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 braggartism 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 seest 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 betrothed. 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 enquire 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 eye, 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 thawed,
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 check my erring love I will,
If not, to compass her I’ll use my skill. Exit
2.5 Enter Speed, and Lance with his dog Crab
SPEED Lance, by mine honesty, welcome to Milan.
LANCE Forswear not thyself, sweet youth, for I am not welcome. I reckon this always, that a man is never undone till he be hanged, nor never welcome to a place till some certain shot be paid and the hostess say ‘Welcome’.
SPEED Come on, you madcap. I’ll to the alehouse with you presently, where, for one shot of five pence, thou shalt have five thousand welcomes. But sirrah, how did thy master part with Madam Julia?
LANCE Marry, after they closed in earnest they parted very fairly in jest.
SPEED But shall she marry him?
LANCE No.
SPEED How then, shall he marry her?
LANCE No, neither.
SPEED What, are they broken?
LANCE No, they are both as whole as a fish.
SPEED Why then, how stands the matter with them?
LANCE Marry, thus: when it stands well with him it stands well with her.
SPEED What an ass art thou! I understand thee not.
LANCE What a block art thou, that thou canst not! My staff understands me.
SPEED What thou sayst?
LANCE Ay, and what I do too. Look thee, I’ll but lean, and my staff under-stands me.
SPEED It stands under thee indeed.
LANCE Why, stand-under and under-stand is all one. SPEED But tell me true, will’t be a match?
LANCE Ask my dog. If he say ‘Ay’, it will. If he say ‘No’, it will. If he shake his tail and say nothing, it will.
SPEED The conclusion is, then, that it will.
LANCE Thou shalt never get such a secret from me but by a parable.
SPEED ‘Tis well that I get it so. But Lance, how sayst thou that my master is become a notable lover?
LANCE I never knew him otherwise.
SPEED Than how?
LANCE A notable lubber, as thou reportest him to be.
SPEED Why, thou whoreson ass, thou mistak’st me.
LANCE Why, fool, I meant not thee, I meant thy master.
SPEED I tell thee my master is become a hot lover.
LANCE Why, I tell thee I care not, though he burn himself in love. If thou wilt, go with me to the alehouse. If not, thou art an Hebrew, a Jew, and not worth the name of a Christian.
SPEED Why?
LANCE Because thou hast not so much charity in thee as to go to the ale with a Christian. Wilt thou go?
SPEED At thy service.
Exeunt
2.6 Enter Proteus