For Orpheus' lute was strung with poets' sinews;
Whose golden touch could soften steel and stones,
Make tygers tame, and huge leviathans
Forsake unsounded deeps to dance on sands.
After your dire-lamenting elegies,
Visit by night your lady's chamber-window 460
With some sweet concert : 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 shews thou hast been in

love.
Thu. And thy advice this night I'll put in practice :
Therefore, sweet Protheus, my direction-giver,
Let us into the city presently
To sort some gentlemen well skill'd in musick:
I have a sonnet, that will serve the turn,

470 To give the onset to thy good advice.

Duke. About it, gentlemen.
Pro. We'll wait upon your grace, till after

supper ;
And aftewards determine our proceedings.
Duke. Even now about it; I will pardon you.

[Excunt.

ACT

ACT I. SCENE 1.

A Forest, leading towards Mantua. Enter certain Out.

Laws.

1 Out-law.

Fellows, stand fast; I see a passenger. 2 Out.

If there be ten, shrink not, but down with 'em.

Enter VALENTINE, and SPEED.

3 Out. Stand, sir, and throw us what you have

about you;

If not, we'll make you sit, and rifle you.

Speed. Sir, we are undone! these are the villains That all the travellers do fear so much.

Val. My friends 1 Out. That's not so, sir; we are your enemies. 2 Out. Peace; we'll hear him. 3 Out. Ay, by my beard, will we;

10 For he's a proper man,

Val. Then know, that I have little wealth to lose, A man I am, cross'd with adversity : My riches are these poor habiliments, Of which if you should here disfurnish me, You take the sum and substance that I have.

2 Out. Whither travel you ? Val. To Verona

20

1 Out. Whence came you?
Val. From Milan.
3 Out. Have you long sojourn'd there?
Val. Some sixteen months; and longer might have

staid,
If crooked fortune håd not thwarted me.

1 Out. What, were you banish'd thence ?
Val. I was.
2 Out. For what offence?

Val. For that which now torinents me to rehearse :
I kill'd a man, whose death I much repent;
But yet I slew him manfully in fight,
Without false vantage, or base treachery.

30 1 Out. Why ne'er repent it, if it were done so: But were you banish'd for so small a fault ?

Val. I was, and held me glad of such a doom.": 1 Out. Have you the tongues ?

Val. My youthful travel therein made me happy
Or else I often had been miserable.
3 Out. By the bare scalp of Robin Hood's fat

friar,
This fellow were a king for our wild faction,

1 Out. We'll have him : sirs, a word.
Speed. Master, be one of them ;
It is a kind of honourable thievery.

Val. Peace, villain !
2 Out. Tell us this; Have you any thing to take

to ?
Val. Nothing, but my fortune,

40

3 Out. Know then, that some of us are gentlemen, Such as the fury of ungovern'd youth Thrust from the company of awful men: Myself was from Verona banished, For practising to steal away a lądy, An heir, and niece ally'd unto the duke.

50 2 Out. And I from Mantua, for a gentleman, Whom, in my mood, I stabb'd unto the heart,

1 Out. And I, for such like petty crimes as these. But to the purpose-(for we cite our faults, . That they may hold excus'd our lawless lives) And, partly, seeing you are beautify'd With goodly shape ; and by your own report A linguist; and a man of such perfection, As we do in our quality much want

2 Out. Indeed, because you are a banish'd man, Therefore, above the rest, we parley to you :

61 Are you content to be our general ? To make a virtue of necessity, And live, as we do, in the wilderness ? 3 Out. What say'st thou ? wilt thou be of our

consort ;
Say, ay, and be the captain of us all :
We'll do thee homage, and be rul'd by thee,
Love thee as our commander, and our king.

1 Out. But if thou scorn our courtesy, thou dy'st. 9 Out. Thou shalt not live to brag what we have offer'd.

70 Val. I take your offer, and will live with you; Provided, that you do no outrages

On

On silly women, or poor passengers.

3 Out. No, we detest such vile base practices. Come, go with us, we'll bring thee to our crews, And shew thee all the treasure we have got ; Which, with ourselves, all rest at thy disposé.

[Exeunt.

SCENE II.

Under SILVIA's Apartment in Milan. Enter PROTHÉUS.

Pro. Already have I been false to Valentine, And now I must be as unjust to Thurio. Under the colour of commending him,

80 I have access my own love to prefer; But Silvia is too fair, too true, too holy, To be corrupted with my worthless gifts. When I protest true loyalty to her, She twits me with my falsehood to my friend, When to her beauty I commend my vows, She bids me think, how I have been forsworn, In breaking faith with Julia whom I lov'd : And, notwithstanding all her sudden quips, The least whereof would quell a lover's hope, go Yet, spaniel-like, the more she spurns my love, The more it grows, and fawneth on her still. But here comes Thurio; now must we to her window, And give some evening musick to her ear.

Enter