Internet Shakespeare Editions

Author: William Shakespeare
Editor: Melissa Walter
Not Peer Reviewed

Two Gentlemen of Verona (Modern)

Enter Proteus solus.
930Proteus
To leave my Julia, shall I be forsworn?
To love faire Silvia, shall I be forsworn?
To wrong my friend I shall be much forsworn.
And ev'n that pow'r which gave me first my oath
Provokes me to this three-fold perjury.
935Love bad me swear, and Love bids me forswear.
O sweet-suggesting Love, if thou hast sinned,
Teach me, thy tempted subject, to excuse it.
At first I did adore a twinkling star,
But now I worship a celestial sun.
940Unheedful vows may heedfully be broken,
And he wants wit that wants resolved will
To learn his wit t'exchange the bad for better.
Fie, fie, unreverend tongue, to call her bad
Whose sovereignty so oft thou hast preferred
945With twenty thousand soul-confirming oaths.
I cannot leave to love, and yet I do;
But there I leave to love where I should love.
Julia I lose, and Valentine I lose.
If I keep them, I needs must lose my self.
950If I lose them, thus find I by their loss:
For Valentine, my self; for Julia, Silvia.
I to my self am dearer than a friend,
For love is still most precious in itself,
And Silvia, witness heaven that made her fair,
955Shows Julia but a swarthy Ethiope.
I will forget that Julia is alive,
Rememb'ring that my love to her is dead.
And Valentine I'll hold an enemy,
Aiming at Silvia as a sweeter friend.
960I cannot now prove constant to my self
Without some treachery used to Valentine.
This night he meaneth with a corded ladder
To climb celestial Silvia's chamber window,
Myself in counsel his competitor.
965Now presently I'll give her father notice
Of their disguising and pretended flight,
Who, all enraged, will banish Valentine,
For Turio he intends shall wed his daughter.
But Valentine being gone, I'll quickly cross
970By some sly trick blunt Turio's dull proceeding.
Love, lend me wings to make my purpose swift,
As thou hast lent me wit to plot this drift.
Exit.