Laun. A special virtue; for then she need not be washed and scoured.

Speed. Item, She can spin.

Laun. Then may I set the world on wheels, when she can spin for her living.

Speed. Item, She hath many nameless virtues. Laun. That's as much as to say, bastard virtues; that, indeed, know not their fathers, and therefore

have no names.

Speed. Here follow her vices.

Laun. Close at the heels of her virtues.

Speed. Item, She is not to be kissed fasting, in respect of her breath.

Laun. Well, that fault may be mended with a breakfast: Read on.

Speed. Item, She hath a sweet mouth.'

Laun. That makes amends for her sour breath.
Speed. Item, She doth talk in her sleep.

Speed. Why did'st not tell me sooner? 'pox of your love-letters!

[Exit. Laun. Now will he be swinged for reading my letter: An unmannerly slave, that will thrust himself into secrets! I'll after, to rejoice in the boy's correction.

SCENE II. The same. A Room in the Duke's Palace. Enter DUKE and THURIO; PROTEUS behind.

Duke. Sir Thurio, fear not, but that she will love you,

Now Valentine is banished from her sight.

Thu. Since his exile she has despis'd me most,
Forsworn my company, and rail'd at me,
That I am desperate of obtaining her.

Duke. This weak impress of love is as a figure

Laun. It's no matter for that, so she sleep not in Trench'd in ice; which with an hour's heat

her talk.

Speed. Item, She is slow in words.

Laun. O villain, that set this down among her vices! To be slow in words, is a woman's only virtue: I pray thee, out with't; and place it for

her chief virtue.

Speed. Item, She is proud.

Laun. Out with that too; it was Eve's legacy, and cannot be ta'en from her.

Speed. Item, She hath no teeth.

Dissolves to water, and doth lose his form.
A little time will melt her frozen thoughts,
And worthless Valentine shall be forgot.
How now, Sir Proteus? Is your countryman,
According to our proclamation, gone?
Pro. Gone, my good lord.

Duke. My daughter takes his going grievously.
Pro. A little time, my lord, will kill that grief.
Duke. So I believe; but Thurio thinks not sq.--
Proteus, the good conceit I hold of thee,

Laun. I care not for that neither, because I love (For thou hast shown some sign of good desert,)

crusts.

Speed. Item, She is curst.
Laun. Well, the best is, she hath no teeth to bite.
Speed. Item, She will often praise her liquor.
Laun. If her liquor be good, she shall: if she
will not, I will; for good things should be praised.
Speed. Item, She is too liberal.2

Laun. Of her tongue she cannot; for that's writ down she is slow of: of her purse she shall not; for that I'll keep shut; now of another thing she may; and that cannot Í help. Well, proceed. Speed. Item, She hath more hair than wit,3 and more faults than hairs, and more wealth than faults. Laun. Stop there; I'll have her: she was mine, and not mine, twice or thrice in that last article: Rehearse that once more.

Speed. Item, She hath more hair than wit.Laun. More hair than wit,-it may be; I'll prove it: The cover of the salt hides the salt, and therefore it is more than the salt; the hair that covers the wit, is more than the wit; for the greater hides the less. What's next?

Speed. And more faults than hairs.—
Laun. That's monstrous: O, that that were out!
Speed. And more wealth than faults.

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

Speed. What then?

Laun. Why, then will I tell thee, that thy master stays for thee at the north-gate. Speed. For me?

Makes me the better to confer with thee.
Pro. Longer than I prove loyal to your grace,
Let me not live to look upon your grace.

Duke. Thou know'st, how willingly I would effect
The match between Sir Thurio and my daughter.
Pro. I do, my lord.

Duke. And also, I think, thou art not ignorant
How she opposes her against my will.

Pro. She did, my lord, when Valentine was here.
What might we do, to make the girl forget
Duke. Ay, and perversely she persevers so.
The love of Valentine, and love Sir Thurio?

Pro. The best way is to slander Valentine
Three things that women highly hold in hate.
With falsehood, cowardice, and poor descent;

Duke. Ay, but she'll think that it is spoke in hate.
Pro. Ay, if his enemy deliver it:

Therefore it must, with circumstance," be spoken
By one, whom she esteemeth as his friend.

Duke. Then you must undertake to slander him.
Tis an ill office for a gentleman;
Pro. And that, my lord, I shall be loth to do;

Especially against his very friend.

Duke. Where your good word cannot advantage
him,

Therefore the office is indifferent,
Your slander never can endamage him;
Being entreated to it by your friend.

