Текст книги "William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition"

Автор книги: William Shakespeare

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3.1 Enter Duke, Thurio, and Proteus

DUKE

Sir Thurio, give us leave, I pray, awhile.

We have some secrets to confer about. Exit Thurio

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

PROTEUS

My gracious lord, that which I would discover

The law of friendship bids me to conceal.

But when I call to mind your gracious favours

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 determined 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 judged me fast asleep,

And oftentimes have purposed 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 shunned—

I gave him gentle looks, thereby to find

That which thyself hast now disclosed 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 tower,

The key whereof myself have ever kept;

And thence she cannot be conveyed away.

PROTEUS

Know, noble lord, they have devised 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 pretence.

DUKE

Upon mine honour, he shall never know

That I had any light from thee of this.

PROTEUS

Adieu, my lord. Sir Valentine is coming. Exit Enter Valentine

DUKE

Sir Valentine, whither away so fast?

VALENTINE

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?

VALENTINE

The tenor of them doth but signify

My health and happy being at your court.

DUKE

Nay then, no matter. Stay with me awhile.

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.

VALENTINE

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

Were rich and honourable. 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 cherished by her child-like duty,

I now am full resolved to take a wife,

And turn her out to who will take her in.

Then let her beauty be her wedding dower,

For me and my possessions she esteems not.

VALENTINE

What would your grace have me to do in this?

DUKE

There is a lady of Verona here

Whom I affect, but she is nice, and coy,

And naught 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 changed—

How and which way I may bestow myself

To be regarded in her sun-bright eye.

VALENTINE

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.

DUKE

But she did scorn a present that I sent her.

VALENTINE

A woman sometime scorns what best contents her.

Send her another. Never give her o’er,

For scorn at first makes after-love the more.

If she do frown, ‘tis not in hate of you,

But rather to beget more love in you.

If she do chide, ‘tis not to have you gone,

Forwhy the fools are mad if left alone.

Take no repulse, whatever she doth say:

For ‘Get you gone’ she doth not mean ‘Away’.

Flatter and praise, commend, extol their graces;

Though ne’er so black, say they have angels’ faces.

That man that hath a tongue I say is no man

If with his tongue he cannot win a woman.

DUKE

But she I mean is promised by her friends

Unto a youthful gentleman of worth,

And kept severely from resort of men,

That no man hath access by day to her.

VALENTINE

Why then I would resort to her by night.

DUKE

Ay, but the doors be locked and keys kept safe,

That no man hath recourse to her by night.

VALENTINE

What lets but one may enter at her window?

DUKE

Her chamber is aloft, far from the ground,

And built so shelving that one cannot climb it

Without apparent hazard of his life.

VALENTINE

Why then, a ladder quaintly made of cords

To cast up, with a pair of anchoring hooks,

Would serve to scale another Hero’s tower,

So bold Leander would adventure it.

DUKE

Now as thou art a gentleman of blood,

Advise me where I may have such a ladder.

VALENTINE

When would you use it? Pray sir, tell me that.

DUKE

This very night; for love is like a child

That longs for everything that he can come by.

VALENTINE

By seven o’clock I’ll get you such a ladder.

DUKE

But hark thee: I will go to her alone.

How shall I best convey the ladder thither?

VALENTINE

It will be light, my lord, that you may bear it

Under a cloak that is of any length.

DUKE

A cloak as long as thine will serve the turn?

VALENTINE

Ay, my good lord.

DUKE

Then let me see thy cloak,

I’ll get me one of such another length.

VALENTINE

Why, any cloak will serve the turn, my lord.

DUKE

How shall I fashion me to wear a cloak?

I pray thee let me feel thy cloak upon me.

He lifts Valentine’s cloak and finds a letter and a rope-ladder

What letter is this same? What’s here? ‘To Silvia’?

And here an engine fit for my proceeding.

I’ll be so bold to break the seal for once.

(Reads)

‘My thoughts do harbour with my Silvia nightly,

And slaves they are to me, that send them flying.

O, could their master come and go as lightly,

Himself would lodge where, senseless, they are lying.

My herald thoughts in thy pure bosom rest them,

While I, their king, that thither them importune,

Do curse the grace that with such grace hath blessed

them,

Because myself do want my servants’ fortune.

I curse myself for they are sent by me,

That they should harbour where their lord should be.’

What’s here?

‘Silvia, this night I will enfranchise thee’?

‘Tis so, and here’s the ladder for the purpose.

Why, Phaeton, for thou art Merops’ son

Wilt thou aspire to guide the heavenly car,

And with thy daring folly burn the world?

Wilt thou reach stars because they shine on thee?

Go, base intruder, over-weening slave,

Bestow thy fawning smiles on equal mates,

And think my patience, more than thy desert,

Is privilege for thy departure hence.

Thank me for this more than for all the favours

Which, all too much, I have bestowed on thee.

But if thou linger in my territories

Longer than swiftest expedition

Will give thee time to leave our royal court,

By heaven, my wrath shall far exceed the love

I ever bore my daughter or thyself.

