The Two Gentlemen of Verona

Verona. An open place.

Enter Valentine and Proteus.

Valentine

Cease to persuade, my loving Proteus: Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits. Were’t not affection chains thy tender days To the sweet glances of thy honour’d love, I rather would entreat thy company To see the wonders of the world abroad Than, living dully sluggardized at home, Wear out thy youth with shapeless idleness. But since thou lovest, love still and thrive therein, Even as I would when I to love begin.

Proteus

Wilt thou be gone? Sweet Valentine, adieu! Think on thy Proteus, when thou haply seest Some rare note-worthy object in thy travel: Wish me partaker in thy happiness When thou dost meet good hap; and in thy danger, 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.

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, 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 With twenty watchful, weary, tedious nights: If haply

Julia

Will ye be gone?

Lucetta

That you may ruminate. Exit.

Julia

And yet I would I had o’erlooked the letter: It were a shame to call her back again And pray her to a fault for which I chid her. What a 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 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, When willingly I would have had her here! How angerly I taught my brow to frown, When inward joy enforced my heart to smile! My penance is to call Lucetta back And ask remission for my folly past. What ho! Lucetta!

Proteus

Thus have I shunn’d the fire for fear of burning, And drench’d me in the sea, where I am drown’d. I fear’d to show my father Julia’s letter, Lest he should take exceptions to my love; And with the vantage of mine own excuse Hath he excepted most against my love. O, how this spring of love resembleth The uncertain glory of an April day, Which now shows all the beauty of the sun, And by and by a cloud takes all away!

Reenter Panthino.

Panthino

Sir Proteus, your father calls for you: He is in haste; therefore, I pray you to go.

Proteus

Why, this it is: my heart accords thereto, And yet a thousand times it answers “no.” Exeunt.

Proteus

I will. Exit Valentine. Even as one heat another heat expels, Or as one nail by strength drives out another, So the remembrance of my former love Is by a newer object quite forgotten. Is it mine, or Valentine’s praise, Her true perfection, or my false transgression, That makes me reasonless to reason thus? She is fair; and so is Julia that I love⁠— That I did love, for now my love is thaw’d; Which, like a waxen image, ’gainst a fire, Bears no impression of the thing it was. Methinks my zeal to Valentine is cold, And that I love him not as I was wont. O, but I love his lady too too much, And that’s the reason I love him so little. How shall I dote on her with more advice, That thus without advice begin to love her! ’Tis but her picture I have yet beheld, And that hath dazzled my reason’s light; But when I look on her perfections, There is no reason but I shall be blind. If I can check my erring love, I will; If not, to compass her I’ll use my skill. Exit.

The same. The Duke’s palace.

Enter Proteus.

Proteus

To leave my Julia, shall I be forsworn; To love fair Silvia, shall I be forsworn; To wrong my friend, I shall be much forsworn; And even that power which gave me first my oath Provokes me to this threefold perjury; Love bade me swear and Love bids me forswear. O sweet-suggesting Love, if thou hast sinn’d, Teach me, thy tempted subject, to excuse it! At first I did adore a twinkling star, But now I worship a celestial sun. Unheedful vows may heedfully be broken, And he wants wit that wants resolved will To learn his wit to exchange the bad for better. Fie, fie, unreverend tongue! to call her bad, Whose sovereignty so oft thou hast preferr’d With twenty thousand soul-confirming oaths. I cannot leave to love, and yet I do; But there I leave to love where I should love. Julia I lose and Valentine I lose: If I keep them, I needs must lose myself; If I lose them, thus find I by their loss For Valentine myself, for Julia Silvia. I to myself am dearer than a friend, For love is still most precious in itself; And Silvia⁠—witness Heaven, that made her fair!⁠— Shows Julia but a swarthy Ethiope. I will forget that Julia is alive, Remembering that my love to her is dead; And Valentine I’ll hold an enemy, Aiming at Silvia as a sweeter friend. I cannot now prove constant to myself, Without some treachery used to Valentine. This night he meaneth with a corded ladder To climb celestial Silvia’s chamber-window, Myself in counsel, his competitor.