Forsworn my company, and railed at me,
That I am desperate of obtaining her.

Duke. This weak impress of love is as a figure
Trenched1 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.-
How now, Sir Proteus? Is your countryman,
According to our proclamation, gone?
Pro. Gone, my good lord.

Duke. My daughter takes his going grievously.
Pro. 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.

Pro. 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. Pro. I do, my lord.

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

Pro. She did, my lord, when Valentine was here.
Duke. Ay, and perversely she persévers so.
What might we do, to make the girl forget
The love of Valentine, and love Sir Thurio?
Pro. 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.
Pro. 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.
Pro. And that, my lord, I shall be loath to do:

1 i. e. cut, carved; from the Fr. trancher.

2 i. e. with the addition of such incidental particulars as may induce belief.

'Tis an ill office for a gentleman;

Especially against his very1 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.

Pro. You have prevailed, 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.

Thu. 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:

2

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.

Pro. 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.
Pro. 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,

1 Very, that is, true; from the Lat. verus.

2 A bottom is the housewife's term for a ball of thread wound upon a central body.

That may discover such integrity;1

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

2

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.3

Duke. This discipline shows thou hast been in love. Thu. 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 skilled in music:

I have a sonnet, that will serve the turn,

To give the onset to thy good advice.

Duke. About it, gentlemen.

Pro. 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 IV.

SCENE I. A Forest, near Mantua.

Enter certain Outlaws.

1 Out. Fellows, stand fast; I see a passenger.
2 Out. If there be ten, shrink not, but down
with 'em.

1 Sincerity.

2 The ancient term for a mournful elegy.

3 To inherit is sometimes used by Shakspeare for to obtain possession of

Enter VALENTINE and SPEED.

3 Out. Stand, sir, and throw us that you have about you;

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.

1 Out. That's not so, sir; we are your enemies. 2 Out. Peace; we'll hear him.

3 Out. Ay, by my beard, will we; for he is a proper man.

Val. Then know, that I have little wealth to

lose;

A man I am, crossed 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. 2 Out. Whither travel you?

Val. To Verona.

1 Out. Whence came you ? Val. From Milan.

3 Out. Have you long sojourned there?

Val. Some sixteen months; and longer might have

staid,

If crooked fortune had not thwarted me.

1 Out. What, were you banished thence?

Val. I was.

2 Out. For what offence?

Val. For that which now torments me to rehearse :

I killed a man, whose death I much repent;
But yet I slew him manfully in fight,
Without false vantage, or base treachery.

1 Out. Why, ne'er repent it, if it were done so;
But were you banished for so small a fault?
Val. I was, and held me glad of such a doom.
1 Out. Have you the tongues?

Val. My youthful travel therein made me happy; Or else I often had been miserable.

3 Out. By the bare scalp of Robin Hood's fat friar,1 This fellow were a king for our wild faction.

1 Out. We'll have him; sirs, a word.
Speed. Master, be one of them;
It is an honorable kind of thievery.
Val. Peace, villain!

2 Out. Tell us this: have you any thing to take to? Val. Nothing but my fortune.

3 Out. Know, then, that some of us are gentlemen, Such as the fury of ungoverned youth Thrust from the company of awful 2 men: Myself was from Verona banished, For practising to steal away a lady,

An heir, and near allied unto the duke.

2 Out. And I from Mantua, for a gentleman, Whom, in my mood,3 I stabbed unto the heart.

1 Out. And I, for such like petty crimes as these. But to the purpose,-(for we cite our faults, That they may hold excused 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;

2 Out. Indeed, because you are a banished 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?

3 Out. What say'st thou? wilt thou be of our consórt?

Say ay, and be the captain of us all;

We'll do thee homage, and be ruled by thee,

Love thee as our commander and our king.

1 Out. But if thou scorn our courtesy, thou diest. 2 Out. Thou shalt not live to brag what we have offered.

1 Friar Tuck, one of the associates of Robin Hood.

2 Awful men, men full of awe and respect for the laws of society and the duties of life.

3 Anger or resentment.

4 i. e. Condition, occupation.