THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA.' ACT I. SCENE 1.-Verona. An open place in the city. Enter VALENTINE and PROTEUS. Val. Cease to persuade, my loving Proteus:2 Home-keeping youths have ever homely wits. Were't not affection chains thy tender days To the sweet glances of thy honour'd love, I rather would entreat thy company To see the wonders of the world abroad, Than, living dully sluggardis'd at home, Wear out thy youth with shapeless idleness. But since thou lov'st, love still, and thrive therein, Even as I would, when I to love begin. Pro. Wilt thou be gone? Sweet Valentine, adieu! Think on thy Proteus, when thou haply see'st Some rare note-worthy object in thy travel: Wish me partaker in thy happiness, Commend thy grievance to my holy prayers, Val. And on a love-book pray for my success? What? Coy looks with heart-sore sighs; one fading moment's mirth When thou dost meet good hap; and in thy danger, With twenty watchful, weary, tedious nights: If ever danger do environ thee, 1. This play was first printed in the 1623 Folio; and is supposed by Malone to have been written somewhere about the year 1591. From its internal evidence of style; its youthful exuberance of romance, of prodigal friendship, of extemporaneous falling in love; its robbers, its adventures, its sudden vicissitudes of story, there can be little doubt of "The TwoGentlemen oF VERONA "having been one of Shakespeare's earliest productions. There has been traced considerable resemblance between portions of its plot and an episode (Felismena) in a Spanish romance ("Diana") translated into English early enough to have met Shakespeare's eye in manuscript, although not published until 1598. As the original romance was very popular in its own country, it is not impossible particulars of its narrative may have reached England, and have become known to Shakespeare when quite a lad; and as he was of those who, once hearing points of a story, make them their own, so he may have conceived this play-even though he may not have written it out-before he left Stratford for London. This would be an argument in favour of a cherished theory of ours, that Shakespeare had certain early plays of his in that some If haply won, perhaps a hapless gain; his head, if not in actual manuscript, when he first went up to town, a young fellow of two-and-twenty, in the year 1586. 2. Proteus. This name is throughout spelt Protheus in the Folio; but it was not unusual formerly to introduce a superfluous h into certain names, as Anthony for Antony. To the fickle, unstable, changeable character thus designated, we have always felt certain propriety in the poet's assigning the name of Proteus ; sea-deity, whose power of changing his shape has become proverbial as a type of changeableness. 3. Bead's-man. One who prays on behalf of another; bead, in Anglo-Saxon, meaning a prayer. The strung or linked grains or small balls, sometimes called a chaplet or rosary, used in the Catholic Church for keeping count when repeating an appointed number of prayers, came to be called 'beads;' and the act'telling one's beads.' Hence the designation of the common ornament known familiarly as 'beads,' 4. Give me not the boots. A proverbial expression equivalent to 'Don't mock me.' "It boots thee not," means 'it avails thee not,' 'is of no advantage to thee.' If lost, why then a grievous labour won; 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 yokèd 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. 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 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, Pro. He after honour hunts, I after love: Enter SPEED. Speed. Twenty to one, then, he is shipp'd already, And I have play'd the sheep' in losing him. Pro. I do. Speed. Why, then, my horns are his horns, whether I wake or sleep. 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 circumstance. 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 master, and my master seeks not me: therefore I am no sheep. Pro. The sheep for fodder follow the shepherd, the shepherd for food follows not the sheep; thou for wages followest thy master, 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. Ay, 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 labour. Pro. Here's too small a pasture for such store of muttons. Speed. If the ground be overcharged, you were best tether her. Pro. Nay, in that you are astray: 'twere best pound you. Speed. Nay, sir, less than a pound shall serve me for carrying your letter. Pro. You mistake; I mean the pound,-a pinfold. Speed. From a pound to a pin? fold it over and over, Speed. Sir Proteus, save you! Saw you my 'Tis threefold too little for carrying a letter to your Speed. 