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

Автор книги: William Shakespeare

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 9 (всего у книги 250 страниц)

2.2 Enter Proteus and Julia

PROTEUS

Have patience, gentle Julia.

JULIA

I must where is no remedy.

PROTEUS

When possibly I can I will return.

JULIA

If you turn not, you will return the sooner.

She gives him a ring

Keep this remembrance for thy Julia’s sake.

PROTEUS

Why then, we’ll make exchange. Here, take you this.

He gives her a ring

JULIA

And seal the bargain with a holy kiss.

⌈They kiss⌉

PROTEUS

Here is my hand for my true constancy.

And when that hour o’erslips me in the day

Wherein I sigh not, Julia, for thy sake,

The next ensuing hour some foul mischance

Torment me for my love’s forgetfulness.

My father stays my coming. Answer not.

The tide is now. (Julia weeps) Nay, not thy tide of tears,

That tide will stay me longer than I should.

Julia, farewell.

Exit Julia

What, gone without a word?

Ay, so true love should do. It cannot speak,

For truth hath better deeds than words to grace it.

Enter Panthino

PANTHINO

Sir Proteus, you are stayed for.

PROTEUS

Go, I come, I come.—

Alas, this parting strikes poor lovers dumb.

Exeunt

2.3 Enter Lance with his dog Crab

LANCE (to the audience) Nay, ‘twill be this hour ere I have done weeping. All the kind of the Lances have this very fault. I have received my proportion, like the prodigious son, and am going with Sir Proteus to the Imperial’s court. I think Crab, my dog, be the sourest-natured dog that lives. My mother weeping, my father wailing, my sister crying, our maid howling, our cat wringing her hands, and all our house in a great perplexity, yet did not this cruel-hearted cur shed one tear. He is a stone, a very pebble-stone, and has no more pity in him than a dog. A Jew would have wept to have seen our parting. Why, my grandam, having no eyes, look you, wept herself blind at my parting. Nay, I’ll show you the manner of it. This shoe is my father. No, this left shoe is my father. No, no, this left shoe is my mother. Nay, that cannot be so, neither. Yes, it is so, it is so, it hath the worser sole. This shoe with the hole in it is my mother, and this my father. A vengeance on’t, there ‘tis. Now, sir, this staff is my sister, for, look you, she is as white as a lily and as small as a wand. This hat is Nan our maid. I am the dog. No, the dog is himself, and I am the dog. O, the dog is me, and I am myself. Ay, so, so. Now come I to my father. ‘Father, your blessing.’ Now should not the shoe speak a word for weeping. Now should I kiss my father. Well, he weeps on. Now come I to my mother. O that she could speak now, like a moved woman. Well, I kiss her. Why, there ‘tis. Here’s my mother’s breath up and down. Now come I to my sister. Mark the moan she makes.—Now the dog all this while sheds not a tear nor speaks a word. But see how I lay the dust with my tears.

Enter Panthino

PANTHINO Lance, away, away, aboard. Thy master is shipped, and thou art to post after with oars. What’s the matter? Why weep’st thou, man? Away, ass, you’ll lose the tide if you tarry any longer.

LANCE It is no matter if the tied were lost, for it is the unkindest tied that ever any man tied.

PANTHINO What’s the unkindest tide?

LANCE Why, he that’s tied here, Crab my dog.

PANTHINO Tut, man, I mean thou’lt lose the flood, and in losing the flood, lose thy voyage, and in losing thy voyage, lose thy master, and in losing thy master, lose thy service, and in losing thy service—

Lance puts his hand over Panthino’s mouth

Why dost thou stop my mouth?

LANCE For fear thou shouldst lose thy tongue.

PANTHINO Where should I lose my tongue?

LANCE In thy tale.

PANTHINO In thy tail!

LANCE Lose the tide, and the voyage, and the master, and the service, and the tied? Why, man, if the river were dry, I am able to fill it with my tears. If the wind were down, I could drive the boat with my sighs.

PANTHINO Come, come away, man. I was sent to call thee.

LANCE Sir, call me what thou darest.

PANTHINO Wilt thou go?

LANCE Well, I will go. Exeunt

2.4 Enter Valentine, Silvia, Thurio, and Speed

SILVIA Servant!