Pro. You have prevail'd, my lord: if I can do it,
By aught that I can speak in his dispraise,
She shall not long continue love to him.
But say, this weed her love from Valentine,

Laun. For thee? ay; who art thou? he hath It follows not that she will love Sir Thurio.

staid for a better man than thee. Speed. And must I go to him?

Laun. Thou must run to him, for thou hast staid so long, that going will scarce serve the turn.

1 Speed uses the term a sweet mouth in the sense of a sweet tooth; but Launce chooses to understand it in the literal and lauditory sense. Cotgrave renders “Friand, A sweet-lips, daintie-mouthed, sweet-toothed," &c.

2 Liberal is licentious, free, frank, beyond honesty or decency. Thus in Othello, Desdemonda says of Iago: "is he not a most profane and liberal counsel. lor."

3 This was an old familiar proverb, of which Steevens has given many examples. I will add one from Florio:"A tisty-tosty wag feather, more haire than wit."

Thu. Therefore, as you unwind her love from him,
Lest it should ravel, and be good to none,
You must provide to bottom it on me :
Which must be done, by praising me as much
As
you in worth dispraise Sir Valentine.

There was but one on the dinner table, which was placed near the top, and those who sat below it were, for the most part, of inferior condition to those who sat above it.

5 Gracious was sometimes used for favoured, countenanced, like the Italian Gratiato, v. As you Like It. Act i. Sc. 2.

6 i. e. cut, carved; from the Fr. trancher. 7 i. e. with the addition of such incidental particulars as may induce belief.

8 Very, that is, true; from the Lat. verus. Massinger calls one of his plays "A Very Woman."

9 As you unwind her love from him, make me the 4 The ancient English salt-cellar was very different bottom on which you wind it. A bottom is the housefrom the modern, being a large piece of plate, generally wife's term for a ball of thread wound upon a central much ornamented, with a cover to keep the salt clean. I body.

Duke. And, Proteus, we dare trust you in this kind; | Of which if you should here disfurnish me,
Because we know, on Valentine's report,

You are already love's firm votary,

And cannot soon revolt and change your mind.
Upon this warrant shall you have access,
Where you with Silvia may confer at large;
For she is lumpish, heavy, melancholy,

And, for your friend's sake, will be glad of you;
Where you may temper her, by your persuasion,
To hate young Valentine, and love my friend.

Pro. Ás much as I can do, I will effect:-
But you, Sir Thurio, are not sharp enough;
You must lay lime,' to tangle her desires,
By wailful sonnets, whose composed rhymes,
Should be full fraught with serviceable vows.
Duke. Ay, much is the force of heaven-bred poesy.
Pro. Say, that upon the altar of her beauty
You sacrifice your tears, your sighs, your heart:
Write till your ink be dry; and with your tears
Moist it again; and frame some feeling line,
That may discover such integrity: 2-
For Orpheus' lute was strung with poets' sinews;
Whose golden touch could soften steel and stones,
Make tigers tame, and huge leviathans
Forsake unsounded deeps to dance on sands.
After your dire-lamenting elegies,

Visit by night your lady's chamber window
With some sweet consort:3 to their instruments
Tune a deploring dump ;4 the night's dead silence
Will well become such sweet complaining grievance.
This, or else nothing, will inherit her."

Duke. This discipline shews thou hast been in love.
Thu. And thy advice this night I'll put in practice:
Therefore, sweet Proteus, my direction-giver,
Let us into the city presently

To sort some gentlemen well skill'd in music :
I have a sonnet, that will serve the turn,
To give the onset to thy good advice.
Duke. About it, gentlemen.

Pro. We'll wait upon your grace till after supper:
And afterward determine our proceedings.
Duke. Even now about it; I will pardon you.

ACT IV.

[Exeunt.

SCENE I-A Forest, near Mantua. Enter cer-
tain Out-laws.

1 Out. Fellows, stand fast; I see a passenger.
2 Out. If there be ten, shrink not, but down

with'em.

Enter VALENTINE and SPEED.

You take the sum and substance that I have.

2 Out. Whither travel you?

Val. To Verona.

1 Out. Whence came you?

Val. From Milan.

3 Out. Have you long sojourned there?

Val. Some sixteen months; and longer migh have staid,

If crooked fortune had not thwarted me.

1 Out. What, were you banish'd thence?
Val. I was.

2 Out. For what offence?

Val. For that which now torments me to re

hearse :

I kill'd a man, whose death I must repent;
But yet I slew him manfully in fight,
Without false vantage, or base treachery.

1 Out. Why ne'er repent it, if it were done so,
But were you banish'd for so small a fault?
Val. I was, and held me glad of such a doom.
1 Out. Have you the tongues?

