SCENE IV. Milan. The DUKE's palace. Two Gentlemen of Verona  Shakespeare homepage  |  Two Gentlemen of Verona  | Act 2, Scene 4 

 Previous scene  |  Next scene  SCENE IV. Milan. The DUKE's palace. 

 Enter SILVIA, VALENTINE, THURIO, and SPEED  SILVIA  Servant! 

 VALENTINE  Mistress? 

 SPEED  Master, Sir Thurio frowns on you. 

 VALENTINE  Ay, boy, it's for love. 

 SPEED  Not of you. 

 VALENTINE  Of my mistress, then. 

 SPEED  'Twere good you knocked him. 



 Exit  SILVIA  Servant, you are sad. 

 VALENTINE  Indeed, madam, I seem so. 

 THURIO  Seem you that you are not? 

 VALENTINE  Haply I do. 

 THURIO  So do counterfeits. 

 VALENTINE  So do you. 

 THURIO  What seem I that I am not? 

 VALENTINE  Wise. 

 THURIO  What instance of the contrary? 

 VALENTINE  Your folly. 

 THURIO  And how quote you my folly? 

 VALENTINE  I quote it in your jerkin. 

 THURIO  My jerkin is a doublet. 

 VALENTINE  Well, then, I'll double your folly. 

 THURIO  How? 

 SILVIA  What, angry, Sir Thurio! do you change colour? 

 VALENTINE  Give him leave, madam; he is a kind of chameleon. 

 THURIO  That hath more mind to feed on your blood than live 

 in your air. 

 VALENTINE  You have said, sir. 

 THURIO  Ay, sir, and done too, for this time. 

 VALENTINE  I know it well, sir; you always end ere you begin. 

 SILVIA  A fine volley of words, gentlemen, and quickly shot off. 

 VALENTINE  'Tis indeed, madam; we thank the giver. 

 SILVIA  Who is that, servant? 

 VALENTINE  Yourself, sweet lady; for you gave the fire. Sir 

 Thurio borrows his wit from your ladyship's looks, 

 and spends what he borrows kindly in your company. 

 THURIO  Sir, if you spend word for word with me, I shall 

 make your wit bankrupt. 

 VALENTINE  I know it well, sir; you have an exchequer of words, 

 and, I think, no other treasure to give your 

 followers, for it appears by their bare liveries, 

 that they live by your bare words. 

 SILVIA  No more, gentlemen, no more:--here comes my father. 



 Enter DUKE  DUKE  Now, daughter Silvia, you are hard beset. 

 Sir Valentine, your father's in good health: 

 What say you to a letter from your friends 

 Of much good news? 

 VALENTINE  My lord, I will be thankful. 

 To any happy messenger from thence. 

 DUKE  Know ye Don Antonio, your countryman? 

 VALENTINE  Ay, my good lord, I know the gentleman 

 To be of worth and worthy estimation 

 And not without desert so well reputed. 

 DUKE  Hath he not a son? 

 VALENTINE  Ay, my good lord; a son that well deserves 

 The honour and regard of such a father. 

 DUKE  You know him well? 

 VALENTINE  I know him as myself; for from our infancy 

 We have conversed and spent our hours together: 

 And though myself have been an idle truant, 

 Omitting the sweet benefit of time 

 To clothe mine age with angel-like perfection, 

 Yet hath Sir Proteus, for that's his name, 

 Made use and fair advantage of his days; 

 His years but young, but his experience old; 

 His head unmellow'd, but his judgment ripe; 

 And, in a word, for far behind his worth 

 Comes all the praises that I now bestow, 

 He is complete in feature and in mind 

 With all good grace to grace a gentleman. 

 DUKE  Beshrew me, sir, but if he make this good, 

 He is as worthy for an empress' love 

 As meet to be an emperor's counsellor. 

 Well, sir, this gentleman is come to me, 

 With commendation from great potentates; 

 And here he means to spend his time awhile: 

 I think 'tis no unwelcome news to you. 

 VALENTINE  Should I have wish'd a thing, it had been he. 

 DUKE  Welcome him then according to his worth. 

 Silvia, I speak to you, and you, Sir Thurio; 

 For Valentine, I need not cite him to it: 

 I will send him hither to you presently. 



 Exit  VALENTINE  This is the gentleman I told your ladyship 

 Had come along with me, but that his mistress 

 Did hold his eyes lock'd in her crystal looks. 

 SILVIA  Belike that now she hath enfranchised them 

 Upon some other pawn for fealty. 

 VALENTINE  Nay, sure, I think she holds them prisoners still. 

 SILVIA  Nay, then he should be blind; and, being blind 

 How could he see his way to seek out you? 

 VALENTINE  Why, lady, Love hath twenty pair of eyes. 

 THURIO  They say that Love hath not an eye at all. 

 VALENTINE  To see such lovers, Thurio, as yourself: 

 Upon a homely object Love can wink. 

 SILVIA  Have done, have done; here comes the gentleman. 