Be gone. I will not hear thy vain excuse,

But as thou lov’st thy life, make speed from hence.

Exit

VALENTINE

And why not death, rather than living torment?

To die is to be banished from myself,

And Silvia is my self. Banished from her

Is self from self, a deadly banishment.

What light is light, if Silvia be not seen?

What joy is joy, if Silvia be not by—

Unless it be to think that she is by,

And feed upon the shadow of perfection.

Except I be by Silvia in the night

There is no music in the nightingale.

Unless I look on Silvia in the day

There is no day for me to look upon.

She is my essence, and I leave to be

If I be not by her fair influence

Fostered, illumined, cherished, kept alive.

I fly not death to fly his deadly doom.

Tarry I here I but attend on death,

But fly I hence, I fly away from life.

Enter Proteus and Lance

PROTEUS Run, boy, run, run, and seek him out.

LANCE So-ho, so-ho!

PROTEUS What seest thou?

LANCE Him we go to find. There’s not a hair on’s head but ‘tis a Valentine.

PROTEUS Valentine?

VALENTINE No.

PROTEUS Who then—his spirit?

VALENTINE Neither.

PROTEUS What then?

VALENTINE Nothing.

LANCE Can nothing speak?

He threatens Valentine

Master, shall I strike?

PROTEUS Who wouldst thou strike?

LANCE Nothing.

PROTEUS Villain, forbear.

LANCE Why, sir, I’ll strike nothing. I pray you—

PROTEUS

Sirrah, I say forbear. Friend Valentine, a word.

VALENTINE

My ears are stopped, and cannot hear good news,

So much of bad already hath possessed them.

PROTEUS

Then in dumb silence will I bury mine,

For they are harsh, untuneable, and bad.

VALENTINE

Is Silvia dead?

PROTEUS No, Valentine.

VALENTINE

No Valentine indeed, for sacred Silvia.

Hath she forsworn me?

PROTEUS

No, Valentine.

VALENTINE

No Valentine, if Silvia have forsworn me.

What is your news?

LANCE Sir, there is a proclamation that you are vanished.

PROTEUS

That thou art banished. O that’s the news:

From hence, from Silvia, and from me thy friend.

VALENTINE

O, I have fed upon this woe already,

And now excess of it will make me surfeit.

Doth Silvia know that I am banishèd?

PROTEUS

Ay, ay; and she hath offered to the doom,

Which unreversed stands in effectual force,

A sea of melting pearl, which some call tears.

Those at her father’s churlish feet she tendered,

With them, upon her knees, her humble self,

Wringing her hands, whose whiteness so became them

As if but now they waxed pale, for woe.

But neither bended knees, pure hands held up,

Sad sighs, deep groans, nor silver-shedding tears

Could penetrate her uncompassionate sire,

But Valentine, if he be ta’en, must die.

Besides, her intercession chafed him so

When she for thy repeal was suppliant

That to close prison he commanded her,

With many bitter threats of biding there.

VALENTINE

No more, unless the next word that thou speak’st

Have some malignant power upon my life.

If so I pray thee breathe it in mine ear,

As ending anthem of my endless dolour.

PROTEUS

Cease to lament for that thou canst not help,

And study help for that which thou lament‘st.

Time is the nurse and breeder of all good.

Here if thou stay thou canst not see thy love.

Besides, thy staying will abridge thy life.

Hope is a lover’s staff. Walk hence with that,

And manage it against despairing thoughts.

Thy letters may be here, though thou art hence,

Which, being writ to me, shall be delivered

Even in the milk-white bosom of thy love.

The time now serves not to expostulate.

Come, I’ll convey thee through the city gate,

And ere I part with thee confer at large

Of all that may concern thy love affairs.

As thou lov’st Silvia, though not for thyself,

Regard thy danger, and along with me.

VALENTINE

I pray thee, Lance, an if thou seest my boy

Bid him make haste, and meet me at the North Gate.

PROTEUS

Go, sirrah, find him out. Come, Valentine.

VALENTINE

O my dear Silvia! Hapless Valentine.

Exeunt Proteus and Valentine

LANCE I am but a fool, look you, and yet I have the wit to think my master is a kind of a knave. But that’s all one, if he be but one knave. He lives not now that knows me to be in love, yet I am in love, but a team of horse shall not pluck that from me, nor who ‘tis I love; and yet ’tis a woman, but what woman I will not tell myself; and yet ‘tis a milkmaid; yet ‘tis not a maid, for she hath had gossips; yet ’tis a maid, for she is her master’s maid, and serves for wages. She hath more qualities than a water-spaniel, which is much in a bare Christian.

He takes out a paper

Here is the catalogue of her conditions. ‘Imprimis, she can fetch and carry’—why, a horse can do no more. Nay, a horse cannot fetch, but only carry, therefore is she better than a jade. ‘Item, she can milk.’ Look you, a sweet virtue in a maid with clean hands.

Enter Speed

SPEED How now, Signor Lance, what news with your mastership?

LANCE With my master’s ship? Why, it is at sea.

SPEED Well, your old vice still, mistake the word. What news then in your paper?

