You dote on her that cares not for your love. Pro. Well, give her that ring, and therewithal This letter;-that's her chamber.-Tell my lady, I claim the promise for her heavenly picture. Your message done, hie home unto my chamber, Where thou shalt find me sad and solitary. [Exit PROTEUS. Jul. How many women would do such a message? Alas, poor Proteus! thou hast entertained A fox, to be the shepherd of thy lambs: To plead for that, which I would not obtain; But cannot be true servant to my master, Gentlewoman, good day! I pray you be my mean Jul. From my master, Sir Proteus, madam. Sil. O!-he sends you for a picture? Sil. Ursula, bring my picture there. [Picture brought. Go, give your master this: tell him from me, Jul. Madam, please you peruse this letter. Deliver'd you a paper that I should not; This is the letter to your ladyship. Sil. I pray thee let me look on that again. Jul. It may not be; good madam, pardon me. Sil. There, hold. I will not look upon your master's lines: I know they are stuff'd with protestations, And full of new-found oaths; which he will break As easily as I do tear his paper. Jul. Madam, he sends your ladyship this ring. Sil. The more shame for him that he sends it me; For, I have heard him say a thousand times, His Julia gave it him at his departure: Though his false finger hath profan'd the ring, Mine shall not do his Julia so much wrong. Jul. She thanks you. Sil. What say'st thou ? Jul. I thank you, madam, that you tender her: Poor gentlewoman! my master wrongs her much. Sil. Dost thou know her? Jul. Almost as well as I do know myself: To think upon her woes, I do protest, That I have wept a hundred several times. Sil. Belike, she thinks that Proteus hath forsook her. Jul. I think she doth, and that's her cause of sorrow. Sil. Is she not passing fair? Jul. She hath been fairer, madam, than she is: Jul. About my stature: for, at Pentecost, 4 Sil. She is beholden to thee, gentle youth!— A virtuous gentlewoman, mild, and beautiful. 3 i. e. in good earnest, tout de bon. 4 To passion was used as a verb formerly. Alas, how love can trifle with itself! Her eyes are grey as glass; and so are mine: My substance should be statue9 in thy stead. 5 False hair was worn by the ladies long before wigs were in fashion. So, in Northward Hoe,' 1607, " There is a new trade come up for cast gentlewomen of periwig making. Perwickes are mentioned by Churchyard in one of his earliest poems. And Barnabe Rich, in The Honestie of this Age,' 1615, has a philippic against this folly. 6 By grey eyes were meant what we now call blue eyes. Grey, when applied to the eyes is rendered by Coles, in his Dictionary, 1679, Ceruleus, glaucus. 7 A high forehead was then accounted a feature eminently beautiful. Our author, in The Tempest, shows that low foreheads were in disesteem. with foreheads villanous low. 8 Respective, i. e. considerative, regardful, v. Merchant of Venice, Act v. Sc. 1. 9 The word statue was formerly used to express a portrait, and sometimes a statue was called a picture. Stowe says (speaking of Elizabeth's funeral), that when the people beheld "her statue or picture lying upon the coffin, there was a general sighing." Thus in the City Madam,' by Massinger, Sir John Frugal desires that his daughters may take leave of their lovers' statues, though he had previously described them as pictures, which they evidently were. I'll use thee kindly for thy mistress' sake, To make [Exit. ACT V. SCENE I. The same. An Abbey. Enter EGLAMOUR. Egl. The sun begins to gild the western sky; And now it is about the very hour That Silvia, at friar Patrick's cell, should meet me. Enter SILVIA. See, where she comes: Lady, a happy evening! Sil. Amen, amen! go on, good Eglamour! Out at the postern by the abbey wall; I fear I am attended by some spies. Egl. Fear not: the forest is not three leagues off; If we recover that, we are sure enough. The same. SCENE II. [Exeunt. A Room in the Duke's Palace. Enter THURIO, PROTEUS, and JULIA. Thu. Sir Proteus, what says Silvia to my suit? Pro. O, sir, I find her milder than she was; And yet she takes exceptions at your person. Thu. What, that my leg is too long? Pro. No; that it is too little. Thu. I'll wear a boot, to make it somewhat rounder. VOL. I. |