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Enter Valentine and Proteus.

Val. Cease to persuade, my loving Proteus:
Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits
Were 't not affection chains thy tender days
To the sweet glances of thy honor'd love,
I rather would entreat thy company
To see the wonders of the world abroad,
Than, living dully sluggardized at home,
Wear out thy youth with shapeless idleness.
But since thou lovest, love still, and thrive
therein,

Even as I would, when I to love begin.

10

Pro. Wilt thou be gone? Sweet Valentine, adieu! Think on thy Proteus, when thou haply seest Some rare note-worthy object in thy travel: Wish me partaker in thy happiness,

When thou dost meet good hap; and in thy dan

ger,

If ever danger do environ thee,

Commend thy grievance to my holy prayers,
For I will be thy beadsman, Valentine.

Val. And on a love-book pray for my success?
Pro. Upon some book I love I'll pray for thee. 20
Val. That's on some shallow story of deep love:
How young Leander cross'd the Hellespont.
Pro. That's a deep story of a deeper love;

For he was more than over shoes in love. Val. 'Tis true; for you are over boots in love,

And yet you never swum the Hellespont. Pro. Over the boots? nay, give me not the boots. Val. No, I will not, for it boots thee not.

Pro.

What? Val. To be in love, where scorn is bought with

groans;

18. A "beadsman,” as the word is here used, is one who offers up prayers for another's welfare. Thus we are told that Sir Henry Lee, upon retiring from the office of Champion to Queen Elizabeth, said, "his hands, instead of wielding the lance, should now be held up in prayer for Her Majesty's welfare; and he trusted she would allow him to be her beadsman, now that he had ceased to incur knightly perils in her service." Bead was the Anglo-Saxon word for prayer, and so gave name to the small wooden balls which were used in numbering prayers, and a string of which was called a rosary. Such appears to have been the origin of the name, if not of the thing, a string of beads.-H. N. H.

19. "On a love-book pray for my success"; an allusion to the Roman Catholic custom of placing the beads on the prayer-book, and of counting the beads with the prayers. "The love-book” is in this case to take the place of the prayer-book; some have supposed that Shakespeare is here referring to Marlowe's Hero and Leander, which, however, though entered on the Stationers' Registers in 1593, was not printed till 1598, after which date many references occur to it in contemporary literature.-I. G.

27. A proverbial expression, now disused, signifying, "Don't make a laughing-stock of me." Perhaps deduced from a humorous punishment at harvest-home feasts in Warwickshire.-H. N. H.

Coy looks with heart-sore sighs; one fading

moment's mirth

30

With twenty watchful, weary, tedious nights:
If haply won, perhaps a hapless gain
If lost, why then a grievous labor won
However, but a folly bought with wit,
Or else a wit by folly vanquished.

Pro. So, by your circumstance, you call me fool.
Val. So, by your circumstance, I fear you'll prove.
Pro: 'Tis love you cavil at: I am not Love.
Val. Love is your master, for he masters you:
And he that is so yoked by a fool,

Methinks, should not be chronicled for wise. Pro. Yet writers say, as in the sweetest bud The eating canker dwells, so eating love Inhabits in the finest wits of all.

40

Val. And writers say, as the most forward bud
Is eaten by the canker ere it blow,

Even so by love the young and tender wit
Is turn'd to folly; blasting in the bud,
Losing his verdure even in the prime,
And all the fair effects of future hopes.
But wherefore waste I time to counsel thee,
That art a votary to fond desire?

50

Once more adieu! my father at the road Expects my coming, there to see me shipp'd. Pro. And thither will I bring thee, Valentine. Val. Sweet Proteus, no; now let us take our leave. To Milan let me hear from thee by letters Of thy success in love, and what news else

34. "However." That is, either way; whether "haply won" or "lost."-H. N. H.

Betideth here in absence of thy friend; And I likewise will visit thee with mine. Pro. All happiness bechance to thee in Milan! Val. As much to you at home! and so, farewell.

Pro. He after honor hunts, I after love:

60

[Exit.

He leaves his friends to dignify them more;
I leave myself, my friends, and all, for love.
Thou, Julia, thou hast metamorphosed me,
Made me neglect my studies, lose my time,
War with good counsel, set the world at
nought;

Made wit with musing weak, heart sick with
thought.

Enter Speed.

Speed. Sir Proteus, save you! Saw you my mas

ter?

70

Pro. But now he parted hence, to embark for

Milan.

Speed. Twenty to one, then, he is shipp'd already,
And I have play'd the sheep in losing him.
Pro. Indeed, a sheep doth very often stray,
An if the shepherd be awhile away.

Speed. You conclude that my master is a shepherd, then, and I a sheep?

Pro. I do.

Speed. Why then, my horns are his horns, whether I wake or sleep.

80

73. In Warwickshire, and some other counties, sheep is pronounced ship. Without this explanation the jest, such as it is, might escape the reader.-H. N. H.

Pro. A silly answer, and fitting well a sheep.
Speed. This proves me still a sheep.

Pro. True; and thy master a shepherd.

Speed. Nay, that I can deny by a circum

stance.

Pro. It shall go hard but I'll prove it by another.

Speed. The shepherd seeks the sheep, and not

the sheep the shepherd; but I seek my mas-
ter, and my master seeks not me: therefore 90
I am no sheep.

Pro. The sheep for fodder follow the shep-
herd; the shepherd for food follows not the
sheep: thou for wages followest thy mas-
ter; thy master for wages follows not thee:
therefore thou art a sheep.

Speed. Such another proof will make me cry
'baa.'

Pro. But, dost thou hear? gavest thou my letter
to Julia?
Speed. Aye, sir: I, a lost mutton, gave your
letter to her, a laced mutton, and she, a laced
mutton, gave me, a lost mutton, nothing for
my labor.

100

102. "Laced mutton," we are told, "was so established a term for a courtesan, that a lane in Clerkenwell, much frequented by loose women, was thence called Mutton Lane." Speed apparently understands the person he is talking with, for it is observable that he uses no such language in his speech with Valentine; and the reason of his daring to speak thus respecting Julia is to be found in the nature of Sir Proteus' passion, which, though doubtless characteristic of him, is not very honorable to him.-H. N. H.

A in "laced" was nearly like that in "man"; this was also an affected pronunciation of ŏ. Hence the quibble laced—lost was less forced than it seems.-H. N. H.

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