LANCE The blackest news that ever thou heard’st.

SPEED Why, man, how ‘black’?

LANCE Why, as black as ink.

SPEED Let me read them.

LANCE Fie on thee, jolt-head, thou canst not read.

SPEED Thou liest. I can.

LANCE I will try thee. Tell me this: who begot thee?

SPEED Marry, the son of my grandfather.

LANCE O illiterate loiterer, it was the son of thy grand-mother. This proves that thou canst not read.

SPEED Come, fool, come. Try me in thy paper.

LANCE (giving Speed the paper) There: and Saint Nicholas be thy speed.

SPEED ‘Imprimis, she can milk.’

LANCE Ay, that she can.

SPEED ‘Item, she brews good ale.’

LANCE And thereof comes the proverb ‘Blessing of your heart, you brew good ale’.

SPEED ‘Item, she can sew.’

LANCE That’s as much as to say ‘Can she so?’

SPEED ‘Item, she can knit.’

LANCE What need a man care for a stock with a wench when she can knit him a stock?

SPEED ‘Item, she can wash and scour.’

LANCE A special virtue, for then she need not be washed and scoured.

SPEED ‘Item, she can spin.’

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

SPEED ‘Item, she hath many nameless virtues.’

LANCE That’s as much as to say ‘bastard virtues’, that indeed know not their fathers, and therefore have no names.

SPEED Here follows her vices.

LANCE Close at the heels of her virtues.

SPEED ‘Item, she is not to be broken with fasting, in respect of her breath.’

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

SPEED ‘Item, she hath a sweet mouth.’

LANCE That makes amends for her sour breath.

SPEED ‘Item, she doth talk in her sleep.’

LANCE It’s no matter for that, so she sleep not in her talk.

SPEED ‘Item, she is slow in words.’

LANCE 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.’

LANCE Out with that, too. It was Eve’s legacy, and cannot be ta’en from her.

SPEED ‘Item, she hath no teeth.’

LANCE I care not for that, neither, because I love crusts.

SPEED ‘Item, she is curst.’

LANCE Well, the best is, she hath no teeth to bite.

SPEED ‘Item, she will often praise her liquor.’

LANCE 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.’

LANCE 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 I help. Well, proceed.

SPEED ‘Item, she hath more hair than wit, and more faults than hairs, and more wealth than faults.’

LANCE Stop there. I’ll have her. She was mine and not mine twice or thrice in that last article. Rehearse that once more. 347

SPEED ‘Item, she hath more hair than wit’—

LANCE ‘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’—

LANCE That’s monstrous. O that that were out!

SPEED ‘And more wealth than faults.’

LANCE 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?

LANCE Why then will I tell thee that thy master stays for thee at the North Gate.

SPEED For me?

LANCE For thee? Ay, who art thou? He hath stayed for a better man than thee.

SPEED And must I go to him?

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

SPEED Why didst not tell me sooner? Pox of your love letters! Exit

LANCE 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.

Exit

3.2 Enter the Duke and Thurio

DUKE

Sir Thurio, fear not but that she will love you

Now Valentine is banished from her sight.

THURIO

Since his exile she hath despised me most,

Forsworn my company, and railed at me,

That I am desperate of obtaining her.

DUKE

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,

And worthless Valentine shall be forgot.

Enter Proteus

How now, Sir Proteus, is your countryman,

According to our proclamation, gone?

PROTEUS Gone, my good lord.

DUKE

My daughter takes his going grievously?

PROTEUS

A little time, my lord, will kill that grief.

DUKE

So I believe, but Thurio 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.

PROTEUS

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?

PROTEUS I do, my lord.

DUKE

And also, I think, thou art not ignorant

How she opposes her against my will?

PROTEUS

She did, my lord, when Valentine was here.

DUKE

Ay, and perversely she persevers so.

What might we do to make the girl forget

The love of Valentine, and love Sir Thurio?

PROTEUS

The best way is to slander Valentine

With falsehood, cowardice, and poor descent,

Three things that women highly hold in hate.

DUKE

Ay, but she’ll think that it is spoke in hate.

PROTEUS

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.

PROTEUS

And that, my lord, I shall be loath to do.

’Tis an ill office for a gentleman,

Especially against his very friend.

DUKE

Where your good word cannot advantage him

Your slander never can endamage him.

Therefore the office is indifferent,

Being 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,

It follows not that she will love Sir Thurio.

THURIO

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.

DUKE

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.

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.

PROTEUS

As 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.

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

Moist it again; and frame some feeling line

That may discover such integrity;

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. To their instruments

Tune a deploring dump. The night’s dead silence

Will well become such sweet-complaining grievance.

This, or else nothing, will inherit her.

DUKE

This discipline shows thou hast been in love.

THURIO

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 skilled in music.

I have a sonnet that will serve the turn

To give the onset to thy good advice.

DUKE About it, gentlemen.

PROTEUS

We’ll wait upon your grace till after supper,

And afterward determine our proceedings.

DUKE

Even now about it. I will pardon you.

Exeunt Thurio and Proteus at one door, and the Duke at another