing? |
Julia |
I would always have one play but one thing.
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Host | I tell you what Launce, his man, told me: he loved her out of all nick. |
Julia | Where is Launce? |
Host | Gone to seek his dog; which to-morrow, by his master’s command, he must carry for a present to his lady. |
Julia | Peace! stand aside: the company parts. |
Proteus |
Sir Thurio, fear not you: I will so plead
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Thurio | Where meet we? |
Proteus | At Saint Gregory’s well. |
Thurio | Farewell. Exeunt Thurio and Musicians. |
Enter Silvia above. | |
Proteus | Madam, good even to your ladyship. |
Silvia |
I thank you for your music, gentlemen.
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Proteus |
One, lady, if you knew his pure heart’s truth,
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Silvia | Sir Proteus, as I take it. |
Proteus | Sir Proteus, gentle lady, and your servant. |
Silvia | What’s your will? |
Proteus | That I may compass yours. |
Silvia |
You have your wish; my will is even this:
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Proteus |
I grant, sweet love, that I did love a lady;
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Julia |
Aside. ’Twere false, if I should speak it;
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Silvia |
Say that she be; yet Valentine thy friend
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Proteus | I likewise hear that Valentine is dead. |
Silvia |
And so suppose am I; for in his grave
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Proteus | Sweet lady, let me rake it from the earth. |
Silvia |
Go to thy lady’s grave and call hers thence,
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Julia | Aside. He heard not that. |
Proteus |
Madam, if your heart be so obdurate,
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Julia |
Aside. If ’twere a substance, you would, sure, deceive it,
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Silvia |
I am very loath to be your idol, sir;
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Proteus |
As wretches have o’ernight
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Julia | Host, will you go? |
Host | By my halidom, I was fast asleep. |
Julia | Pray you, where lies Sir Proteus? |
Host | Marry, at my house. Trust me, I think ’tis almost day. |
Julia |
Not so; but it hath been the longest night
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Scene III
The same.
Enter Eglamour. | |
Eglamour |
This is the hour that Madam Silvia
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Enter Silvia above. | |
Silvia | Who calls? |
Eglamour |
Your servant and your friend;
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Silvia | Sir Eglamour, a thousand times good morrow. |
Eglamour |
As many, worthy lady, to yourself:
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Silvia |
O Eglamour, thou art a gentleman—
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Eglamour |
Madam, I pity much your grievances;
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Silvia | This evening coming. |
Eglamour | Where shall I meet you? |
Silvia |
At Friar Patrick’s cell,
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Eglamour | I will not fail your ladyship. Good morrow, gentle lady. |
Silvia | Good morrow, kind Sir Eglamour. Exeunt severally. |
Scene IV
The same.
Enter Launce, with his Dog. | |
Launce | When a man’s servant shall play the cur with him, look you, it goes hard: one that I brought up of a puppy; one that I saved from drowning, when three or four of his blind brothers and sisters went to it. I have taught him, even as one would say precisely, “thus I would teach a dog.” I was sent to deliver him as a present to Mistress Silvia from my master; and I came no sooner into the dining-chamber but he steps me to her trencher and steals her capon’s leg: O, ’tis a foul thing when a cur cannot keep himself in all companies! I would have, as one should say, one that takes upon him to be a dog indeed, to be, as it were, a dog at all things. If I had not had more wit than he, to take a fault upon me that he did, I think verily he had been hanged for’t; sure as I live, he had suffered for’t; you shall judge. He thrusts me himself into the company of three or four gentlemanlike dogs under the duke’s table: he had not been there—bless the mark!—a pissing while, but all the chamber smelt him. “Out with the dog!” says one: “What cur is that?” says another: “Whip him out” says the third: “Hang him up” says the duke. I, having been acquainted with the smell before, knew it was Crab, and goes me to the fellow that whips the dogs: “Friend,” quoth I, “you mean to whip the dog?” “Ay, marry, do I,” quoth he. “You do him the more wrong,” quoth I; “ ’twas I did the thing you wot of.” He makes me no more ado, but whips me out of the chamber. How many masters would do this for his servant? Nay, I’ll be sworn, I have sat in the stocks for puddings he hath stolen, otherwise he had been executed; I have stood on the pillory for geese he hath killed, otherwise he had suffered for’t. Thou thinkest not of this now. Nay, I remember the trick you served me when I took my leave of Madam Silvia: did not I bid thee still mark me and do as I do? when didst thou see me heave up my leg and make water against a gentlewoman’s farthingale? didst thou ever see me do such a trick? |
Enter Proteus and Julia. | |
Proteus |
Sebastian is thy name? I like thee well
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Julia | In what you please: I’ll do what I can. |
Proteus |
I hope thou wilt. To Launce. How now, you whoreson peasant!
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Launce | Marry, sir, I carried Mistress Silvia the dog you bade me. |
Proteus | And what says she to my little jewel? |
Launce | Marry, she says your dog was a cur, and tells you currish thanks is good enough for such a present. |
Proteus | But she received my dog? |
Launce | No, indeed, did she not: here have I brought him back again. |
Proteus | What, didst thou offer her this from me? |
Launce | Ay, sir; the other squirrel was stolen from me by the hangman boys in the market-place: and then I offered her mine own, who is a dog as big as ten of yours, and therefore the gift the greater. |
Proteus |
Go get thee hence, and find my dog again,
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Julia |
It seems you loved not her, to leave her token.
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Proteus | Not so; I think she lives. |
Julia | Alas! |
Proteus | Why dost thou cry “alas”? |
Julia |
I cannot choose
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Proteus | Wherefore shouldst thou pity her? |
Julia |
Because methinks that she loved you as well
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Proteus |
Well, give her that ring and therewithal
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Julia |
How many women would do such a message?
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Enter Silvia, attended. | |
Gentlewoman, good day! I pray you, be my mean
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Silvia | What would you with her, if that I be she? |
Julia |
If you be she, I do entreat your patience
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Silvia | From whom? |
Julia | From my master, Sir Proteus, madam. |
Silvia | O, he sends you for a picture. |
Julia | Ay, madam. |
Silvia |
Ursula, bring my picture there.
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Julia |
Madam, please you peruse this letter.—
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Silvia | I pray thee, let me look on that again. |
Julia | It may not be; good madam, pardon me. |
Silvia |
There, hold!
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Julia | Madam, he sends your ladyship this ring. |
Silvia |
The more shame for him that he sends it me;
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Julia | She thanks you. |
Silvia | What say’st thou? |
Julia |
I thank you, madam, that you tender her.
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Silvia | Dost thou know her? |
Julia |
Almost as well as I do know myself:
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Silvia | Belike she thinks that Proteus hath forsook her. |
Julia | I think she doth; and that’s her cause of sorrow. |
Silvia | Is she not passing fair? |
Julia |
She hath been fairer, madam, than she is:
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Silvia | How tall was she? |
Julia |
About my stature; for at Pentecost,
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Silvia |
She is beholding to thee, gentle youth.
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Julia |
And she shall thank you for’t, if e’er you know her.
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