Internet Shakespeare Editions

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  • Title: Two Gentlemen of Verona (Modern)
  • Editor: Melissa Walter

  • Copyright Internet Shakespeare Editions. This text may be freely used for educational, non-profit purposes; for all other uses contact the Editor.
    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    Not Peer Reviewed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.