1.10 Pro. Nod, I; why, that's noddy. Speed. You mistook, sir; I say, she did nod; Pro. No, no; you shall have it for bearing the Speed. Well, I perceive I must be fain to bear with you. Pro. Why, sir, how do you bear with me? Speed. Marry, sir, the letter very orderly; having nothing but the word "noddy" for my pains. Pro. Beshrew me, but you have a quick wit. Speed. And yet it cannot overtake your slow purse. I fear my Julia would not deign my lines, SCENE II.-Verona. The garden of JULIA's bouse. Enter JULIA and LUCETTA. Jul. But say, Lucetta, now we are alone, Jul. Of all the fair resort of gentlemen Pro. Come, come, open the matter in brief: According to my shallow simple skill. what said she? Speed. Open your purse, that the money and the Speed. Sir, I could perceive nothing at all from her; no, not so much as a ducat for delivering your letter and being so hard to me that brought your mind, I fear she'll prove as hard to you in telling your mind." Give her no token but stones; for she's as hard as steel. Pro. What, said she nothing? Speed. No, not so much as "Take this for thy pains." To testify your bounty, I thank you, you have testerned me ;12 in requital whereof, henceforth carry your letters yourself: and so, sir, I'll commend you to my master. Pro. Go, go, be gone, to save your ship from Which cannot perish having thee aboard, 10. I. The mode in which 'ay' was formerly often written and printed. This explains the quibble here. 11. In telling your mind. Meaning, 'When you tell her your mind.' 12. Testerned me. That is, 'given me sixpence, or a tester;' originally called a testern, from its being a French coin and bearing a head, teste, or tête. It is worthy of remark, that Speed's flippancy exceeds the licensed pertness of a jester, and degenerates into impertinence when speaking with Proteus; thus subtly conveying the dramatist's intention in the character itself. Had Proteus not been the mean, unworthy man he is, as Jul. What think'st thou of the fair Sir Egla- Luc. As of a knight well-spoken, neat, and fine; Luc. Pardon, dear madam: 'tis a passing shame Should censure 15 thus on lovely gentlemen. Jul. Why not on Proteus, as of all the rest? Luc. Then thus,-of many good I think him best. Jul. Your reason? Luc. I have no other but a woman's reason; I think him so, because I think him so. ful. And wouldst thou have me cast my love on him? Luc. Ay, if you thought your love not cast away. me. Luc. Yet he, of all the rest, I think, best loves ye. gentleman and lover, Speed had not dared to twit him so broadly with his niggard and reluctant recompence, or to speak in such free terms of the lady Proteus addresses. 13. Parle. Talk; from French parler. We have still a form of the word in 'parley.' 14 Sir Eglamour. The gentleman here alluded to is, of course, not the same with his namesake who appears in a subsequent part of the play. We are to suppose the one a Veronese, the other a Milanese. 15. Censure. This word was formerly often used without involving blame or ill-opinion; it merely signified to judge or criticise. Jul. Will you be gone? Luc. That you may ruminate. [Exit. Jul. And yet I would I had o'erlook'd the letter: It were a shame to call her back again, Which they would have the profferer construe, "Ay." Fie, fie, how wayward is this foolish love, 16. Fire. Here pronounced as a dissyllable. It was used either thus or monosyllabically at the pleasure of former writers, according as the need of their rhythm demanded. 17. Broker. Used for a match-maker, a go-between; and sometimes with the utmost degradation and infamy attaching to such agents. 18. What fool is she. A form of phraseology formerly used, where we should now say-'What a fool is she.' 19 Stomach. Here used in the combined sense of 'anger' and 'hunger.' Luc. Nothing concerning me. Jul. Then let it lie for those that it concerns. Luc. Madam, it will not lie where it concerns, Unless it have a false interpreter. Jul. Some love of yours hath writ to you in rhyme. Luc. That I might sing it, madam, to a tune. Give me a note: your ladyship can set.20 Jul. As little by such toys as may be possible. Jul. And why not you? Jul. Let's see your song. I cannot reach so high. [Taking the Letter.] 20. Set. Said, in the sense of setting words to music; taken, in the sense of setting store by, prizing, or valuing. 21. Light o' Love. The name of a then popular song; and more than once alluded to by Shakespeare. 22. Descant. A musical term, signifying what we now call 'a variation.' By "a mean," Lucetta intends to say a tenor voice; and she afterwards plays on the word "base," which applies to a voice of low register, and to a period in the game called 'prison-base,' when one player runs, challenging another to pursue. This introduction of quibbles upon musical terms, |