Val. My youthful travel therein made me happy, Or else I often had been miserable.

3 Out. By the bare scalp of Robin Hood's fat friar,

8

This fellow were a king for our wild faction.
1 Out. We'll have him; sirs, a word.
Speed. Master, be one of them;

It is an honourable kind of thievery.
Val. Peace, villain!

2 Out. Tell us this: have you any thing to take to?
Val. Nothing but my fortune.

3 Out. Know, then, that some of us are gentlemen,
Such as the fury of ungovern'd youth
Thrust from the company of awful9 men:
Myself was from Verona banish'd,
For practising to steal away a lady,
An heir, and near allied unto the duke.

2 Out. And I from Mantua, for a gentleman,
Whom, in my mood,1° I stabbed unto the heart.
1 Out. And I, for such like petty crimes as these
But to the purpose,-(for we cite our faults,
That they may hold excus'd our lawless lives,)
And, partly, seeing you are beautify'd
With goodly shape; and by your own report
A linguist, and a man of such perfection,
As we do in our quality11 much want ;—

2 Out. Indeed, because you are a banish'd man,
Therefore, above the rest, we parley to you:
Are you content to be our general?
To make a virtue of necessity,

And live, as we do, in this wilderness?

3 Out. What say'st thou wilt thou be of our consort ?

3 Out. Stand, sir, and throw us that you have Say ay, and be the captain of us all ;

about you;

If not, we'll make you sit, and rifle you.

Speed. Sir, we are undone ! these are the villains That all the travellers do fear so much.

Val. My friends,

1 Out. That's not so, sir; we are your enemies. 2 Out. Peace; we'll hear him.

3 Out. Ay, by my beard, will we; for he is a
proper man.

Val. Then know, that I have little wealth to lose;
A man I am, cross'd with adversity:
My riches are these poor habiliments,

1 i. e. birdlime.

2 i. e. sincerity, such as would be manifested by such impassioned writing. Malone suspects that a line following this has been lost.

3 The old copy has consort, which, according to Bullokar and Philips, signified "a set or company of musicians." If we print concert, as Malone would have it, the relative pronoun their has no correspondent word. It is true that Shakspeare frequently refers to words not expressed, but implied in the former part of a sentence. But the reference here is to consort, as appears by the subsequent words, "to their instruments."

4 A dump was the ancient term for a mournful elegy.

We'll do thee homage, and be rul'd by thee,
Love thee as our commander and our king.

1 Out. But if thou scorn our courtesy, thou diest.
2 Out. Thou shalt not live to brag what we have
offer'd.

Val. I take your offer, and will live with you;
Provided that you do no outrages
On silly women, or poor passengers.

3 Out. No, we detest such vile base practices.
Come, go with us, we'll bring thee to our crews,
And shew thee all the treasure we have got ;
Which, with ourselves, all rest at thy dispose.

[Exeunt.

SCENE II.-Milan. Court of the Palace. Enter
PROTEUS.

Pro. Already have I been false to Valentine,
And now I must be as unjust to Thurio.
Under the colour of commending him,
I have access my own love to prefer;
But Silvia is too fair, too true, too holy,
To be corrupted with my worthless gifts.
When I protest true loyalty to her,

She twits me with my falsehood to my friend;
When to her beauty I commend my vows,
She bids me think, how I have been forsworn
In breaking faith with Julia whom I lov'd:
And, notwithstanding all her sudden quips,1
The least whereof would quell a lover's hope,
Yet, spaniel-like, the more she spurns my love,
The more it grows and fawneth on her still.
But here comes Thurio; now must we to her
window,

And give some evening music to her ear.

Enter THURIO, and Musicians.

Thu. How now?

before us

Sir Proteus? are you crept

Pro. Ay, gentle Thurio; for, you know, that love
Will creep in service where it cannot go.

Thu. Ay, but, I hope, sir, that you love not here.
Pro. Sir, but I do; or else I would be hence.
Thu. Who? Silvia?

Pro. Ay, Silvia,—for your sake.

Thu. I thank you for your own. Now, gentlemen,

Let's tune, and to it lustily awhile.

Enter Host, at a distance; and JULIA in boy's clothes. Host. Now, my young guest! methinks you're allycholly; I pray you, why is it?

Jul. Marry, mine host, because I cannot be

Who is Sylvia? What is she?

gen

[Music plays.

That all our swains commend her?

Holy, fair, and wise is she;

The heavens such grace did lend her,
That she might admired be.

Is she kind, as she is fair?

For beauty lives with kindness:
Love doth to her eyes repair,

To help him of his blindness;
And, being help'd, inhabits there.

