Home
This site uses cookies
log out

The Two Gentlemen of Verona: Act II, Scene 4

Sign in with Google to add your annotations.

The Two Gentlemen of Verona
Act II, Scene 4

Milan. A room in the Duke’s palace.

Costume design for Thurio

Costume design for Thurio

Walford Graham Robertson, circa 1900

  1. Enter Valentine, Silvia, Thurio, Speed.

Silvia

1
  1. Servant!

Valentine

2
  1. Mistress?

Speed

3
  1. Master, Sir Thurio frowns on you.

Valentine

4
  1. Ay, boy, it’s for love.

Speed

5
  1. Not of you.

Valentine

6
  1. Of my mistress then.

Speed

7
  1. ’Twere good you knock’d him.
  1. Exit.

Silvia

8
  1. Servant, you are sad.

Valentine

9
  1. Indeed, madam, I seem so.

Thurio

10
  1. Seem you that you are not?

Valentine

11
  1. Happ’ly I do.

Thurio

12
  1. So do counterfeits.

Valentine

13
  1. So do you.

Thurio

14
  1. What seem I that I am not?

Valentine

15
  1. Wise.

Thurio

16
  1. What instance of the contrary?

Valentine

17
  1. Your folly.

Thurio

18
  1. And how quote you my folly?

Valentine

19
  1. I quote it in your jerkin.

Thurio

20
  1. My jerkin is a doublet.

Valentine

21
  1. Well then I’ll double your folly.

Thurio

22
  1. How?

Silvia

23
  1. What, angry, Sir Thurio? Do you change color?

Valentine

24
  1. Give him leave, madam, he is a kind of chameleon.

Thurio

25 - 26
  1. That hath more mind to feed on your blood than live in your
  2. air.

Valentine

27
  1. You have said, sir.

Thurio

28
  1. Ay, sir, and done too—for this time.

Valentine

29
  1. I know it well, sir; you always end ere you begin.

Silvia

30
  1. A fine volley of words, gentlemen, and quickly shot off.

Valentine

31
  1. ’Tis indeed, madam, we thank the giver.

Silvia

32
  1. Who is that, servant?

Valentine

33 - 35
  1. Yourself, sweet lady, for you gave the fire. Sir Thurio
  2. borrows his wit from your ladyship’s looks, and spends what
  3. he borrows kindly in your company.

Thurio

36 - 37
  1. Sir, if you spend word for word with me, I shall make your
  2. wit bankrupt.

Valentine

38 - 41
  1. I know it well, sir; you have an exchequer of words and, I
  2. think, no other treasure to give your followers; for it
  3. appears by their bare liveries that they live by your bare
  4. words.

Silvia

42
  1. No more, gentlemen, no more; here comes my father.
  1. Enter Duke.

Duke of Milan

43 - 46
  1. Now, daughter Silvia, you are hard beset.
  2. Sir Valentine, your father is in good health:
  3. What say you to a letter from your friends
  4. Of much good news?

Valentine

47 - 48
  1.                    My lord, I will be thankful
  2. To any happy messenger from thence.

Duke of Milan

49
  1. Know ye Don Antonio, your countryman?

Valentine

50 - 52
  1. Ay, my good lord, I know the gentleman
  2. To be of worth and worthy estimation,
  3. And not without desert so well reputed.

Duke of Milan

53
  1. Hath he not a son?

Valentine

54 - 55
  1. Ay, my good lord, a son that well deserves
  2. The honor and regard of such a father.

What, angry, Sir Thurio? Do you change color?

John Masey Wright, circa 1900

Duke of Milan

56
  1. You know him well?

Valentine

57 - 69
  1. I knew him as myself: for from our infancy
  2. We have convers’d and spent our hours together,
  3. And though myself have been an idle truant,
  4. Omitting the sweet benefit of time
  5. To clothe mine age with angel-like perfection,
  6. Yet hath Sir Proteus (for that’s his name)
  7. Made use and fair advantage of his days;
  8. His years but young, but his experience old;
  9. His head unmellowed, but his judgment ripe;
  10. And in a word (for far behind his worth
  11. Comes all the praises that I now bestow),
  12. He is complete in feature and in mind
  13. With all good grace to grace a gentleman.

