SCENE I. The frontiers of Mantua. A forest. Two Gentlemen of Verona  Shakespeare homepage  |  Two Gentlemen of Verona  | Act 4, Scene 1 

 Previous scene  |  Next scene  SCENE I. The frontiers of Mantua. A forest. 

 Enter certain Outlaws  First Outlaw  Fellows, stand fast; I see a passenger. 

 Second Outlaw  If there be ten, shrink not, but down with 'em. 



 Enter VALENTINE and SPEED  Third Outlaw  Stand, sir, and throw us that you have about ye: 

 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. 

 VALENTINE  My friends,-- 

 First Outlaw  That's not so, sir: we are your enemies. 

 Second Outlaw  Peace! we'll hear him. 

 Third Outlaw  Ay, by my beard, will we, for he's a proper man. 

 VALENTINE  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. 

 Second Outlaw  Whither travel you? 

 VALENTINE  To Verona. 

 First Outlaw  Whence came you? 

 VALENTINE  From Milan. 

 Third Outlaw  Have you long sojourned there? 

 VALENTINE  Some sixteen months, and longer might have stay'd, 

 If crooked fortune had not thwarted me. 

 First Outlaw  What, were you banish'd thence? 

 VALENTINE  I was. 

 Second Outlaw  For what offence? 

 VALENTINE  For that which now torments me to rehearse: 

 I kill'd a man, whose death I much repent; 

 Bu t yet I slew him manfully in fight, 

 Without false vantage or base treachery. 

 First Outlaw  Why, ne'er repent it, if it were done so. 

 But were you banish'd for so small a fault? 

 VALENTINE  I was, and held me glad of such a doom. 

 Second Outlaw  Have you the tongues? 

 VALENTINE  My youthful travel therein made me happy, 

 Or else I often had been miserable. 

 Third Outlaw  By the bare scalp of Robin Hood's fat friar, 

 This fellow were a king for our wild faction! 

 First Outlaw  We'll have him. Sirs, a word. 

 SPEED  Master, be one of them; it's an honourable kind of thievery. 

 VALENTINE  Peace, villain! 

 Second Outlaw  Tell us this: have you any thing to take to? 

 VALENTINE  Nothing but my fortune. 

 Third Outlaw  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 banished 

 For practising to steal away a lady, 

 An heir, and near allied unto the duke. 

 Second Outlaw  And I from Mantua, for a gentleman, 

 Who, in my mood, I stabb'd unto the heart. 

 First Outlaw  And I for such like petty crimes as these, 

 But to the purpose--for we cite our faults, 

 That they may hold excus'd 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-- 

 Second Outlaw  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? 

 Third Outlaw  What say'st thou? wilt thou be of our consort? 

 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. 

 First Outlaw  But if thou scorn our courtesy, thou diest. 

 Second Outlaw  Thou shalt not live to brag what we have offer'd. 

 VALENTINE  I take your offer and will live with you, 

 Provided that you do no outrages 

 On silly women or poor passengers. 

 Third Outlaw  No, we detest such vile base practises. 

 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. 



 Exeunt  Shakespeare homepage  |  Two Gentlemen of Verona  | Act 4, Scene 1 

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