VALENTINE Mistress?

SPEED (to Valentine) Master, Sir Thurio frowns on you.

VALENTINE Ay, boy, it’s for love.

SPEED Not of you. 5

VALENTINE Of my mistress, then.

SPEED ‘Twere good you knocked him.

SILVIA (to Valentine) Servant, you are sad.

VALENTINE Indeed, madam, I seem so.

THURIO Seem you that you are not?

VALENTINE Haply I do.

THURIO So do counterfeits.

VALENTINE So do you.

THURIO What seem I that I am not?

VALENTINE Wise.

THURIO What instance of the contrary?

VALENTINE Your folly.

THURIO And how quote you my folly?

VALENTINE I quote it in your jerkin.

THURIO My ‘jerkin’ is a doublet.

VALENTINE Well then, I’ll double your folly.

THURIO How!

SILVIA What, angry, Sir Thurio? Do you change colour?

VALENTINE Give him leave, madam, he is a kind of chameleon.

THURIO That hath more mind to feed on your blood than live in your air.

VALENTINE You have said, sir.

THORIO Ay, sir, and done too, for this time.

VALENTINE I know it well, sir, you always end ere you begin.

SILVIA A fine volley of words, gentlemen, and quickly shot off.

VALENTINE ‘Tis indeed, madam, we thank the giver. SILVIA Who is that, servant?

VALENTINE Yourself, sweet lady, for you gave the fire. Sir Thurio borrows his wit from your ladyship’s looks, and spends what he borrows kindly in your company.

THURIO Sir, if you spend word for word with me, I shall make your wit bankrupt.

VALENTINE I know it well, sir. You have an exchequer of words, and, I think, no other treasure to give your followers. For it appears by their bare liveries that they live by your bare words.

SILVIA No more, gentlemen, no more. Here comes my father.

Enter the Duke

DUKE

Now, daughter Silvia, you are hard beset.

Sir Valentine, your father is in good health,

What say you to a letter from your friends

Of much good news?

VALENTINE My lord, I will be thankful

To any happy messenger from thence.

DUKE

Know ye Don Antonio, your countryman?

VALENTINE

Ay, my good lord, I know the gentleman

To be of worth, and worthy estimation,

And not without desert so well reputed.

DUKE Hath he not a son?

VALENTINE

Ay, my good lord, a son that well deserves

The honour and regard of such a father.

DUKE You know him well?

VALENTINE

I knew him as myself, for from our infancy

We have conversed, and spent our hours together.

And though myself have been an idle truant,

Omitting the sweet benefit of time

To clothe mine age with angel-like perfection,

Yet hath Sir Proteus—for that’s his name—

Made use and fair advantage of his days:

His years but young, but his experience old;

His head unmellowed, but his judgement ripe.

And in a word—for far behind his worth

Comes all the praises that I now bestow—

He is complete, in feature and in mind,

With all good grace to grace a gentleman.

DUKE

Beshrew me, sir, but if he make this good

He is as worthy for an empress’ love

As meet to be an emperor’s counsellor.

Well, sir, this gentleman is come to me

With commendation from great potentates,

And here he means to spend his time awhile.

I think ’tis no unwelcome news to you.

VALENTINE

Should I have wished a thing it had been he.

DUKE

Welcome him then according to his worth.

Silvia, I speak to you, and you, Sir Thurio;

For Valentine, I need not cite him to it.

I will send him hither to you presently.

Exit

VALENTINE

This is the gentleman I told your ladyship

Had come along with me, but that his mistress

Did hold his eyes locked in her crystal looks.

SILVIA

Belike that now she hath enfranchised them

Upon some other pawn for fealty.

VALENTINE

Nay, sure, I think she holds them prisoners still.

SILVIA

Nay, then he should be blind, and being blind

How could he see his way to seek out you?

VALENTINE

Why, lady, love hath twenty pair of eyes.

THURIO

They say that love hath not an eye at all.

VALENTINE

To see such lovers, Thurio, as yourself.

Upon a homely object love can wink.

SILVIA

Have done, have done. Here comes the gentleman.

Enter Proteus

VALENTINE

Welcome, dear Proteus. Mistress, I beseech you

Confirm his welcome with some special favour.

