TWO GENTLEMEN

OF

VERONA.

ACT I. SCENE I.

An open place in Verona.

Enter VALENTINE and PROTEUS.

VAL. Cease to persuade, my loving Proteus; Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits:" Wer'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 sluggardiz'd at home, Wear out thy youth with shapeless idleness." But, since thou lov'st, love still, and thrive therein, Even as I would, when I to love begin.

PRO. Wilt thou be gone? Sweet Valentine, adieu! Think on thy Proteus, when thou, haply, seest

'Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits:] Milton has the same play on words, in his Masque at Ludlow Castle:

"It is for homely features to keep home,

"They had their name thence." STEEVENS.

shapeless idleness.] The expression is fine, as implying that idleness prevents the giving any form or character to the manners. WARBURTON.

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 bead's-man, Valentine.

VAL. And on a love-book pray for my success. PRO. Upon some book I love, I'll pray for thee. VAL. That's on some shallow story of deep love, How young Leander cross'd the Hellespont."

PRO. That's a deep story of a deeper love; For he was more than over shoes in love.

VAL. 'Tis true; for you are over boots in love, And yet you never swam the Hellespont.

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PRO. Over the boots? nay, give me not the boots.

some shallow story of deep love,

How young Leander cross'd the Hellespont.] The poem of Muscus, entitled HERO AND LEANDER, is meant. Marlowe's translation of this piece was entered on the Stationers' books, Sept. 18, 1593, and the first two Sestiads of it, with a small part of the third, (which was all that he had finished,) were printed, I imagine, in that, or the following year. See Blount's dedication to the edition of 1637, by which it appears that it was originally published in an imperfect state. It was extremely popular, and deservedly so, many of Marlowe's lines being as smooth as those of Dryden. Our author has quoted one of them in As you like it. He had probably read this poem recently before he wrote the present play; for he again alludes to it in the third act: "Why then a ladder, quaintly made of cords,

"Would serve to scale another Hero's tower,
"So bold Leander would adventure it."

Since this note was written, I have seen the edition of Marlowe's Hero and Leander, printed in 1598. It contains the first two Sestiads only. The remainder was added by Chapman. MALONE.

nay, give me not the boots.] A proverbial expression, though now disused, signifying, don't make a laughing stock of me; don't play with me. The French have a phrase, Bailler

VAL. No, I'll not, for it boots thee not.

PRO.

VAL.

What?

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 won, perhaps, a hapless gain;

If lost, why then a grievous labour won;

foin en corne; which Cotgrave thus interprets, To give one the boots; to sell him a bargain. THEOBALD.

Perhaps this expression took its origin from a sport the countrypeople in Warwickshire use at their harvest-home, where one sits as judge to try misdemeanors committed in harvest, and the punishment for the men is to be laid on a bench, and slapped on the breech with a pair of boots. This they call giving them the boots. I meet with the same expression in the old comedy called Mother Bombie, by Lyly:

"What do you give mee the boots?"

Again, in The Weakest goes to the Wall, a comedy, 1618: Nor your fat bacon can carry it away, if you offer us the boots."

In

The boots, however, were an ancient engine of torture. MS. Harl. 6999-48, Mr. T. Randolph writes to Lord Hunsdon, &c. and mentions, in the P. S. to his letter, that George Flecke had yesterday night the boots, and is said to have confessed that the E. of Morton was privy to the poisoning the E. of Athol, 16 March, 1580: and in another letter, March 18, 1580: "—that the Laird of Whittingham had the boots, but without torment confess'd," &c. STEEVENS.

The boot was an instrument of torture used only in Scotland. Bishop Burnet in The History of his own Times, Vol. I. 332, edit. 1754, mentions one Maccael, a preacher, who, being suspected of treasonable practices, underwent the punishment so late as 1666: "He was put to the torture, which, in Scotland, they call the boots; for they put a pair of iron boots close on the leg, and drive wedges between these and the leg. The common torture was only to drive these in the calf of the leg: but I have been told they were sometimes driven upon the shin bone."

REED.

However, but a folly bought with wit,
Or else a wit by folly vanquished.

PRO. So, by your circumstance, you call me fool. VAL. So, by your circumstance, I fear, you'll prove. PRO. 'Tis love you cavil at; I am not Love. VAL. Love is your master, for he masters you; And he that is so yoked by a fool,

Methinks should not be chronicled for wise.

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PRO. Yet writers say, As in the sweetest bud The eating canker dwells, so eating love Inhabits in the finest wits of all.

VAL. And writers say, As the most forward bud Is eaten by the canker ere it blow,

Even so by love the young and tender wit
Is turn'd to folly; blasting in the bud,
Losing his verdure even in the prime,
And all the fair effects of future hopes.
But wherefore waste I time to counsel thee,
That art a votary to fond desire?

Once more adieu: my father at the road
Expects my coming, there to see me shipp❜d.

PRO. And thither will I bring thee, Valentine. VAL. Sweet Proteus, no; now let us take our leave.

At Milan, let me hear from thee by letters,

"However, but a folly &c.] This love will end in a foolish action, to produce which you are long to spend your wit, or it will end in the loss of your wit, which will be overpowered by the folly of love. JOHNSON.

As in the sweetest bud

The eating canker dwells,] So, in our author's 70th Sonnet: "For canker vice the sweetest buds doth love."

MALONE,

At Milan,] The old copy has-To Milan, The emendation

Of thy success in love, and what news else
Betideth here in absence of thy friend;
And I likewise will visit thee with mine.
PRO. All happiness bechance to thee in Milan!
VAL. As much to you at home! and so, farewell.
[Exit VALENTINE.

PRO. He after honour hunts, I after love:
He leaves his friends, to dignify them more;
I leave myself, my friends, and all for love.
Thou, Julia, thou hast metamorphos'd me;
Made me neglect my studies, lose my time,
War with good counsel, set the world at nought;
Made wit with musing weak,' heart sick with
thought.

Enter SPEED.2

SPEED. Sir Proteus, save you: Saw you my master?

was made by the editor of the second folio. The first copy however may be right. "To Milan"-may here be intended as an imperfect sentence. I am now bound for Milan.

Or the construction intended may have been-Let me hear from thee by letters to Milan, i. e. addressed to me there.

MALONE.

Made wit with musing weak,] For made read make. Thou Julia, hast made me war with good counsel, and make wit weak with musing. JOHNSON.

Surely there is no need of emendation. It is Julia who "has already made wit weak with musing," &c. STEEVENS.

This whole scene, like many others in these plays (some of which, I believe, were written by Shakspeare, and others interpolated by the players,) is composed of the lowest and most triAling conceits, to be accounted for only from the gross taste of the age he lived in; Populo ut placerent. I wish I had authority to leave them out; but I have done all I could, set a mark of reprobation upon them throughout this edition. POPE.

..That this, like many other scenes, is mean and vulgar, will be