The arden shakespeare co.., p.535
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works, page 535
To the sweet glances of thy honour’d love,
I rather would entreat thy company
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To see the wonders of the world abroad
Than (living dully sluggardis’d at home)
Wear out thy youth with shapeless idleness.
But since thou lov’st, love still, and thrive therein,
Even as I would, when I to love begin.
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PROTEUS Wilt thou be gone? Sweet Valentine, adieu;
Think on thy Proteus, when thou (haply) seest
Some rare noteworthy object in thy travel.
Wish me partaker in thy happiness,
When thou dost meet good hap; and in thy danger
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(If ever danger do environ thee)
Commend thy grievance to my holy prayers,
For I will be thy beadsman, Valentine.
VALENTINE And on a love-book pray for my success?
PROTEUS Upon some book I love, I’ll pray for thee.
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VALENTINE That’s on some shallow story of deep love,
How young Leander cross’d the Hellespont.
PROTEUS That’s a deep story, of a deeper love,
For he was more than over shoes in love.
VALENTINE ’Tis true; for you are over boots in love,
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And yet you never swum the Hellespont.
PROTEUS Over the boots? Nay, give me not the boots.
VALENTINE No, I will not; for it boots thee not.
PROTEUS What?
VALENTINE
To be in love; where scorn is bought with groans;
Coy looks, with heart-sore sighs; one fading moment’s mirth,
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With twenty watchful, weary, tedious nights;
If haply won, perhaps a hapless gain;
If lost, why then a grievous labour won;
How ever, but a folly bought with wit,
Or else a wit by folly vanquished.
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PROTEUS So, by your circumstance, you call me fool.
VALENTINE
So, by your circumstance, I fear you’ll prove.
PROTEUS ’Tis Love you cavil at, I am not Love.
VALENTINE Love is your master, for he masters you;
And he that is so yoked by a fool
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Methinks should not be chronicled for wise.
PROTEUS Yet writers say: as in the sweetest bud
The eating canker dwells, so eating Love
Inhabits in the finest wits of all.
VALENTINE And writers say: as the most forward bud
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Is eaten by the canker ere it blow,
Even so by Love the young and tender wit
Is turn’d to folly, blasting in the bud,
Losing his verdure, even in the prime,
And all the fair effects of future hopes.
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But wherefore waste I time to counsel thee
That art a votary to fond desire?
Once more adieu: my father at the road
Expects my coming, there to see me shipp’d.
PROTEUS And thither will I bring thee, Valentine.
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VALENTINE
Sweet Proteus, no; now let us take our leave.
To Milan let me hear from thee by letters
Of thy success in love; and what news else
Betideth here in absence of thy friend;
And I likewise will visit thee with mine.
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PROTEUS All happiness bechance to thee in Milan.
VALENTINE As much to you at home; and so farewell.
Exit.
PROTEUS He after honour hunts, I after love;
He leaves his friends, to dignify them more;
I leave myself, my friends, and all, for love:
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Thou, Julia, thou hast metamorphos’d me;
Made me neglect my studies, lose my time,
War with good counsel, set the world at nought;
Made wit with musing weak, heart sick with thought.
Enter SPEED.
SPEED Sir Proteus, ’save you; saw you my master?
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PROTEUS
But now he parted hence to embark for Milan.
SPEED Twenty to one, then, he is shipp’d already,
And I have play’d the sheep in losing him.
PROTEUS Indeed a sheep doth very often stray,
And if the shepherd be awhile away.
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SPEED You conclude that my master is a shepherd,
then, and I a sheep?
PROTEUS I do.
SPEED Why, then my horns are his horns, whether I
wake or sleep.
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PROTEUS A silly answer, and fitting well a sheep.
SPEED This proves me still a sheep.
PROTEUS True; and thy master a shepherd.
SPEED Nay, that I can deny by a circumstance.
PROTEUS It shall go hard but I’ll prove it by another.
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SPEED The shepherd seeks the sheep, and not the sheep
the shepherd; but I seek my master, and my master
seeks not me: therefore I am no sheep.
PROTEUS The sheep for fodder follow the shepherd, the
shepherd for food follows not the sheep; thou for
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wages followest thy master, thy master for wages
follows not thee: therefore thou art a sheep.
SPEED Such another proof will make me cry ‘baa’.
PROTEUS But dost thou hear? Gavest thou my letter to
Julia?
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SPEED Ay, sir; I (a lost mutton) gave your letter to her
(a laced mutton) and she (a laced mutton) gave me
(a lost mutton) nothing for my labour.
PROTEUS Here’s too small a pasture for such store of
muttons.
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SPEED If the ground be over-charged, you were best
stick her.
PROTEUS Nay, in that you are astray; ’twere best pound
you.
SPEED Nay, sir, less than a pound shall serve me for
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carrying your letter.
PROTEUS You mistake; I mean the pound, a pinfold.
