SIL. Who is that, servant?

VAL. 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.

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

SIL. No more,

Gentlemen, no more; here comes my father.

Enter 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?

VAL.

My lord, I will be thankful To any happy messenger from thence.

DUKE. Know you Don Antonio, your countryman?

VAL. 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?

VAL. Ay, my good lord; a son that well deserves
The honour and regard of such a father.

DUKE. You know him well?

VAL. I knew him, as myself; for from our infancy

We have convers'd, 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 unmellow'd, but his judgment ripe;
And, in a word, (for far behind his worth
Come all the praises that I now bestow,)
He is complete in feature, and in mind,
With all good grace to grace a gentleman.

• We have again a metrical arrangement in the original of this and the preceding speech of Valentine, which scarcely looks like accident. (See p. 18.) It is not, however, the versification of Shakspere's early plays; but, if not meant for verse, it is a measured prose, full of a spirited, harmonious movement.

⚫ Feature (form or fashion) was applied to the body as well as the face. Thus, in Gower,

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 a-while :
I think 't is no unwelcome news to you.

VAL. Should I have wish'd 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 a him to it:
I will send him hither to you presently.
VAL. This is the gentleman I told your ladyship

Had come along with me, but that his mistress
Did hold his eyes lock'd in her crystal looks.
SIL. Belike, that now she hath enfranchis'd them,
Upon some other pawn for fealty.

VAL. Nay, sure I think she holds them prisoners still.
SIL. Nay, then he should be blind; and, being blind,
How could he see his way to seek out you?

VAL. Why, lady, love hath twenty pair of eyes.
THU. They say that love hath not an eye at all-
VAL. To see such lovers, Thurio, as yourself;
Upon a homely object love can wink.

Enter PROTEUS.

SIL. Have done, have done; here comes the gentleman.
VAL. Welcome, dear Proteus !-Mistress, I beseech you,
Confirm his welcome with some special favour.
SIL. His worth is warrant for his welcome hither,

If this be he you oft have wish'd to hear from.
VAL. Mistress, it is: sweet lady, entertain him
To be my fellow-servant to your ladyship.
SIL. Too low a mistress for so high a servant.
PRO. Not so, sweet lady; but too mean a servant
To have a look of such a worthy mistress.

VAL. Leave off discourse of disability :

Sweet lady, entertain him for your servant. PRO. My duty will I boast of, nothing else.

"Like to a woman in semblance

Of feature and of countenance."

And later, in' All Ovid's Elegies, by C. M.' (Christopher Marlowe)-
"I fly her lust, but follow beauty's creature,
I loath her manners, love her body's feature."

[Exit DUKE.

A 'Cite-incite.

SIL. And duty never yet did want his meed;

Servant, you are welcome to a worthless mistress.
PRO. I'll die on him that says so, but yourself.

SIL. That you are welcome?
PRO.

No; that you are worthless.

THU. Madam, my lord your father would speak with youa.
SIL. I wait upon his pleasure. 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.
PRO. We'll both attend upon your ladyship.

[Exeunt SILVIA, THURIO, and SPEED.

VAL. Now, tell me, how do all from whence you came?
PRO. Your friends are well, and have them much commended.
VAL. And how do yours?

VAL. How does your lady? and how thrives your love?

PRO. My tales of love were wont to weary you;

I know you joy not in a love-discourse.

VAL. Ay, Proteus, but that life is alter'd now;

I have done penance for contemning love;

Whose high imperious thoughts have punish'd 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 chas'd 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.

PRO. Enough; I read your fortune in your eye:
Was this the idol that you worship so?

VAL. Even she; and is she not a heavenly saint?
PRO. No; but she is an earthly paragon.

⚫ In the original this line is given to Thurio; and we are not sure that Theobald's change, of bringing a servant on to deliver the message, is right. We may imagine Thurio fidgeting during the dialogue between Silvia, Proteus, and Valentine; and then hastily coming forward to interrupt it with a real or pretended message. It is characteristic that he should wish to break off this talk in which he is neglected. He may be supposed to step to the door, and receive a message. We restore the original reading.

There is no woe compared to his correction. The idiom was not uncommon.

VAL. O, flatter me; for love delights in praises.
PRO. When I was sick, you gave me bitter pills;
And I must minister the like to you.

VAL. Then speak the truth by her; if not divine,
Yet let her be a principality,

Sovereign to all the creatures on the earth.
PRO. Except my mistress.

VAL.

Sweet, except not any;
Except thou wilt except against my love.
PRO. Have I not reason to prefer mine own?
VAL. 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.

PRO. Why, Valentine, what braggardism is this?
VAL. Pardon me, Proteus: all I can is nothing

To her, whose worth makes other worthies nothing;
She is alone.

PRO. Then let her alone.

VAL. 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.

PRO. But she loves you?

VAL. Ay, and we are betroth'd: Nay, more, our marriage hour,
With all the cunning manner of our flight,

Determin'd 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.
PRO. Go on before; I shall inquire you forth:
I must unto the roada, to disembark

Is by a newer object quite forgotten.
Is it her mien a or Valentinus' 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 thaw'd;
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?
"T is 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.

SCENE V. The same. A Street.

Enter SPEED and LAUNCE.

[Exit.

SPEED. Launce! by mine honesty, welcome to Milan. LAUN. 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.

The folio of 1623 reads, "It is mine, or Valentine's praise." Warburton would read, "It is mine eye," &c. This reading Steevens adopts, making the sentence interrogative, "Is it mine eye?" The present reading is that of Malone, and it is supported by the circumstance that mien was, in Shakspere's time, spelt mine, according to its French etymology. Mr. Collier suggests that the true reading is "mine eyen.”

Picture. Her person, which I have seen, has shown me her "perfections" only as a picture. Dr. Johnson receives the expression in a literal sense, and complains that Shakspere has committed a blunder, when "he makes Proteus, after an interview with Silvia, say he has only seen her picture."

• Dazzled is here used as a trisyllable.