SILVIA

His worth is warrant for his welcome hither,

If this be he you oft have wished to hear from.

VALENTINE

Mistress, it is. Sweet lady, entertain him

To be my fellow-servant to your ladyship.

SILVIA

Too low a mistress for so high a servant.

PROTEUS

Not so, sweet lady, but too mean a servant

To have a look of such a worthy mistress.

VALENTINE

Leave off discourse of disability.

Sweet lady, entertain him for your servant.

PROTEUS

My duty will I boast of, nothing else.

SILVIA

And duty never yet did want his meed.

Servant, you are welcome to a worthless mistress.

PROTEUS

I’ll die on him that says so but yourself.

SILVIA

That you are welcome?

PROTEUS That you are worthless.

⌈Enter a Servant⌉

⌈SERVANT⌉

Madam, my lord your father would speak with you.

SILVIA

I wait upon his pleasure. ⌈Exit the Servant⌉

Come, Sir Thurio,

Go with me. Once more, new servant, welcome.

I’ll leave you to confer of home affairs.

When you have done, we look to hear from you.

PROTEUS

We’ll both attend upon your ladyship.

Exeunt Silvia and Thurio

VALENTINE

Now tell me, how do all from whence you came?

PROTEUS

Your friends are well, and have them much commended.

VALENTINE

And how do yours?

PROTEUS I left them all in health.

VALENTINE

How does your lady, and how thrives your love?

PROTEUS

My tales of love were wont to weary you.

I know you joy not in a love-discourse.

VALENTINE

Ay, Proteus, but that life is altered now.

I have done penance for contemning love,

Whose high imperious thoughts have punished me

With bitter fasts, with penitential groans,

With nightly tears and daily heart-sore sighs.

For in revenge of my contempt of love

Love hath chased sleep from my enthralled eyes,

And made them watchers of mine own heart’s sorrow.

O gentle Proteus, love’s a mighty lord,

And hath so humbled me as I confess

There is no woe to his correction,

Nor to his service no such joy on earth.

Now, no discourse except it be of love.

Now can I break my fast, dine, sup, and sleep

Upon the very naked name of love.

PROTEUS

Enough. I read your fortune in your eye.

Was this the idol that you worship so?

VALENTINE

Even she; and is she not a heavenly saint?

PROTEUS

No, but she is an earthly paragon.

VALENTINE

Call her divine.

PROTEUS

I will not flatter her.

VALENTINE

O flatter me; for love delights in praises.

PROTEUS

When I was sick you gave me bitter pills,

And I must minister the like to you.

VALENTINE

Then speak the truth by her; if not divine,

Yet let her be a principality,

Sovereign to all the creatures on the earth.

PROTEUS

Except my mistress.

VALENTINE Sweet, except not any,

Except thou wilt except against my love.

PROTEUS

Have I not reason to prefer mine own?

VALENTINE

And I will help thee to prefer her, too.

She shall be dignified with this high honour,

To bear my lady’s train, lest the base earth

Should from her vesture chance to steal a kiss

And, of so great a favour growing proud,

Disdain to root the summer-swelling flower,

And make rough winter everlastingly.

PROTEUS

Why, Valentine, what braggartism is this?

VALENTINE

Pardon me, Proteus, all I can is nothing

To her whose worth makes other worthies nothing.

She is alone.

PROTEUS

Then let her alone.

VALENTINE

Not for the world. Why man, she is mine own,

And I as rich in having such a jewel

As twenty seas, if all their sand were pearl,

The water nectar, and the rocks pure gold.

Forgive me that I do not dream on thee

Because thou seest me dote upon my love.

My foolish rival, that her father likes

Only for his possessions are so huge,

Is gone with her along, and I must after;

For love, thou know’st, is full of jealousy.

PROTEUS But she loves you?

VALENTINE

Ay, and we are betrothed. Nay more, our marriage

hour,

With all the cunning manner of our flight,

Determined of: how I must climb her window,

The ladder made of cords, and all the means

Plotted and ‘greed on for my happiness.

Good Proteus, go with me to my chamber

In these affairs to aid me with thy counsel.

