Array The griffin classics - William Shakespeare - Complete Collection

I’ll be as patient as a gentle stream,

And make a pastime of each weary step,

Till the last step have brought me to my love,

And there I’ll rest, as after much turmoil

A blessed soul doth in Elysium.

Luc.

But in what habit will you go along?

Jul.

Not like a woman, for I would prevent

The loose encounters of lascivious men:

Gentle Lucetta, fit me with such weeds

As may beseem some well-reputed page.

Luc.

Why then your ladyship must cut your hair.

Jul.

No, girl, I’ll knit it up in silken strings,

With twenty odd-conceited true-love knots:

To be fantastic may become a youth

Of greater time than I shall show to be.

Luc.

What fashion, madam, shall I make your breeches?

Jul.

That fits as well as “Tell me, good my lord,

What compass will you wear your farthingale?”

Why, ev’n what fashion thou best likes, Lucetta.

Luc.

You must needs have them with a codpiece, madam.

Jul.

Out, out, Lucetta, that will be ill-favor’d.

Luc.

A round hose, madam, now’s not worth a pin,

Unless you have a codpiece to stick pins on.

Jul.

Lucetta, as thou lov’st me, let me have

What thou think’st meet, and is most mannerly.

But tell me, wench, how will the world repute me

For undertaking so unstaid a journey?

I fear me it will make me scandaliz’d.

Luc.

If you think so, then stay at home and go not.

Jul.

Nay, that I will not.

Luc.

Then never dream on infamy, but go.

If Proteus like your journey when you come,

No matter who’s displeas’d when you are gone:

I fear me he will scarce be pleas’d withal.

Jul.

That is the least, Lucetta, of my fear:

A thousand oaths, an ocean of his tears,

And instances of infinite of love,

Warrant me welcome to my Proteus.

Luc.

All these are servants to deceitful men.

Jul.

Base men, that use them to so base effect!

But truer stars did govern Proteus’ birth:

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.

Luc.

Pray heav’n he prove so when you come to him!

Jul.

Now, as thou lov’st me, do him not that wrong,

To bear a hard opinion of his truth:

Only deserve my love by loving him,

And presently go with me to my chamber,

To take a note of what I stand in need of,

To furnish me upon my longing journey.

All that is mine I leave at thy dispose,

My goods, my lands, my reputation;

Only, in lieu thereof, dispatch me hence.

Come; answer not; but to it presently,

I am impatient of my tarriance.

Exeunt.

¶

Enter Duke, Thurio, Proteus.

Duke.

Sir Thurio, give us leave, I pray, a while,

We have some secrets to confer about.

[Exit Thurio.]

Now tell me, Proteus, what’s your will with me?

Pro.

My gracious lord, that which I would discover

The law of friendship bids me to conceal,

But when I call to mind your gracious favors

Done to me (undeserving as I am),

My duty pricks me on to utter that

Which else no worldly good should draw from me.

Know, worthy prince, Sir Valentine, my friend,

This night intends to steal away your daughter;

Myself am one made privy to the plot.

I know you have determin’d to bestow her

On Thurio, whom your gentle daughter hates,

And should she thus be stol’n away from you,

It would be much vexation to your age.

Thus, for my duty’s sake, I rather chose

To cross my friend in his intended drift,

Than, by concealing it, heap on your head

A pack of sorrows which would press you down,

Being unprevented, to your timeless grave.

Duke.

Proteus, I thank thee for thine honest care,

Which to requite, command me while I live.

This love of theirs myself have often seen,

Haply when they have judg’d me fast asleep,

And oftentimes have purpos’d to forbid

Sir Valentine her company and my court;

But fearing lest my jealous aim might err,

And so, unworthily, disgrace the man

(A rashness that I ever yet have shunn’d),

I gave him gentle looks, thereby to find

That which thyself hast now disclos’d to me.

And that thou mayst perceive my fear of this,

Knowing that tender youth is soon suggested,

I nightly lodge her in an upper tow’r,

The key whereof myself have ever kept;

And thence she cannot be convey’d away.

Pro.

Know, noble lord, they have devis’d a mean

How he her chamber-window will ascend,

And with a corded ladder fetch her down;

For which the youthful lover now is gone,

And this way comes he with it presently,

Where (if it please you) you may intercept him.

But, good my lord, do it so cunningly

That my discovery be not aimed at:

For love of you, not hate unto my friend,

Hath made me publisher of this pretense.

Duke.

Upon mine honor, he shall never know

That I had any light from thee of this.

Pro.

Adieu, my lord, Sir Valentine is coming.

[Exit.]

[Enter] Valentine.

Duke.

Sir Valentine, whither away so fast?

Val.

Please it your Grace, there is a messenger

That stays to bear my letters to my friends,

And I am going to deliver them.

Duke.

Be they of much import?

Val.

The tenure of them doth but signify

My health and happy being at your court.

Duke.

Nay then no matter; stay with me a while;

I am to break with thee of some affairs

That touch me near, wherein thou must be secret.

’Tis not unknown to thee that I have sought

To match my friend Sir Thurio to my daughter.

Val.

I know it well, my lord, and sure the match

Were rich and honorable; besides, the gentleman

Is full of virtue, bounty, worth, and qualities

Beseeming such a wife as your fair daughter.

Cannot your Grace win her to fancy him?

Duke.

No, trust me, she is peevish, sullen, froward,

Proud, disobedient, stubborn, lacking duty,

Neither regarding that she is my child,

Nor fearing me as if I were her father;

And may I say to thee, this pride of hers

(Upon advice) hath drawn my love from her,

And where I thought the remnant of mine age

Should have been cherish’d by her child-like duty,

I now am full resolv’d to take a wife,

And turn her out to who will take her in:

Then let her beauty be her wedding-dow’r,

For me and my possessions she esteems not.

Val.

What would your Grace have me to do in this?

Duke.

There is a lady in [Milano] here

Whom I affect; but she is nice and coy,

And nought esteems my aged eloquence.

Now therefore would I have thee to my tutor

(For long agone I have forgot to court;

Besides, the fashion of the time is chang’d)

How and which way I may bestow myself

To be regarded in her sun-bright eye.

Val.

Win her with gifts, if she respect not words:

Dumb jewels often in their silent kind

More than quick words do move a woman’s mind.