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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    Not Peer Reviewed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)

    1445 Enter Duke [and] Turio.
    Sir Turio, fear not but that she will love you
    Now Valentine is banished from her sight.
    Turio
    Since his exile she hath despised me most,
    Forsworn my company, and railed at me,
    1450That I am desperate of obtaining her.
    This weak impress of love is as a figure
    Trenched in ice, which with an hour's heat
    Dissolves to water and doth lose his form.
    A little time will melt her frozen thoughts,
    1455And worthless Valentine shall be forgot.
    [Enter Proteus.]
    How now, Sir Proteus, is your countryman,
    According to our proclamation, gone?
    Proteus
    Gone, my good lord.
    My daughter takes his going grievously?
    1460Proteus
    A little time, my lord, will kill that grief.
    So I believe, but Turio thinks not so.
    Proteus, the good conceit I hold of thee,
    For thou hast shown some sign of good desert,
    Makes me the better to confer with thee.
    1465Proteus
    Longer than I prove loyal to your grace
    Let me not live to look upon your grace.
    Thou know'st how willingly I would effect
    The match between sir Turio and my daughter?
    Proteus
    I do, my lord.
    And also, I think, thou art not ignorant
    How she opposes her against my will?
    Proteus
    She did, my lord, when Valentine was here.
    Ay, and perversely she perseveres so.
    What might we do to make the girl forget
    1475The love of Valentine and love sir Turio?
    Proteus
    The best way is to slander Valentine
    With falsehood, cowardice, and poor descent,
    Three things that women highly hold in hate.
    Ay, but she'll think that it is spoke in hate.
    1480Proteus
    Ay, if his enemy deliver it.
    Therefore it must with circumstance be spoken
    By one whom she esteemeth as his friend.
    Then you must undertake to slander him.
    Proteus
    And that, my Lord, I shall be loath to do.
    1485'Tis an ill office for a gentleman,
    Especially against his very friend.
    Where your good word cannot advantage him,
    Your slander never can endamage him;
    Therefore the office is indifferent,
    1490Being entreated to it by your friend.
    Proteus
    You have prevailed, 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.
    1495It follows not that she will love sir Turio.
    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
    1500As you in worth dispraise sir Valentine.
    And Proteus, we dare trust you in this kind
    Because we know, on Valentine's report,
    You are already love's firm votary
    And cannot soon revolt and change your mind.
    1505Upon 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,
    1510To hate young Valentine and love my friend.
    Proteus
    As much as I can do, I will effect:
    But you, sir Turio, are not sharpe enough.
    You must lay lime to tangle her desires
    By wailful sonnets, whose composed rhymes
    1515Should be full fraught with serviceable vows.
    Ay, much is the force of heaven-bred poesy.
    Proteus
    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
    1520Moist it again, and frame some feeling line
    That may discover such integrity;
    For Orpheus's lute was strung with poets' sinews
    Whose golden touch could soften steel and stones,
    Make tigers tame, and huge leviathans
    1525Forsake unsounded deeps to dance on sands.
    After your dire-lamenting elegies,
    Visit by night your lady's chamber window
    With some sweet consort. To their instruments
    Tune a deploring dump. The night's dead silence
    1530Will well become such sweet complaining grievance.
    This, or else nothing, will inherit her.
    This discipline shows thou hast been in love.
    And thy advice this night I'll put in practice.
    Therefore, sweet Proteus, my direction-giver,
    1535Let us into the city presently
    To sort some gentlemen well skilled in music.
    I have a sonnet that will serve the turn
    To give the onset to thy good advice.
    About it, gentlemen.
    1540Proteus
    We'll wait upon your grace till after supper
    And afterward determine our proceedings.
    Even now about it; I will pardon you.
    Exeunt.