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SILVIA
You have your wish. My will is even this,
That presently you hie you home to bed.
Thou subtle, perjured, false, disloyal man,
Think’st thou I am so shallow, so conceitless
To be seduced by thy flattery,
That hast deceived so many with thy vows?
Return, return, and make thy love amends.
For me—by this pale queen of night I swear—
I am so far from granting thy request
That I despise thee for thy wrongful suit,
And by and by intend to chide myself
Even for this time I spend in talking to thee.
PROTEUS
I grant, sweet love, that I did love a lady,
But she is dead.
JULIA (aside) ‘Twere false if I should speak it,
For I am sure she is not buried.
SILVIA
Say that she be, yet Valentine, thy friend,
Survives, to whom, thyself art witness,
I am betrothed. And art thou not ashamed
To wrong him with thy importunacy?
PROTEUS
I likewise hear that Valentine is dead.
SILVIA
And so suppose am I, for in his grave,
Assure thyself, my love is buried.
PROTEUS
Sweet lady, let me rake it from the earth.
SILVIA
Go to thy lady’s grave and call hers thence,
Or at the least, in hers sepulchre thine.
JULIA (aside) He heard not that.
PROTEUS
Madam, if your heart be so obdurate,
Vouchsafe me yet your picture for my love,
The picture that is hanging in your chamber.
To that I’ll speak, to that I’ll sigh and weep;
For since the substance of your perfect self
Is else devoted, I am but a shadow,
And to your shadow will I make true love.
JULIA (aside)
If ’twere a substance, you would sure deceive it
And make it but a shadow, as I am.
SILVIA
I am very loath to be your idol, sir,
But since your falsehood shall become you well
To worship shadows and adore false shapes,
Send to me in the morning, and I’ll send it.
And so, good rest. Exit
PROTEUS
As wretches have o’ernight,
That wait for execution in the morn.
Exit
JULIA Host, will you go?
HOST By my halidom, I was fast asleep.
JULIA Pray you, where lies Sir Proteus?
HOST Marry, at my house. Trust me, I think ’tis almost day.
JULIA
Not so; but it hath been the longest night
That e’er I watched, and the most heaviest.
Exeunt
4.3 Enter Sir Eglamour
EGLAMOUR
This is the hour that Madam Silvia
Entreated me to call, and know her mind.
There’s some great matter she’d employ me in.
Madam, madam!
Enter Silvia [above]
SILVIA Who calls?
EGLAMOUR Your servant, and your friend. One that attends your ladyship’s command.
SILVIA
Sir Eglamour, a thousand times good morrow!
EGLAMOUR
As many, worthy lady, to yourself.
According to your ladyship’s impose
I am thus early come, to know what service
It is your pleasure to command me in.
SILVIA
O Eglamour, thou art a gentleman—
Think not I flatter, for I swear I do not—
Valiant, wise, remorseful, well accomplished.
Thou art not ignorant what dear good will
I bear unto the banished Valentine,
Nor how my father would enforce me marry
Vain Thurio, whom my very soul abhors.
Thyself hast loved, and I have heard thee say
No grief did ever come so near thy heart
As when thy lady and thy true love died,
Upon whose grave thou vowed’st pure chastity.
Sir Eglamour, I would to Valentine,
To Mantua, where I hear he makes abode;
And for the ways are dangerous to pass
I do desire thy worthy company,
Upon whose faith and honour I repose.
Urge not my father’s anger, Eglamour,
But think upon my grief, a lady’s grief,
And on the justice of my flying hence
To keep me from a most unholy match,
Which heaven and fortune still rewards with plagues.
I do desire thee, even from a heart
As full of sorrows as the sea of sands,
To bear me company and go with me.
If not, to hide what I have said to thee
That I may venture to depart alone.
EGLAMOUR
Madam, I pity much your grievances,
Which, since I know they virtuously are placed,
I give consent to go along with you,
Recking as little what betideth me
As much I wish all good befortune you.
When will you go?
SILVIA
This evening coming.
EGLAMOUR
Where shall I meet you?
SILVIA
At Friar Patrick’s cell,
Where I intend holy confession.
EGLAMOUR
I will not fail your ladyship.
Good morrow, gentle lady.
SILVIA
Good morrow, kind Sir Eglamour.
Exeunt
4.4 Enter Lance and his dog Crab
LANCE (to the audience) When a man’s servant shall play the cur with him, look you, it goes hard. One that I brought up of a puppy, one that I saved from drowning when three or four of his blind brothers and sisters went to it. I have taught him, even as one would say precisely ‘Thus I would teach a dog’. I was sent to deliver him as a present to Mistress Silvia from my master, and I came no sooner into the dining-chamber but he steps me to her trencher and steals her capon’s leg. O, ‘tis a foul thing when a cur ca