The Two Gentlemen of Verona
Act II, Scene 1
Milan. A room in the Duke’s palace.
- Enter Valentine, Speed.
Speed
1- Sir, your glove.
Valentine
2- Not mine: my gloves are on.
Speed
3- Why then this may be yours—for this is but one.
Valentine
4 - 6- Ha? Let me see; ay, give it me, it’s mine:
- Sweet ornament that decks a thing divine—
- Ah, Silvia, Silvia!
Speed
7- Shouting.
- Madam Silvia! Madam Silvia!
Valentine
8- How now, sirrah?
Speed
9- She is not within hearing, sir.
Valentine
10- Why, sir, who bade you call her?
Speed
11- Your worship, sir, or else I mistook.
Valentine
12- Well—You’ll still be too forward.
Speed
13- And yet I was last chidden for being too slow.
Valentine
14- Go to, sir; tell me, do you know Madam Silvia?
Speed
15- She that your worship loves?
Valentine
16- Why, how know you that I am in love?
Speed
17 - 29- Marry, by these special marks: first, you have learn’d, like
- Sir Proteus, to wreathe your arms, like a malcontent; to
- relish a love-song, like a robin-redbreast; to walk alone,
- like one that had the pestilence; to sigh, like a schoolboy
- that had lost his A B C; to weep, like a young wench that
- had buried her grandam; to fast, like one that takes diet;
- to watch, like one that fears robbing; to speak puling, like
- a beggar at Hallowmas. You were wont, when you laugh’d, to
- crow like a cock; when you walk’d, to walk like one of the
- lions; when you fasted, it was presently after dinner; when
- you look’d sadly, it was for want of money: and now you are
- metamorphis’d with a mistress, that when I look on you, I
- can hardly think you my master.
Valentine
30- Are all these things perceiv’d in me?
Speed
31- They are all perceiv’d without ye.
Valentine
32- Without me? They cannot.
Speed
33 - 37- Without you? Nay, that’s certain; for without you were so
- simple, none else would: but you are so without these
- follies, that these follies are within you, and shine
- through you like the water in an urinal, that not an eye
- that sees you but is a physician to comment on your malady.
Valentine
38- But tell me: dost thou know my lady Silvia?
Speed
39- She that you gaze on so as she sits at supper?
Valentine
40- Hast thou observ’d that? Even she I mean.
Speed
41- Why, sir, I know her not.
Valentine
42 - 43- Dost thou know her by my gazing on her, and yet know’st her
- not?
Speed
44- Is she not hard-favor’d, sir?
Valentine
45- Not so fair, boy, as well-favor’d.
Speed
46- Sir, I know that well enough.
Valentine
47- What dost thou know?
Speed
48- That she is not so fair as (of you) well favor’d.
Valentine
49- I mean that her beauty is exquisite, but her favor infinite.
Speed
50 - 51- That’s because the one is painted, and the other out of all
- count.
Valentine
52- How painted? And how out of count?
Speed
53 - 54- Marry, sir, so painted to make her fair, that no man counts
- of her beauty.
Valentine
55- How esteem’st thou me? I account of her beauty.
Costume design for Silvia
Walford Graham Robertson, circa 1900
Speed
56- You never saw her since she was deform’d.
Valentine
57- How long hath she been deform’d?
Speed
58- Ever since you lov’d her.
Valentine
59 - 60- I have lov’d her ever since I saw her, and still I see her
- beautiful.
Speed
61- If you love her, you cannot see her.
Valentine
62- Why?
Speed
63 - 65- Because Love is blind. O that you had mine eyes, or your own
- eyes had the lights they were wont to have when you chid at
- Sir Proteus for going ungarter’d!
Valentine
66- What should I see then?
Speed
67 - 69- Your own present folly, and her passing deformity: for he,
- being in love, could not see to garter his hose; and you,
- being in love, cannot see to put on your hose.
Valentine
70 - 71- Belike, boy, then you are in love—for last morning you could
- not see to wipe my shoes.
Speed
72 - 74- True, sir; I was in love with my bed. I thank you, you
- swing’d me for my love, which makes me the bolder to chide
- you for yours.
Valentine
75- In conclusion, I stand affected to her.
Speed
76- I would you were set, so your affection would cease.
Valentine
77 - 78- Last night she enjoin’d me to write some lines to one she
- loves.