Duke of Milan

70 - 76
  1. Beshrew me, sir, but if he make this good,
  2. He is as worthy for an empress’ love
  3. As meet to be an emperor’s counsellor.
  4. Well, sir—this gentleman is come to me
  5. With commendation from great potentates,
  6. And here he means to spend his time a while.
  7. I think ’tis no unwelcome news to you.

Valentine

77
  1. Should I have wish’d a thing, it had been he.

Duke of Milan

78 - 81
  1. Welcome him then according to his worth—
  2. Silvia, I speak to you, and you, Sir Thurio;
  3. For Valentine, I need not cite him to it.
  4. I will send him hither to you presently.
  1. Exit.

Valentine

82 - 84
  1. This is the gentleman I told your ladyship
  2. Had come along with me, but that his mistress
  3. Did hold his eyes lock’d in her crystal looks.

Silvia

85 - 86
  1. Belike that now she hath enfranchis’d them
  2. Upon some other pawn for fealty.

Valentine

87
  1. Nay sure, I think she holds them prisoners still.

Silvia

88 - 89
  1. Nay then he should be blind, and being blind,
  2. How could he see his way to seek out you?

Valentine

90
  1. Why, lady, Love hath twenty pair of eyes.

Thurio

91
  1. They say that Love hath not an eye at all.

Valentine

92 - 93
  1. To see such lovers, Thurio, as yourself:
  2. Upon a homely object Love can wink.

Silvia

94
  1. Have done, have done; here comes the gentleman.
  1. Exit Thurio.
  1. Enter Proteus.

Valentine

95 - 96
  1. Welcome, dear Proteus! Mistress, I beseech you
  2. Confirm his welcome with some special favor.

Silvia

97 - 98
  1. His worth is warrant for his welcome hither,
  2. If this be he you oft have wish’d to hear from.

Valentine

99 - 100
  1. Mistress, it is: sweet lady, entertain him
  2. To be my fellow-servant to your ladyship.

Silvia

101
  1. Too low a mistress for so high a servant.

Proteus

102 - 103
  1. Not so, sweet lady, but too mean a servant
  2. To have a look of such a worthy mistress.

Valentine

104 - 105
  1. Leave off discourse of disability.
  2. Sweet lady, entertain him for your servant.

Proteus

106
  1. My duty will I boast of, nothing else.

Silvia

107 - 108
  1. And duty never yet did want his meed.
  2. Servant, you are welcome to a worthless mistress.

Proteus

109
  1. I’ll die on him that says so but yourself.

Silvia

110
  1. That you are welcome?

Proteus

111
  1.                       That you are worthless.
  1. Enter Thurio.

Alfred Elmore, 1857

Thurio

112
  1. Madam, my lord your father would speak with you.

Silvia

113 - 116
  1. I wait upon his pleasure. Come, Sir Thurio,
  2. Go with me. Once more, new servant, welcome;
  3. I’ll leave you to confer of home affairs;
  4. When you have done, we look to hear from you.

Proteus

117
  1. We’ll both attend upon your ladyship.
  1. Exeunt Silvia and Thurio.

Valentine

118
  1. Now tell me: how do all from whence you came?

Proteus

119
  1. Your friends are well and have them much commended.

Valentine

120
  1. And how do yours?

Proteus

121
  1.                   I left them all in health.

Valentine

122
  1. How does your lady, and how thrives your love?

Proteus

123 - 124
  1. My tales of love were wont to weary you;
  2. I know you joy not in a love-discourse.

Valentine

125 - 139
  1. Ay, Proteus, but that life is alter’d now:
  2. I have done penance for contemning Love,
  3. Whose high imperious thoughts have punish’d me
  4. With bitter fasts, with penitential groans,
  5. With nightly tears, and daily heart-sore sighs,
  6. For in revenge of my contempt of love,
  7. Love hath chas’d sleep from my enthralled eyes,
  8. And made them watchers of mine own heart’s sorrow.
  9. O gentle Proteus, Love’s a mighty lord,
  10. And hath so humbled me as I confess
  11. There is no woe to his correction,
  12. Nor to his service no such joy on earth:
  13. Now no discourse, except it be of love;
  14. Now can I break my fast, dine, sup, and sleep,
  15. Upon the very naked name of love.

