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Pro. We'll both attend upon your ladyship.

[Exeunt Silvia and Thurio.

Val. Now, tell me, how do all from whence you

came?

Pro. Your friends are well, and have them much commended.

Val. And how do yours?

Pro.

I left them all in health.

Val. How does your lady? and how thrives your

love?

Pro. My tales of love were wont to weary you;
I know you joy not in a love-discourse.
Val. Aye, Proteus, but that life is alter'd now:
I have done penance for contemning Love, 130
Whose high imperious thoughts have punish'd

me

With bitter fasts, with penitential groans,

With nightly tears, and daily heart-sore sighs;
For, in revenge of my contempt of love,

Love hath chased sleep from my enthralled

eyes,

And made them watchers of mine own heart's

sorrow.

O gentle Proteus, Love's a mighty lord,
And hath so humbled me, as I confess
There is no woe to his correction,

131. "Whose high imperious thoughts have punished me"; Johnson proposed to read "those" for "whose," as if the "imperious thoughts" are Valentine's and not "Love's"; the word "thoughts" certainly presents a difficulty, being used here probably in the sense of "dispositions of the mind."-I. G.

139. That is, no misery compare to that inflicted by love;-a form of speech not unusual in the old writers: Thus an old ballad:

"There is no comfort in the world

To women that are kind.”—H. N. H,

140

Nor to his service no such joy on earth.
Now no discourse, except it be of love;
Now can I break my fast, dine, sup and sleep,
Upon the very naked name of love.

Pro. Enough; I read your fortune in your eye.
Was this the idol that you worship so?

Val. Even she; and is she not a heavenly saint?
Pro. No; but she is an earthly paragon.
Val. Call her divine.

Pro.

I will not flatter her.

Val. O, flatter me; for love delights in praises.
Pro. When I was sick, you gave me bitter pills; 150
And I must minister the like to you.

Val. Then speak the truth by her; if not divine,
Yet let her be a principality,

Sovereign to all the creatures on the earth.
Pro. Except my mistress.

Val.

Sweet, except not any; Except thou wilt except against my love. Pro. Have I not reason to prefer mine own? Val. And I will help thee to prefer her too:

She shall be dignified with this high honor,To bear my lady's train, lest the base earth 160 Should from her vesture chance to steal a kiss, And, of so great a favor growing proud, Disdain to root the summer-smelling flower, And make rough winter everlastingly. Pro. Why, Valentine, what braggardism is this? Val. Pardon me, Proteus: all I can is nothing

152, 153. A “principality” is an angel of the highest order, and therefore next to divine. "Speak the truth by her," that is, speak the truth of her; an obsolete use of a preposition.-H. N. H.

Pro.

To her, whose worth makes other worthies

nothing;

She is alone.

Then let her alone.

Val. 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 see'st 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.

Pro. But she loves you?

170

Val. Aye, and we are betroth'd: nay, more, our marriage-hour,

180

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. Pro. Go on before; I shall inquire you forth: I must unto the road, to disembark Some necessaries that I needs must use; And then I'll presently attend you.

Val. Will you make haste?

Pro. I will.

190

[Exit Val.

Even as one heat another heat expels,
Or as one nail by strength drive out another,

So the remembrance of my former love
Is by a newer object quite forgotten.
Is it mine, or Valentine's praise,

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200

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 thaw'd;
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,

210

197. "Is it mine, or Valentine's praise"; the first Folio reads, "It is mine, or Valentine's praise"; the later Folios, "Is it mine then, or Valentinean's praise?" Theobald's suggestion, "mine eye," has been generally adopted; "if this were unsatisfactory," the Camb. editors remark, "another guess might be hazarded:—

Is it mine unstaid mind or Valentine's praise."

In the latter case "Valentine's" must be read as a dissyllable; in the former as a quadrisyllable; it is not necessary to read, as has been proposed "Valentino's" or "Valentinus'." Two other ingenious emendations are noteworthy:-"her mien,” “mine eyne," ("thine eyne" occurs as a rhyme in Midsummer Night's Dream, III. ii. 138).— I. G.

202. It was anciently supposed that if a witch made a waxen image of anyone she wished to destroy or torment, and hung it by the fire, as the image wasted away the original would do so too. Hence the allusion in the text.-H. N. H.

210. Dr. Johnson censures the Poet for making Proteus say he has but seen the "picture" of Silvia, when he has just been talking with the lady herself. The great Doctor was not great enough to catch Shakespeare so, and in this case he made a blunder, instead of finding one. Proteus wants to get deeper in love with Silvia, and so

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.

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SCENE V

The same. A street.

Enter Speed and Launce severally.

Speed. Launce! by mine honesty, welcome to
Padua!

Launce. Forswear not thyself, sweet youth;
for I am not welcome. I reckon this al-
ways 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 ale

house with you presently; where, for one 10

resorts to the argument, that the little he has seen of her is as though he had but seen her picture. The figure is not more apt for his purpose than beautiful in itself. Advice, in the two lines above, is used

in the sense of acquaintance.-H. N. H.

II. v. 1; III. i. 81; V. iv. 129. The Cambridge editors have retained the reading of the Folios in these lines, “Padua” in the first passage, and "Verona" in the second and third, "because it is impossible that the words can be a mere printer's, or transcriber's error. These inaccuracies are interesting as showing that Shakespeare had written the whole of the play before he had finally determined where the scene was to be laid"; the scene is in each case undoubtedly Milan (perhaps "Milano," metri causa).—I. G.

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