PROTEUS

Go on before. I shall enquire you forth.

I must unto the road, to disembark

Some necessaries that I needs must use,

And then I’ll presently attend you.

VALENTINE Will you make haste?

PROTEUS I will. Exit Valentine

Even as one heat another heat expels,

Or as one nail by strength drives out another,

So the remembrance of my former love

Is by a newer object quite forgotten.

Is it mine eye, or Valentine’s praise,

Her true perfection, or my false transgression

That makes me, reasonless, to reason thus?

She is fair, and so is Julia that I love—

That I did love, for now my love is thawed,

Which like a waxen image ‘gainst a fire

Bears no impression of the thing it was.

Methinks my zeal to Valentine is cold,

And that I love him not as I was wont.

O, but I love his lady too-too much,

And that’s the reason I love him so little.

How shall I dote on her with more advice,

That thus without advice begin to love her?

‘Tis but her picture I have yet beheld,

And that hath dazzled my reason’s light.

But when I look on her perfections

There is no reason but I shall be blind.

If I can check my erring love I will,

If not, to compass her I’ll use my skill. Exit

2.5 Enter Speed, and Lance with his dog Crab

SPEED Lance, by mine honesty, welcome to Milan.

LANCE Forswear not thyself, sweet youth, for I am not welcome. I reckon this always, that a man is never undone till he be hanged, nor never welcome to a place till some certain shot be paid and the hostess say ‘Welcome’.

SPEED Come on, you madcap. I’ll to the alehouse with you presently, where, for one shot of five pence, thou shalt have five thousand welcomes. But sirrah, how did thy master part with Madam Julia?

LANCE Marry, after they closed in earnest they parted very fairly in jest.

SPEED But shall she marry him?

LANCE No.

SPEED How then, shall he marry her?

LANCE No, neither.

SPEED What, are they broken?

LANCE No, they are both as whole as a fish.

SPEED Why then, how stands the matter with them?

LANCE Marry, thus: when it stands well with him it stands well with her.

SPEED What an ass art thou! I understand thee not.

LANCE What a block art thou, that thou canst not! My staff understands me.

SPEED What thou sayst?

LANCE Ay, and what I do too. Look thee, I’ll but lean, and my staff under-stands me.

SPEED It stands under thee indeed.

LANCE Why, stand-under and under-stand is all one. SPEED But tell me true, will’t be a match?

LANCE Ask my dog. If he say ‘Ay’, it will. If he say ‘No’, it will. If he shake his tail and say nothing, it will.

SPEED The conclusion is, then, that it will.

LANCE Thou shalt never get such a secret from me but by a parable.

SPEED ‘Tis well that I get it so. But Lance, how sayst thou that my master is become a notable lover?

LANCE I never knew him otherwise.

SPEED Than how?

LANCE A notable lubber, as thou reportest him to be.

SPEED Why, thou whoreson ass, thou mistak’st me.

LANCE Why, fool, I meant not thee, I meant thy master.

SPEED I tell thee my master is become a hot lover.

LANCE Why, I tell thee I care not, though he burn himself in love. If thou wilt, go with me to the alehouse. If not, thou art an Hebrew, a Jew, and not worth the name of a Christian.

SPEED Why?

LANCE Because thou hast not so much charity in thee as to go to the ale with a Christian. Wilt thou go?

SPEED At thy service.

Exeunt

2.6 Enter Proteus

PROTEUS

To leave my Julia shall I be forsworn;

To love fair Silvia shall I be forsworn;

To wrong my friend I shall be much forsworn.

And e‘en that power which gave me first my oath

Provokes me to this threefold perjury.

Love bade 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.

Unheedful 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, unreverent tongue, to call her bad

Whose sovereignty so oft thou hast preferred

With 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 myself.

If I lose them, thus find I by their loss

For Valentine, myself, for Julia, Silvia.

I to myself am dearer than a friend,

For love is still most precious in itself,

And Silvia—witness heaven that made her fair—

Shows 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.

I cannot now prove constant to myself

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.

Now presently I’ll give her father notice

Of their disguising and pretended flight,

Who, all enraged, will banish Valentine;

For Thurio he intends shall wed his daughter.

