The Two Gentlemen of Verona by William Shakespeare (interesting books to read in english txt) 📕

is, she hath no teeth to bite.

SPEED.
'Item, She will often praise her liquor.'

LAUNCE.
If her liquor be good, she shall: if she will not, I will;
for good things should be praised.

SPEED.
'Item, She is too liberal.'

LAUNCE.
Of her tongue she cannot, for that's writ down she is slow
of; of her purse she shall not, for that I'll keep shut. Now of
another thing she may, and that cannot I help. Well, proceed.

SPEED.
'Item, She hath more hair than wit, and more faults
than hairs, and more wealth than faults.'

LAUNCE.
Stop there; I'll have her; she was mine, and not mine,
twice or thrice in that last article. Rehearse that once more.

SPEED.
'Item, She hath more hair than wit' -

LAUNCE.
More hair than wit it may be; I'll prove it: the cover of
the salt hides the salt, and therefore it is more than the salt;
the hair that covers the wit is more than the wit, for the
greater hides the less. What's next?

SPEED.
'And more faults than hairs.' -

LAUNCE.
That's monstrous! O, that that were out!

SPEED.
'And more wealth than faults.'

LAUNCE.
Why, that word makes the faults gracious. Well, I'll have
her; an if it be a match, as nothing is impossible, -

SPEED.
What then?

LAUNCE.
Why, then will I tell thee, - that thy master stays for thee
at the North-gate.

SPEED.
For me?

LAUNCE.
For thee! ay, who art thou? He hath stay'd for a better man
than thee.

SPEED.
And must I go to him?

LAUNCE.
Thou must run to him, for thou hast stayed so long that
going will scarce serve the turn.

SPEED.
Why didst not tell me sooner? Pox of your love letters!

[Exit.]

LAUNCE.
Now will he be swing'd for reading my letter. An unmannerly
slave that will thrust himself into secrets! I'll after, to
rejoice in the boy's correction.

[Exit.]


SCENE 2. The same. A room in the DUKE'S palace.

[Enter DUKE and THURIO.]

DUKE.
Sir Thurio, fear not but that she will love you
Now Valentine is banish'd from her sight.

THURIO.
Since his exile she hath despis'd me most,
Forsworn my company and rail'd at me,
That I am desperate of obtaining her.

DUKE.
This weak impress of love is as a figure
Trenched in ice, which with an hour's heat
Dissolves to water and doth lose his form.
A little time will melt her frozen thoughts,
And worthless Valentine shall be forgot.

[Enter PROTEUS.]

How now, Sir Proteus! Is your countryman,
According to our proclamation, gone?

PROTEUS.
Gone, my good lord.

DUKE.
My daughter takes his going grievously.

PROTEUS.
A little time, my lord, will kill that grief.

DUKE.
So I believe; but Thurio thinks not so.
Proteus, the good conceit I hold of thee, -
For thou hast shown some sign of good desert, -
Makes me the better to confer with thee.

PROTEUS.
Longer than I prove loyal to your Grace
Let me not live to look upon your Grace.

DUKE.
Thou know'st how willingly I would effect
The match between Sir Thurio and my daughter.

PROTEUS.
I do, my lord.

DUKE.
And also, I think, thou art not ignorant
How she opposes her against my will.

PROTEUS.
She did, my lord, when Valentine was here.

DUKE.
Ay, and perversely she persevers so.
What might we do to make the girl forget
The love of Valentine, and love Sir Thurio?

PROTEUS.
The best way is to slander Valentine
With falsehood, cowardice, and poor descent,
Three things that women highly hold in hate.

DUKE.
Ay, but she'll think that it is spoke in hate.

PROTEUS.
Ay, if his enemy deliver it;
Therefore it must with circumstance be spoken
By one whom she esteemeth as his friend.

DUKE.
Then you must undertake to slander him.

PROTEUS.
And that, my lord, I shall be loath to do:
'Tis an ill office for a gentleman,
Especially against his very friend.

DUKE.
Where your good word cannot advantage him,
Your slander never can endamage him;
Therefore the office is indifferent,
Being entreated to it by your friend.