SPEED From a pound to a pin? Fold it over and over,
’Tis threefold too little for carrying a letter to your
lover.
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PROTEUS But what said she?
SPEED [first nodding] Ay.
PROTEUS Nod – ay: why, that’s ‘noddy’.
SPEED You mistook, sir: I say she did nod; and you ask
me if she did nod, and I say ‘Ay’.
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PROTEUS And that set together is ‘noddy’.
SPEED Now you have taken the pains to set it together,
take it for your pains.
PROTEUS No, no, you shall have it for bearing the letter.
SPEED Well, I perceive I must be fain to bear with you.
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PROTEUS Why, sir, how do you bear with me?
SPEED Marry, sir, the letter very orderly, having nothing
but the word ‘noddy’ for my pains.
PROTEUS Beshrew me, but you have a quick wit.
SPEED And yet it cannot overtake your slow purse.
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PROTEUS Come, come, open the matter in brief: what
said she?
SPEED Open your purse, that the money and the matter
may be both at once delivered.
PROTEUS [giving money] Well, sir; here is for your pains.
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What said she?
SPEED Truly, sir, I think you’ll hardly win her.
PROTEUS Why, couldst thou perceive so much from
her?
SPEED Sir, I could perceive nothing at all from her; no,
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not so much as a ducat for delivering your letter; and
being so hard to me that brought your mind, I fear
she’ll prove as hard to you in telling your mind. Give
her no token but stones, for she’s as hard as steel.
PROTEUS What said she? Nothing?
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SPEED No, not so much as ‘Take this for thy pains’. To
testify your bounty, I thank you, you have testerned
me; in requital whereof, henceforth carry your
letters yourself; and so, sir, I’ll commend you to my
master. Exit.
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PROTEUS
Go, go, be gone, to save your ship from wrack,
Which cannot perish having thee aboard,
Being destin’d to a drier death on shore.
I must go send some better messenger:
I fear my Julia would not deign my lines
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Receiving them from such a worthless post. Exit.
1.2 Enter JULIA and LUCETTA.
JULIA But say, Lucetta, now we are alone,
Wouldst thou then counsel me to fall in love?
LUCETTA Ay, madam, so you stumble not unheedfully.
JULIA Of all the fair resort of gentlemen
That every day with parle encounter me,
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In thy opinion which is worthiest love?
LUCETTA
Please you repeat their names, I’ll show my mind,
According to my shallow simple skill.
JULIA What think’st thou of the fair Sir Eglamour?
LUCETTA As of a knight well-spoken, neat, and fine;
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But were I you, he never should be mine.
JULIA What think’st thou of the rich Mercatio?
LUCETTA Well of his wealth; but of himself, so so.
JULIA What think’st thou of the gentle Proteus?
LUCETTA Lord, Lord! to see what folly reigns in us!
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JULIA
How now? What means this passion at his name?
LUCETTA Pardon, dear madam, ’tis a passing shame
That I (unworthy body as I am)
Should censure thus on lovely gentlemen.
JULIA Why not on Proteus, as of all the rest?
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LUCETTA Then thus: of many good, I think him best.
JULIA Your reason?
LUCETTA I have no other but a woman’s reason:
I think him so, because I think him so.
JULIA And wouldst thou have me cast my love on him?
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LUCETTA Ay; if you thought your love not cast away.
JULIA Why, he, of all the rest, hath never mov’d me.
LUCETTA Yet he, of all the rest, I think best loves ye.
JULIA His little speaking shows his love but small.
LUCETTA Fire that’s closest kept burns most of all.
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JULIA They do not love that do not show their love.
LUCETTA
O, they love least that let men know their love.
JULIA I would I knew his mind.
LUCETTA Peruse this paper, madam.
JULIA ‘To Julia’: say, from whom?
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LUCETTA That the contents will show.
JULIA Say, say: who gave it thee?
LUCETTA
Sir Valentine’s page; and sent I think from Proteus.
He would have given it you, but I being in the way
Did in your name receive it: pardon the fault, I pray.
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JULIA Now, by my modesty, a goodly broker!
Dare you presume to harbour wanton lines?
To whisper, and conspire against my youth?
Now trust me, ’tis an office of great worth,
And you an officer fit for the place.
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There: take the paper; see it be return’d,
Or else return no more into my sight.
LUCETTA
To plead for love deserves more fee than hate.
[She drops the letter.]
JULIA Will ye be gone?
LUCETTA That you may ruminate. Exit.
JULIA And yet I would I had o’erlook’d the letter.
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It were a shame to call her back again,
And pray her to a fault for which I chid her.
What fool is she, that knows I am a maid,
And would not force the letter to my view!
Since maids, in modesty, say ‘no’ to that
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Which they would have the profferer construe ‘ay’.
Fie, fie; how wayward is this foolish love,
That (like a testy babe) will scratch the nurse,
And presently all humbled kiss the rod!
How churlishly I chid Lucetta hence,
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When willingly I would have had her here!