 Exit THURIO 

 Enter PROTEUS  VALENTINE  Welcome, dear Proteus! Mistress, I beseech you, 

 Confirm his welcome with some special favour. 

 SILVIA  His worth is warrant for his welcome hither, 

 If this be he you oft have wish'd to hear from. 

 VALENTINE  Mistress, it is: sweet lady, entertain him 

 To be my fellow-servant to your ladyship. 

 SILVIA  Too low a mistress for so high a servant. 

 PROTEUS  Not so, sweet  lady: but too mean a servant 

 To have a look of such a worthy mistress. 

 VALENTINE  Leave off discourse of disability: 

 Sweet lady, entertain him for your servant. 

 PROTEUS  My duty will I boast of; nothing else. 

 SILVIA  And duty never yet did want his meed: 

 Servant, you are welcome to a worthless mistress. 

 PROTEUS  I'll die on him that says so but yourself. 

 SILVIA  That you are welcome? 

 PROTEUS  That you are worthless. 



 Re-enter THURIO  THURIO  Madam, my lord your father would speak with you. 

 SILVIA  I wait upon his pleasure. Come, Sir Thurio, 

 Go with me. Once more, new servant, welcome: 

 I'll leave you to confer of home affairs; 

 When you have done, we look to hear from you. 

 PROTEUS  We'll both attend upon your ladyship. 



 Exeunt SILVIA and THURIO  VALENTINE  Now, tell me, how do all from whence you came? 

 PROTEUS  Your friends are well and have them much commended. 

 VALENTINE  And how do yours? 

 PROTEUS  I left them all in health. 

 VALENTINE  How does your lady? and how thrives your love? 

 PROTEUS  My tales of love were wont to weary you; 

 I know you joy not in a love discourse. 

 VALENTINE  Ay, Proteus, but that life is alter'd now: 

 I have done penance for contemning Love, 

 Whose high imperious thoughts have punish'd me 

 With bitter fasts, with penitential groans, 

 With nightly tears and daily heart-sore sighs; 

 For in revenge of my contempt of love, 

 Love hath chased sleep from my enthralled eyes 

 And made them watchers of mine own heart's sorrow. 

 O gentle Proteus, Love's a mighty lord, 

 And hath so humbled me, as, I confess, 

 There is no woe to his correction, 

 Nor to his service no such joy on earth. 

 Now no discourse, except it be of love; 

 Now can I break my fast, dine, sup and sleep, 

 Upon the very naked name of love. 

 PROTEUS  Enough; I read your fortune in your eye. 

 Was this the idol that you worship so? 

 VALENTINE  Even she; and is she not a heavenly saint? 

 PROTEUS  No; but she is an earthly paragon. 

 VALENTINE  Call her divine. 

 PROTEUS  I will not flatter her. 

 VALENTINE  O, flatter me; for love delights in praises. 

 PROTEUS  When I was sick, you gave me bitter pills, 

 And I must minister the like to you. 

 VALENTINE  Then speak the truth by her; if not divine, 

 Yet let her be a principality, 

 Sovereign to all the creatures on the earth. 

 PROTEUS  Except my mistress. 

 VALENTINE  Sweet, except not any; 

 Except thou wilt except against my love. 

 PROTEUS  Have I not reason to prefer mine own? 

 VALENTINE  And I will help thee to prefer her too: 

 She shall be dignified with this high honour-- 

 To bear my lady's train, lest the base earth 

 Should from her vesture chance to steal a kiss 

 And, of so great a favour growing proud, 

 Disdain to root the summer-swelling flower 

 And make rough winter everlastingly. 

 PROTEUS  Why, Valentine, what braggardism is this? 

 VALENTINE  Pardon me, Proteus: all I can is nothing 

 To her whose worth makes other worthies nothing; 

 She is alone. 

 PROTEUS  Then let her alone. 

 VALENTINE  Not for the world: why, man, she is mine own, 

 And I as rich in having such a jewel 

 As twenty seas, if all their sand were pearl, 

 The water nectar and the rocks pure gold. 

 Forgive me that I do not dream on thee, 

 Because thou see'st me dote upon my love. 

 My foolish rival, that her father likes 

 Only for his possessions are so huge, 

 Is gone with her along, and I must after, 

 For love, thou know'st, is full of jealousy. 

 PROTEUS  But she loves you? 

 VALENTINE  Ay, and we are betroth'd: nay, more, our, 

 marriage-hour, 

 With all the cunning manner of our flight, 

 Determined of; how I must climb her window, 

 The ladder made of cords, and all the means 

 Plotted and 'greed on for my happiness. 

 Good Proteus, go with me to my chamber, 

 In these affairs to aid me with thy counsel. 

 PROTEUS  Go on before; I shall inquire you forth: 

 I must unto the road, to disembark 

 Some necessaries that I needs must use, 

 And then I'll presently attend you. 

 VALENTINE  Will you make haste? 

 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 cheque my erring love, I will; 

 If not, to compass her I'll use my skill. 



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