The Two Gentlemen of Verona

Such an immodest raiment—if shame live In a disguise of love! It is the lesser blot, modesty finds, Women to change their shapes than men their minds.

Thurio, give back, or else embrace thy death; Come not within the measure of my wrath.

Come, Proteus, ’tis your penance but to hear The story of your loves discovered; That done, our day of marriage shall be yours, One feast, one house, one mutual happiness. Exeunt

Being nimble-footed, he hath outrun us, But Moyses and Valerius follow him.

Nay, if the gentle spirit of moving words Can no way change you to a milder form, I’ll woo you like a soldier, at arm’s end, And love you ’gainst the nature of love—force ye.

Therefore I pray you stand not to discourse, But mount you presently and meet with me Upon the rising of the mountain foot That leads toward Mantua, whither they are fled.

Unhappy were you, madam, ere I came; But by my coming I have made you happy.

A thousand more mischances than this one Have learn’d me how to brook this patiently.

How use doth breed a habit in a man! This shadowy desert, unfrequented woods, I better brook than flourishing peopled towns: Here can I sit alone, unseen of any, And to the nightingale’s complaining notes Tune my distresses and record my woes.

I think If I had such a tire, this face of mine Were full as lovely as is this of hers;

She dreams on him that has forgot her love; You dote on her that cares not for your love. ’Tis pity love should be so contrary;

Thou shalt be worshipp’d, kiss’d, lov’d, and ador’d; And were there sense in his idolatry, My substance should be statue in thy stead. I’ll use thee kindly for thy mistress’ sake That us’d me so; or else, by Jove I vow, I should have scratch’d out your unseeing eyes, To make my master out of love with thee.

According to your ladyship’s impose, I am thus early come to know what service It is your pleasure to command me in.

I would have (as one should say) one that takes upon him to be a dog indeed, to be, as it were, a dog at all things.

By heaven, my wrath shall far exceed the love I ever bore my daughter, or thyself. Be gone, I will not hear thy vain excuse, But as thou lov’st thy life, make speed from hence.

Have you long sojourn’d there?

This weak impress of love is as a figure Trenched in ice, which with an hour’s heat Dissolves to water, and doth lose his form.

Where your good word cannot advantage him, Your slander never can endamage him; Therefore the office is indifferent, Being entreated to it by your friend.

Why, that word makes the faults gracious. Well, I’ll have her; and if it be a match, as nothing is impossible—

You must lay lime to tangle her desires By wailful sonnets, whose composed rhymes Should be full-fraught with serviceable vows.

A cloak as long as thine will serve the turn?

Come; answer not; but to it presently, I am impatient of my tarriance.

I fly not death, to fly his deadly doom: Tarry I here, I but attend on death, But fly I hence, I fly away from life.

What light is light, if Silvia be not seen? What joy is joy, if Silvia be not by? Unless it be to think that she is by, And feed upon the shadow of perfection.

But qualify the fire’s extreme rage, Lest it should burn above the bounds of reason.

Dumb jewels often in their silent kind More than quick words do move a woman’s mind.

Gentle Lucetta, fit me with such weeds As may beseem some well-reputed page.

His words are bonds, his oaths are oracles, His love sincere, his thoughts immaculate, His tears pure messengers sent from his heart, His heart as far from fraud as heaven from earth.

O, know’st thou not his looks are my soul’s food? Pity the dearth that I have pined in, By longing for that food so long a time.

That man that hath a tongue, I say is no man, If with his tongue he cannot win a woman.

This very night; for Love is like a child, That longs for every thing that he can come by.

Thou wouldst as soon go kindle fire with snow As seek to quench the fire of love with words.

At first I did adore a twinkling star, But now I worship a celestial sun.

Belike that now she hath enfranchis’d them Upon some other pawn for fealty.

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.

I have done penance for contemning Love, 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 chas’d sleep from my enthralled eyes, And made them watchers of mine own heart’s sorrow.

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.

Love, lend me wings to make my purpose swift, As thou hast lent me wit to plot this drift.

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.

That makes me reasonless, to reason thus?

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.

Too low a mistress for so high a servant.

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.

His years but young, but his experience old; His head unmellowed, but his judgment ripe; And in a word (for far behind his worth Comes all the praises that I now bestow), He is complete in feature and in mind With all good grace to grace a gentleman.

The tide is now—nay, not thy tide of tears, That tide will stay me longer than I should. Julia, farewell!

What, gone without a word? Ay, so true love should do: it cannot speak, For truth hath better deeds than words to grace it.

Why, man, if the river were dry, I am able to fill it with my tears; if the wind were down, I could drive the boat with my sighs.

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?

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.

Now trust me, madam, it came hardly off; For being ignorant to whom it goes, I writ at random, very doubtfully.