VAL. What should I see then?

SPEED. Your own present folly, and her passing deformity; for he, being in love, could not see to garter his hose 12; and you, being in love, cannot see to put on your hose.

VAL. Belike, boy, then you are in love; for last morning you could not see to wipe my shoes.

SPEED. True, sir; I was in love with my bed: I thank you, you swinged me for my love, which makes me the bolder to chide you for yours.

VAL. In conclusion, I stand affected to her.

SPEED. I would you were set; so your affection would cease.

VAL. Last night she enjoined me to write some lines to one she loves.
SPEED. And have you?

VAL. I have.

SPEED. Are they not lamely writ?

VAL. No, boy, but as well as I can do them;-Peace! here she comes.

Enter SILVIA.

SPEED. O excellent motion a! O exceeding puppet!

Now will he interpret to her.

VAL. Madam and mistress, a thousand good-morrows.
SPEED. O, 'give ye good ev'n! here's a million of manners.
SIL. Sir Valentine and servant13, to you two thousand ".
SPEED. He should give her interest, and she gives it him.
VAL. As you enjoin'd me, I have writ your letter,
Unto the secret nameless friend of yours;
Which I was much unwilling to proceed in,

But for my duty to your ladyship.

SIL. I thank you, gentle servant: 't is very clerkly done.
VAL. Now trust me, madam, it came hardly off;

For, being ignorant to whom it goes,

I writ at random, very doubtfully.

SIL. Perchance you think too much of so much pains?
VAL. No, madam; so it stead you, I will write,

Please you command, a thousand times as much:
And yet,-

SIL. A pretty period! Well, I guess the sequel;

And yet I will not name it ;-and yet I care not;-
And yet take this again; and yet I thank you;
Meaning henceforth to trouble you no more.

[Aside.

• Motion-a puppet-show. Silvia is the puppet, and Valentine will interpret for her. The master of the show was, in Shakspere's time, often called interpreter to the puppets.

Much of the dialogue between Valentine and Speed is printed metrically in the original. This is sometimes obviously enough wrong: but in other instances, such as these, we have some free dramatic versification which ought to be retained.

SPEED. And yet you will; and yet, another yet.
VAL. What means your ladyship? do you not like it?
SIL. Yes, yes; the lines are very quaintly writ:
But since unwillingly, take them again;
Nay, take them.

SIL. Ay, ay, you writ them, sir, at my request;
But I will none of them; they are for you:
I would have had them writ more movingly
VAL. Please you, I'll write your ladyship another.
SIL. And when it's writ, for my sake read it over:
And if it please you, so: if not, why so.

VAL. If it please me, madam! what then?

SIL. Why, if it please you, take it for your labour.

And so good morrow, servant.

SPEED. O jest unseen, inscrutable, invisible,

As a nose on a man's face, or a weathercock on a steeple!
My master sues to her; and she hath taught her suitor,

He being her pupil, to become her tutor.

O excellent device! was there ever heard a better,

[Aside.

[Exit SILVIA.

That my master, being scribe, to himself should write the letter?

VAL. How now, sir? what are you reasoning with yourself?

SPEED. Nay, I was rhyming; 't is you that have the reason.

VAL. To do what?

SPEED. To be a spokesman from madam Silvia.

VAL. To whom?

SPEED. To yourself: why, she woos you by a figure.

VAL. What figure?

SPEED. By a letter I should say.

VAL. Why, she hath not writ to me?

SPEED. What needs she, when she hath made you write to yourself? Why, do

you not perceive the jest?

VAL. No, believe me.

SPEED. No believing you, indeed, sir: But did you perceive her earnest?

VAL. She gave me none, except an angry word.

SPEED. Why, she hath given you a letter.

VAL. That's the letter I writ to her friend.

SPEED. And that letter hath she deliver'd, and there an end.

VAL. I would it were no worse.

SPEED. I'll warrant you 't is as well.

For often have you writ to her; and she, in modesty,

Or else for want of idle time, could not again reply;

Or fearing else some messenger, that might her mind discover,
Herself hath taught her love himself to write unto her lover.-

All this I speak in print a, for in print I found it.

