SCENE II. The same. The DUKE's palace. Two Gentlemen of Verona  Shakespeare homepage  |  Two Gentlemen of Verona  | Act 3, Scene 2 

 Previous scene  |  Next scene  SCENE II. The same. 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 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 

 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 ought 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 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. 

 THURIO  And thy advice this night I'll put in practise. 

 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  Shakespeare homepage  |  Two Gentlemen of Verona  | Act 3, Scene 2 

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