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.
PRO. 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.
PRO. 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.
THU. And thy advice this night I'll put in practice.
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.

PRO. We'll wait upon your grace till after supper;

And afterward determine our proceedings.

DUKE. Even now about it; I will pardon you. [Exeunt.

ACT IV.

SCENE I-A Forest, near Mantua.

Enter certain Outlaws.

1 OUT. Fellows, stand fast; I see a passenger.

2 OUT. If there be ten, shrink not, but down with 'em.

Enter VALENTINE and SPEED.

3 OUT. Stand, sir, and throw us that you have about

you;

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.

VAL. My friends,—

1 OUT. That's not so, sir; we are your enemies.

2 OUT. Peace! we 'll hear him.

3 OUT. Ay, by my beard, will we; for he is a proper

man!

VAL. 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. 2 OUT. Whither travel you?

VAL. TO Verona.

1 OUT. Whence came you?

VAL. From Milan.

3 OUT. Have you long sojourn’d there?

VAL. Some sixteen months; and longer might have stay'd,

If crooked fortune had not thwarted me.

1 OUT. What, were you banish'd thence?

VAL. I was.

2 OUT. For what offence?

VAL. For that which now torments me to rehearse:

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

But yet I slew him manfully in fight,

Without false vantage, or base treachery.

1 OUT. Why, ne'er repent it, if it were done so:

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

VAL. I was, and held me glad of such a doom.
1 OUT. Have you the tongues?

VAL. My youthful travel therein made me happy;
Or else I often had been miserable.

3 OUT. By the bare scalp of Robin Hood's fat friar,
This fellow were a king for our wild faction!

1 OUT. We'll have him; sirs, a word.
SPEED. Master, be one of them;

It is an honourable kind of thievery.
VAL. Peace, villain!

2 OUT. Tell us this: have you anything to take to?
VAL. Nothing but my fortune.

3 OUT. 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.

2 OUT. And I from Mantua, for a gentleman,
Whom, in my mood, I stabb'd unto the heart.

1 OUT. And I, for such like petty crimes as these.

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

That they may hold excus'd cur lawless lives,
And, partly, seeing you are beautified

With goodly shape; and by your own report
A linguist; and a man of such perfection,

profession. As we do in our quality much want;

See Hamlet 2.2. Barb

2 OUT. 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?

3 OUT. What say'st thou wilt thou be of cur consort? Say, ay, and be the captain of us all:

We'll do thee homage, and be rul'd by thee,

Love thee as our commander, and our king.

1 OUT. But if thou scorn our courtesy, thoi diest.

2 OUT. Thou shalt not live to brag what we have offer'd
VAL. I take your offer, and will live with you;

Provided that you do no outrages

On silly women, or poor passengers.

3 Our. No, we detest such vile base practices.
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.

SCENE II.-Milan. Court of the Palace.
Enter PROTEUS.

PRO. Already have I been false to Valentine,
And now I must be as unjust to Thurio.
Under the colour of commending him,
I have access my own love to prefer;
But Silvia is too fair, too true, too holy,
To be corrupted with my worthless gifts.
When I protest true loyalty to her,

h

She twits me with my falsehood to my friend:
When to her beauty I commend my vows,
She bids me think how I have been forsworn
In breaking faith with Julia whom I lov'd:
And, notwithstanding all her sudden quips,
The least whereof would quell a lover's hope,
Yet, spaniel-like, the more she spurns my love,
The more it grows, and fawneth on her still.

[Exeunt.

But here comes Thurio: now must we to her window.
And give some evening music to her ear.

Enter THURIO and Musicians.

THU. How now, sir Proteus; are you crept before us?
PRO. Ay, gentle Thurio; for you know that love

Will creep in service where it cannot go.

THU. Ay, but I hope, sir, that you love not here.
PRO. Sir, but I do; or else I would be hence.
THU. Who? Silvia?

PRO. Ay, Silvia,-for your sake.

THU. I thank you for your own. Now, gentlemen,

Let 's tune, and to it lustily awhile.

Enter Host, at a distance; and JULIA in boy's clothes. HOST. Now, my young guest! methinks you 're allycholly;

I pray you, why is it?

JUL. Marry, mine host, because I cannot be merry.

HOST. Come, we 'll have you merry: I ll bring you where you shall hear music, and see the gentleman that you asked for. JUL. But shall I hear him speak?

Who is Silvia? what is she,

That all our swains commend her?

Holy, fair, and wise is she,

The heaven such grace did lend her,
That she might admired be.

Is she kind as she is fair?

For beauty lives with kindness:
Love doth to her eyes repair,

To help him of his blindness;
And, being help'd, inhabits there.
Then to Silvia let us sing,

That Silvia is excelling;
She excels each mortal thing,

Upon the dull earth dwelling:
To her let us garlands bring.

HOST How now? are you sadder than you were before?

How do you, man? the music likes you not.

JUL. You mistake; the musician likes me not.

HOST. Why, my pretty youth?

JUL. He plays false, father.

HOST. How? out of tune on the strings?

JUL. Not go; but yet so false that he grieves my very heart-strings.

HOST. You have a quick ear.

JUL. Ay, I would I were deaf! it makes me have a slow heart.

HOST. I perceive you delight not ir music.