PROTEUS.
You have prevail'd, my lord; if I can do it
By aught that I can speak in his dispraise,
She shall not long continue love to him.
But say this weed her love from Valentine,
It follows not that she will love Sir Thurio.

THURIO.
Therefore, as you unwind her love from him,
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
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.

PROTEUS.
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.
Ay,
Much is the force of heaven-bred poesy.

PROTEUS.
Say that upon the altar of her beauty
You sacrifice your tears, your sighs, your heart.
Write till your ink be dry, and with your tears
Moist it again, and frame some feeling line
That may discover such integrity:
For Orpheus' lute was strung with poets' sinews,
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,
Visit by night your lady's chamber-window
With some sweet consort: to their instruments
Tune a deploring dump; the night's dead silence
Will well become such sweet-complaining grievance.
This, or else nothing, will inherit her.

DUKE.
This discipline shows thou hast been in love.

THURIO.
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!

PROTEUS.
We'll wait upon your Grace till after-supper,
And afterward determine our proceedings.

DUKE.
Even now about it! I will pardon you.

[Exeunt.]


ACT 4.

SCENE 1. A forest between Milan and Verona.

[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;
If not, we'll make you sit, and rifle you.

SPEED.
Sir, we are undone: these are the villains
That all the travellers do fear so much.

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 is a proper man.

VALENTINE.
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.

SECOND OUTLAW.
Whither travel you?

VALENTINE.
To Verona.

FIRST OUTLAW.
Whence came you?

VALENTINE.
From Milan.

THIRD OUTLAW.
Have you long sojourn'd there?

VALENTINE.
Some sixteen months, and longer might have stay'd,
If crooked fortune had not thwarted me.

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:
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 OUTLAW.
Why, ne'er repent it, if it were done so.
But were you banish'd for so small a fault?

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,
Or else I often had been miserable.

THIRD OUTLAW.
By the bare scalp of Robin Hood's fat friar,
This fellow were a king for our wild faction!

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 anything to take to?

VALENTINE.
Nothing but my fortune.

THIRD OUTLAW.
Know, then, that some of us are gentlemen,
Such as the fury of ungovern'd youth
Thrust from the company of awful men:
Myself was from Verona banished
For practising to steal away a lady,
An heir, and near allied unto the duke.

SECOND OUTLAW.
And I from Mantua, for a gentleman
Who, in my mood, I stabb'd unto the heart.

FIRST OUTLAW.
And I for such-like petty crimes as these.
But to the purpose; for we cite our faults,
That they may hold excus'd our lawless lives;
And, partly, seeing you are beautified
With goodly shape, and by your own report
A linguist, and a man of such perfection
As we do in our quality much want -

SECOND OUTLAW.
Indeed, because you are a banish'd man,
Therefore, above the rest, we parley to you.
Are you content to be our general?
To make a virtue of necessity
And live as we do in this wilderness?

THIRD OUTLAW.
What say'st thou? Wilt thou be of our consort?
Say 'ay' and be the captain of us all:
We'll do thee homage, and be rul'd by thee,
Love thee as our commander and our king.

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,
Provided that you do no outrages
On silly women or poor passengers.

THIRD OUTLAW.
No, we detest such vile base practices.
Come, go with us; we'll bring thee to our crews,
And show thee all the treasure we have got;
Which, with ourselves, all rest at thy dispose.

[Exeunt.]


SCENE 2. Milan. The sourt of the DUKE'S palace.

[Enter PROTEUS.]

PROTEUS.
Already have I been false to Valentine,
And now I must be as unjust to Thurio.
Under the colour of commending him,
I have access my own love to prefer:
But Silvia is too fair, too true, too holy,
To be corrupted with my worthless gifts.
When I protest true loyalty to her,
She twits me with my falsehood to my friend;
When to her beauty I commend my vows,
She bids me think how I have been forsworn
In breaking faith with Julia whom I lov'd;
And notwithstanding all her sudden quips,
The least whereof would quell a lover's hope,
Yet, spaniel-like, the more she spurns my love
The more it grows and fawneth on her still.
But here comes Thurio. Now must we to her window,
And give some evening music to her ear.

[Enter THURIO and Musicians.]

THURIO.
How now, Sir Proteus! are you crept before us?

PROTEUS.
Ay, gentle Thurio; for