Why muse you, sir? 't is dinner-time.

VAL. I have dined.

SPEED. Ay, but hearken, sir; though the cameleon Love can feed on the air, I am one that am nourished by my victuals, and would fain have meat. O, be not like your mistress; be moved, be moved b.

[Exeunt.

SCENE II.-Verona.

A Room in Julia's House.

Enter PROTEUS and JULIA.

PRO. Have patience, gentle Julia.

JUL. I must, where is no remedy.

PRO. When possibly I can, I will return.
JUL. If you turn not, you will return the sooner:
Keep this remembrance for thy Julia's sake.
PRO. Why then we 'll make exchange 14, here, take
JUL. And seal the bargain with a holy kiss.
PRO. Here is my hand for my true constancy;

you

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: nay, not thy tide of tears:
That tide will stay me longer than I should:
Julia, farewell.-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.

PAN. Sir Proteus, you are stay'd for.

[Giving a ring.

this.

[Exit JULIA.

PRO. Go; I come, I come :

Alas! this parting strikes poor lovers dumb.

SCENE III.-The same. A Street.

Enter LAUNCE, leading a Dog.

[Exeunt.

LAUN. Nay, 't will be this hour ere I have done weeping; all the kind of the Launces 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

• In print—with exactness. Speed is repeating, or affects to be repeating, some lines which he has read.

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 15 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 't is 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 wood a woman;—well, I kiss her;-why, there't is; 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.

PAN. Launce, 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.

LAUN. It is no matter if the tied were lost; for it is the unkindest tied that ever man tied.

PAN. What's the unkindest tide?

LAUN. Why, he that 's tied here; Crab, my dog.

PAN. 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,-Why dost thou stop my mouth?

LAUN. For fear thou shouldst lose thy tongue.

PAN. Where should I lose my tongue?

LAUN. In thy tale.

PAN. In thy tail?

LAUN. 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.

* Wood-mad, wild.

This quibble, according to Steevens, is found in Lyly's Endymion,' 1591.

• We give the punctuation of the original edition. Malone prints the passage thus:"Lose the tide, and the voyage, and the master, and the service: and the tide!"

Steevens omits the and, completing the sentence at "service;" and adding "The tide!" as inter

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

LAUN. Sir, call me what thou darest.

PAN. Wilt thou go?

LAUN. Well, I will go.

SCENE IV.-Milan. A Room in the Duke's Palace.

Enter VALENTINE, SILVIA, THURIO, and SPEED.

SIL. Servant!

[Exeunt.

VAL. Mistress.

SPEED. Master, sir Thurio frowns on you.

VAL. Ay, boy, it's for love.

SPEED. Not of you.

VAL. Of my mistress then.

SPEED. 'T were good you knocked him.

SIL. Servant, you are sad.

VAL. Indeed, madam, I seem so.

THU. Seem you that you are not?

VAL. Haply I do.

THU. So do counterfeits.

VAL. So do you.

THU. What seem I that I am not?

VAL. Wise.

THU. What instance of the contrary?

VAL. Your folly.

THU. And how quote a you my folly?

VAL. I quote it in your jerkin.

THU. My jerkin is a doublet 16.

VAL. Well, then, I'll double your folly.

THU. HOW?

SIL. What, angry, sir Thurio? do you change colour?

VAL. Give him leave, madam; he is a kind of cameleon.

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

VAL. You have said, sir.

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

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

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

VAL. "T is indeed, madam; we thank the giver.

jectional. Both editors appear to forget the quibble of Launce on his tied dog; to which quibble, it appears to us, he returns in this passage. In the first instance he says, "It is no matter if the tied were lost;"-he now says, "Lose the tide, and the voyage, and the master, and the service, and the tied." In the original there is no difference in the orthography of the two words.

Quote-to mark.

b Quote was pronounced cote, from the old French coter. Hence the quibble, I coat it in you? jerkin, your short-coat, or jacket.