But Valentine being gone, I’ll quickly cross

By some sly trick blunt Thurio’s dull proceeding.

Love, lend me wings to make my purpose swift,

As thou hast lent me wit to plot this drift. Exit

2.7 Enter Julia and Lucetta

JULIA

Counsel, Lucetta. Gentle girl, assist me,

And e’en in kind love I do conjure thee,

Who art the table wherein all my thoughts

Are visibly charactered and engraved,

To lesson me, and tell me some good mean

How with my honour I may undertake

A journey to my loving Proteus.

LUCETTA

Alas, the way is wearisome and long.

JULIA

A true-devoted pilgrim is not weary

To measure kingdoms with his feeble steps.

Much less shall she that hath love’s wings to fly,

And when the flight is made to one so dear,

Of such divine perfection as Sir Proteus.

LUCETTA

Better forbear till Proteus make return.

JULIA

O, know’st thou not his looks are my soul’s food?

Pity the dearth that I have pined in

By longing for that food so long a time.

Didst thou but know the inly touch of love

Thou wouldst as soon go kindle fire with snow

As seek to quench the fire of love with words.

LUCETTA

I do not seek to quench your love’s hot fire,

But qualify the fire’s extreme rage,

Lest it should burn above the bounds of reason.

JULIA

The more thou damm‘st it up, the more it burns.

The current that with gentle murmur glides,

Thou know’st, being stopped, impatiently doth rage.

But when his fair course is not hindered

He makes sweet music with th’enamelled stones,

Giving a gentle kiss to every sedge

He overtaketh in his pilgrimage.

And so by many winding nooks he strays

With willing sport to the wild ocean.

Then let me go, and hinder not my course.

I’ll be as patient as a gentle stream,

And make a pastime of each weary step

Till the last step have brought me to my love.

And there I’ll rest as after much turmoil

A blessed soul doth in Elysium.

LUCETTA

But in what habit will you go along?

JULIA

Not like a woman, for I would prevent

The loose encounters of lascivious men.

Gentle Lucetta, fit me with such weeds

As may beseem some well-reputed page.

LUCETTA

Why then, your ladyship must cut your hair.

JULIA

No, girl, I’ll knit it up in silken strings

With twenty odd-conceited true-love knots.

To be fantastic may become a youth

Of greater time than I shall show to be.

LUCETTA

What fashion, madam, shall I make your breeches?

JULIA

That fits as well as ‘Tell me, good my lord,

What compass will you wear your farthingale?’

Why, e’en what fashion thou best likes, Lucetta.

LUCETTA

You must needs have them with a codpiece, madam.

JULIA

Out, out, Lucetta. That will be ill-favoured.

LUCETTA

A round hose, madam, now’s not worth a pin

Unless you have a codpiece to stick pins on.

JULIA

Lucetta, as thou lov‘st me let me have

What thou think’st meet and is most mannerly.

But tell me, wench, how will the world repute me

For undertaking so unstaid a journey?

I fear me it will make me scandalized.

LUCETTA

If you think so, then stay at home, and go not.

JULIA Nay, that I will not.

LUCETTA

Then never dream on infamy, but go.

If Proteus like your journey when you come,

No matter who’s displeased when you are gone.

I fear me he will scarce be pleased withal.

JULIA

That is the least, Lucetta, of my fear.

A thousand oaths, an ocean of his tears,

And instances of infinite of love

Warrant me welcome to my Proteus.

LUCETTA

All these are servants to deceitful men.

JULIA

Base men, that use them to so base effect.

But truer stars did govern Proteus’ birth.

His words are bonds, his oaths are oracles,

His love sincere, his thoughts immaculate,

His tears pure messengers sent from his heart,

His heart as far from fraud as heaven from earth.

LUCETTA

Pray heaven he prove so when you come to him.

JULIA

Now, as thou lov’st me, do him not that wrong

To bear a hard opinion of his truth.

Only deserve my love by loving him,

And presently go with me to my chamber

To take a note of what I stand in need of

To furnish me upon my longing journey.

All that is mine I leave at thy dispose,

My goods, my lands, my reputation;

Only in lieu thereof dispatch me hence.

Come, answer not, but to it presently.

I am impatient of my tarriance.

Exeunt