Speed
79- And have you?
Valentine
80- I have.
Speed
81- Are they not lamely writ?
Valentine
82 - 83- No, boy, but as well as I can do them.
- Enter Silvia.
- Peace, here she comes.
Speed
84 - 85- Aside.
- O excellent motion! O exceeding puppet! Now will he
- interpret to her.
Valentine
86- Madam and mistress, a thousand good morrows.
Speed
87- Aside.
- O, give ye good ev’n! Here’s a million of manners.
Silvia
88- Sir Valentine and servant, to you two thousand.
Speed
89- Aside.
- He should give her interest, and she gives it him.
Valentine
90 - 93- As you enjoin’d me, I have writ your letter
- Unto the secret, nameless friend of yours;
- Which I was much unwilling to proceed in,
- But for my duty to your ladyship.
Silvia
94- I thank you, gentle servant—’tis very clerkly done.
Valentine
95 - 97- Now trust me, madam, it came hardly off;
- For being ignorant to whom it goes,
- I writ at random, very doubtfully.
Silvia
98- Perchance you think too much of so much pains?
Valentine
99 - 101- No, madam; so it stead you, I will write
- (Please you command) a thousand times as much;
- And yet—
Silvia
102 - 105- A pretty period! Well—I guess the sequel;
- And yet I will not name it—and yet I care not—
- And yet take this again—and yet I thank you—
- Meaning henceforth to trouble you no more.
Speed
106- Aside.
- And yet you will; and yet another “yet.”
Valentine
107- What means your ladyship? Do you not like it?
Silvia
108 - 110- Yes, yes; the lines are very quaintly writ,
- But (since unwillingly) take them again.
- Nay, take them.
Ay, ay; you writ them, sir, at my request, - But I will none of them; they are for you.
Silvia refuses Valentine's letter
Henry James Haley, Early 19th century
Valentine
111- Madam, they are for you.
Silvia
112 - 114- Ay, ay; you writ them, sir, at my request,
- But I will none of them; they are for you.
- I would have had them writ more movingly.
Valentine
115- Please you, I’ll write your ladyship another.
Silvia
116 - 117- And when it’s writ, for my sake read it over,
- And if it please you, so; if not, why, so.
Valentine
118- If it please me, madam, what then?
Silvia
119 - 120- Why, if it please you, take it for your labor;
- And so good morrow, servant.
- Exit Silvia.
Speed
121 - 126- O jest unseen, inscrutable; invisible,
- As a nose on a man’s face, or a weathercock on a steeple!
- My master sues to her; and she hath taught her suitor,
- He being her pupil, to become her tutor.
- O excellent device, was there ever heard a better,
- That my master being scribe, to himself should write the letter?
Valentine
127- How now, sir? What are you reasoning with yourself?
Speed
128- Nay, I was rhyming; ’tis you that have the reason.
Valentine
129- To do what?
Speed
130- To be a spokesman from Madam Silvia.
Valentine
131- To whom?
Speed
132- To yourself; why, she woos you by a figure.
Valentine
133- What figure?
Speed
134- By a letter, I should say.
Valentine
135- Why, she hath not writ to me?
Speed
136 - 137- What need she, when she hath made you write to yourself?
- Why, do you not perceive the jest?
Valentine
138- No, believe me.
Speed
139 - 140- No believing you indeed, sir: but did you perceive her
- earnest?
Valentine
141- She gave me none, except an angry word.
Speed
142- Why, she hath given you a letter.
Valentine
143- That’s the letter I writ to her friend.
Speed
144- And that letter hath she deliver’d, and there an end.
Valentine
145- I would it were no worse.
Speed
146 - 152- I’ll warrant you, ’tis as well:
- “For often have you writ to her; and she in modesty,
- Or else for want of idle time, could not again reply;
- Or fearing else some messenger, that might her mind discover,
- Herself hath taught her love himself to write unto her lover.”
- All this I speak in print, for in print I found it. Why muse
- you, sir? ’Tis dinner-time.
Valentine
153- I have din’d.
Speed
154 - 157- Ay, but hearken, sir; though the chameleon Love can feed on
- the air, I am one that am nourish’d by my victuals, and
- would fain have meat. O, be not like your mistress—be mov’d,
- be mov’d.
- Exeunt.
Valentine, Speed and Silvia
Henry Perronet Briggs, unknown date