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SCENE II. - The same. A Room in the DUKE'S Palace.
Enter DUKE and THURIO; PROTEUS behind.

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

Thu. Since his exile she hath despised 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
Trench'd* 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 face.

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 do 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 perseveres 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, i

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:

'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.

Pro. 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.
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:
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 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,
That may discover such integrity :-

For Orpheus' lute was strung with poet's 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 concert: 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.
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 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.

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.

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.

Val. My friends,

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's a proper* man.

Val. 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.

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 banish'd thence ?

Val. I was.

2 Out. For what offence?

Val. 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.

1 Out. Why ne'er repent it, if it were done so: But were you banish'd 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,

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 honourable kind of thievery.

Val. Peace, villain !

2 Out. Tell us this: Have you anything to take to?

Val. Nothing, but my fortune.

3 Out. 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 banish'd
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,† I stabb'd 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 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?

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 offer'd.
Val. I take your offer, and will live with you;

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

3 Out. 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.

SCENE II.-Milan. Court of the Palace.

Enter PROTEUS.

Pro. 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 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 loved:
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.

[Exeunt.

But here comes Thurio: now must we to her window,
And give some evening music to her ear.

Enter THURIO and Musicians.

Thu. How now, Sir Proteus? are you crept before us?
Pro. Ay, gentle Thurio; for, you know, that love

Will creep in service where it cannot go.

Thu. Ay, but, I hope, Sir, that you love not here.
Pro. Sir, but I do; or else I would be hence.

Thu. Whom? Silvia?

Pro. Ay, Silvia, -for your sake.

Thu. I thank you for your own. Now, gentlemen,

Let's tune, and to it lustily a while.

Enter Host, at a distance; and JULIA in boy's clothes. Host. Now, my young guest! methinks you're allycholly; I pray you, why is it?

Jul. Marry, mine host, because I cannot be merry.
Host. Come, we'll have you merry: I'll bring you where you

will hear music, and see the gentleman that you asked for.

Jul. But shall I hear him speak ?

Host. Ay, that you shall.

Jul. That will be music.

[Music plays.

Host. Hark! hark!

Jul. Is he among these?

Host. Ay: but peace, let's hear 'em.`

SONG.

Who is Silvia? What is she,

That all our swains commend her?

Holy, fair, and wise is she;

The heavens such grace did lend her,
That she might admired be.

Is she kind, as she is fair?
For beauty lives with kindness:
Love doth to her eyes repair,
To help him of his blindness;
And, being help'd, inhabits there.

Then to Silvia let us sing,

That Silvia is excelling;
She excels each mortal thing,
Upon the dull earth dwelling:
To her let us garlands bring.

Host. How now? are you sadder than you were before?

How do you, man? the music likes you not.

Jul. You mistake; the musician likes me not

Host. Why, my pretty youth?

Jul. He plays false, father.

Host. How? out of tune on the strings?

Jul. Not so; but yet so false that he grieves my very heart

strings.

Host. You have a quick ear.

Jul. Ay, I would I were deaf! it makes me have a slow heart.