Proteus

140 - 141
  1. Enough; I read your fortune in your eye.
  2. Was this the idol that you worship so?

Valentine

142
  1. Even she; and is she not a heavenly saint?

Proteus

143
  1. No; but she is an earthly paragon.

Valentine

144
  1. Call her divine.

Proteus

145
  1.                  I will not flatter her.

Valentine

146
  1. O, flatter me; for love delights in praises.

Proteus

147 - 148
  1. When I was sick, you gave me bitter pills,
  2. And I must minister the like to you.

Valentine

149 - 151
  1. Then speak the truth by her; if not divine,
  2. Yet let her be a principality,
  3. Sovereign to all the creatures on the earth.

Proteus

152
  1. Except my mistress.

Valentine

153 - 154
  1.                     Sweet, except not any,
  2. Except thou wilt except against my love.

Proteus

155
  1. Have I not reason to prefer mine own?

Valentine

156 - 162
  1. And I will help thee to prefer her too:
  2. She shall be dignified with this high honor—
  3. To bear my lady’s train, lest the base earth
  4. Should from her vesture chance to steal a kiss,
  5. And of so great a favor growing proud,
  6. Disdain to root the summer-swelling flow’r,
  7. And make rough winter everlastingly.

Proteus

163
  1. Why, Valentine, what braggadism is this?

Valentine

164 - 166
  1. Pardon me, Proteus, all I can is nothing
  2. To her, whose worth makes other worthies nothing:
  3. She is alone.

Proteus

167
  1.               Then let her alone.
Proteus Meets Sylvia

Proteus Meets Sylvia

Edwin Austin Abbey, 1891

Valentine

168 - 177
  1. Not for the world. Why, man, she is mine own,
  2. And I as rich in having such a jewel
  3. As twenty seas, if all their sand were pearl,
  4. The water nectar, and the rocks pure gold.
  5. Forgive me, that I do not dream on thee,
  6. Because thou seest me dote upon my love.
  7. My foolish rival, that her father likes
  8. (Only for his possessions are so huge),
  9. Is gone with her along, and I must after,
  10. For love, thou know’st, is full of jealousy.

Proteus

178
  1. But she loves you?

Valentine

179 - 185
  1. Ay, and we are betroth’d: nay more, our marriage hour,
  2. With all the cunning manner of our flight,
  3. Determin’d of—how I must climb her window,
  4. The ladder made of cords, and all the means
  5. Plotted and ’greed on for my happiness.
  6. Good Proteus, go with me to my chamber,
  7. In these affairs to aid me with thy counsel.

Proteus

186 - 189
  1. Go on before; I shall inquire you forth.
  2. I must unto the road, to disembark
  3. Some necessaries that I needs must use,
  4. And then I’ll presently attend you.

Valentine

190
  1. Will you make haste?

Proteus

191 - 214
  1. I will.
  2. Exit Valentine.
  3. Even as one heat another heat expels,
  4. Or as one nail by strength drives out another,
  5. So the remembrance of my former love
  6. Is by a newer object quite forgotten.
  7. Is it mine eye, or Valentinus’ praise,
  8. Her true perfection, or my false transgression,
  9. That makes me reasonless, to reason thus?
  10. She is fair; and so is Julia that I love
  11. (That I did love, for now my love is thaw’d,
  12. Which like a waxen image ’gainst a fire
  13. Bears no impression of the thing it was).
  14. Methinks my zeal to Valentine is cold,
  15. And that I love him not as I was wont:
  16. O, but I love his lady too too much,
  17. And that’s the reason I love him so little.
  18. How shall I dote on her with more advice,
  19. That thus without advice begin to love her?
  20. ’Tis but her picture I have yet beheld,
  21. And that hath dazzled my reason’s light;
  22. But when I look on her perfections,
  23. There is no reason but I shall be blind.
  24. If I can check my erring love, I will;
  25. If not, to compass her I’ll use my skill.
  1. Exit.
Valentine

Valentine

From costume illustrations for the Daly productions of Two Gentlemen of Verona

Walford Graham Robertson, circa 1900

© 2021 Unotate.com • contact • privacy policy • Creative Commons text from PlayShakespeare.com • All illustrations are public domain or Creative Commons