Then to Silvia let us sing,
That Silvia is excelling;
She excels each mortal thing,
Upon the dull earth dwelling:
To her let us garlands bring.

Host. How now? are you sadder than you were
before?

How do you, man? the music likes you not.
Jul. You mistake; the musician likes me not.
Host. Why, my pretty youth?

Jul. He plays false, father.

Host. How out of tune on the strings?

Jul. Not so; but yet so false that he grieves my ery heart-strings.

Host. You have a quick ear.

Jul. Ay, I would I were deaf! it makes me have a slow heart.

1 Sudden quips, hasty, passionate reproaches.

Host. I perceive, you delight not in music.
Jul. Not a whit, when it jars so.

Host. Hark, what fine change is in the music!
Jul. Ay; that change is the spite.

Host. You would have them always play but one thing?

Jul. I would always have one play but one thing. But, host, doth this Sir Proteus, that we talk on, often resort unto this gentlewoman?

Host. I tell you what Launce, his man, told me, he loved her out of all nick.2

Jul. Where is Launce?

Host. Gone to seek his dog; which, to-morrow, by his master's command, he must carry for a present to his lady.

Jul. Peace! stand aside! the company parts.
Pro. Sir Thurio, fear not you! I will so plead,
That you shall say, my cunning drift excels.
Thu. Where meet we?

Pro. At Saint Gregory's well.

Thu. Farewell. [Exeunt THU. and Musicians,
SILVIA appears above, at her window.
Pro. Madam, good even to your ladyship.
Sil. I thank you for your music, gentlemen:
Who is that, that spake ?

Pro. One, lady, if you knew his pure heart's
truth,

You'd quickly learn to know him by his voice.
Sil. Sir Proteus, as I take it.

Pro. Sir Proteus, gentle lady, and your servant.
Sil. What is your will?

Pro. That I may compass yours.

Sil. You have your wish; my will is even this,-
That presently you hie you home to bed.
Thou subtle, perjur'd, false, disloyal man!
Think'st thou, I am so shallow, so conceitless,
To be seduced by thy flattery,

That hast deceiv'd so many with thy vows
Return, return, and make thy love amends.
For me,-by this pale queen of night I swear,
I am so far from granting thy request,
That I despise thee for thy wrongful suit;
And by and by intend to chide myself,
Even for this time I spend in talking to thee.
Pro. I grant, sweet love, that I did love a lady;
But she is dead.

Jul. "Twere false, if I should speak it;
For, I am sure, she is not buried.

[Aside.

Sil. Say, that she be; yet Valentine, thy friend, Survives; to whom, thyself art witness,

I am betroth'd: And art thou not asham'd

To wrong him with thy importunacy?

Pro. I likewise hear, that Valentine is dead.
Sil. And so suppose am I; for in his grave,
Assure thyself, my love is buried.

Pro. Sweet lady, let me rake it from the earth.
Sil. Go to thy lady's grave, and call her's thence;
Or, at the least, in her's sepulchre thine.
Jul. He heard not that.

[Aside

Pro. Madam, if your heart be so obdurate,
Vouchsafe me yet your picture for my love,
The picture that is hanging in your chamber;
To that I'll speak, to that I'll sigh and weep
For, since the substance of your perfect self
Is else devoted, I am but a shadow;
And to your shadow will I make true love.
Jul. If 'twere a substance, you would, sure, de
ceive it,

And make it but a shadow, as I am.

[Aside.

Sil. I am very loth to be your idol, sir;
But, since your falsehood shall become you we"!
To worship shadows, and adore false shapes,
Send to me in the morning and I'll send it:
And so good rest.

Pro.
As wretches have o'ernight,
That wait for execution in the morn.

[Exeunt PROTEUS; and SILVIA from above. Jul. Host, will you go?

Host. By my halidom, I was fast asleep.

2 i. e. Out of all reckoning or count; reckonings were kept upon nicked or notched sticks or tallies.

3 Halidom, (says Minsheu,) an old word, used by old countrywomen by manner of swearing.

5 In Shakspeare's time griefs frequently signified 2 Impose is injunction, command; a task set at col- grievances; and the present instance shows that in relege in consequence of a fault is still called an imposi-turn grievance was sometimes used in the sense of grief.

3 False hair was worn by the ladies long before wigs were in fashion. So, in Northward Hoe,' 1607, "There is a new trade come up for cast gentlewomen of periwig making." Perwickes are mentioned by Churchyard in one of his earliest poems. And Barnabe 7 The word statue was formerly used to express a Rich, in The Honestie of this Age,' 1615, has a phi-portrait, and sometimes a statue was called a picture lippic against this folly."