The Two Gentlemen of Verona

William Shakespeare

• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9780486790053
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

Valentine and Proteus are devoted comrades ― until they travel to Milan and meet Silvia, the Duke's ravishing daughter. Torn between the bonds of friendship and the lure of romance, the two gentlemen are further bedeviled by Proteus's prior commitment to Julia, his hometown sweetheart, and the Duke's disdain for Valentine. Thus the stage is set for a comic spree involving a daring escape into a forest, capture by outlaws, and the antics of a clown and his dog.
Written early in Shakespeare's career, this madcap romp embodies many themes and motifs the playwright would explore at greater depth in his later works. The first of his plays in which the heroine dresses as a boy to seek out her beloved, it's also the first in which the characters retreat to the natural world to brave danger and disorder before achieving harmony, and the first in which passionate youth triumphs over dictatorial elders. And amid its merriment and jests, the play also raises thought-provoking questions about conflicts between friendship and love and the value of forgiveness.

ACT II.

SCENE I. Milan. A Room in the Duke’s Palace.

Enter VALENTINE and SPEED.

SPEED. [picking up a glove.] Sir, your glove.

VAL. Not mine; my gloves are on.

SPEED. Why, then this may be yours, for this is but one.

VAL. Ha, let me see: ay, give it me, it ’s mine:—

Sweet ornament that decks a thing divine!

Ah, Silvia, Silvia!

SPEED. [calling.] Madam Silvia, Madam Silvia!

VAL. How now, sirrah!

SPEED. She is not within hearing, sir.

VAL. Why, sir, who bade you call her?

SPEED. Your Worship, sir; or else I mistook. [10]

VAL. Well, you ’ll still be too forward.

SPEED. And yet I was last chidden for being too slow.

VAL. Go to,¹ sir: tell me, do you know Madam Silvia?

SPEED. She that your Worship loves?

VAL. Why, how know you that I am in love?

SPEED. Marry, by these special marks: First, you have learn’d, like Sir Proteus, to wreathe your arms, like a malcontent; to relish a love-song, like a robin-redbreast; to walk alone, like one that had the pestilence; to sigh, like a school-boy that had lost his ABC; to weep, like a young wench that had buried her grandam; [20] to fast, like one that takes diet;² to watch, like one that fears robbing; to speak puling, like a beggar at Hallowmas.³ You were wont, when you laugh’d, to crow like a cock; when you walk’d, to walk like one of the lions; when you fasted, it was presently after dinner; when you look’d sadly, it was for want of money: and now you are so metamorphosed with a mistress, that, when I look on you, I can hardly think you my master.

VAL. Are all these things perceived in me?

SPEED. They are all perceived without ye. [30]

VAL. Without me! they cannot.

SPEED. Without you! nay, that ’s certain, for, without⁴ you were so simple, none else would: but you are so without these follies, that these follies are within you, and shine through you like the water in an urinal, that not an eye that sees you but is a physician to comment on your malady.

VAL. But tell me, dost thou know my lady Silvia?

SPEED. She that you gaze on so, as she sits at supper?

VAL. Hast thou observed that? even she I mean.

SPEED. Why, sir, I know her not. [40]

VAL. Dost thou know her by my gazing on her, and yet know’st her not?

SPEED. Is she not hard-favour’d, sir?

VAL. Not so fair, boy, as well-favour’d.

SPEED. Sir, I know that well enough.

VAL. What dost thou know?

SPEED. That she is not so fair as, of you, well favour’d.

VAL. I mean, that her beauty is exquisite, but her favour infinite.

SPEED. That ’s because the one is painted, and the other out of all count. [50]

VAL. How painted? and how out of count?

SPEED. Marry, sir, so painted, to make her fair, that no man counts of her beauty.

VAL. How esteem’st thou me? I account of her beauty.

SPEED. You never saw her since she was deform’d.

VAL. How long hath she been deform’d?

SPEED. Ever since you loved her.

VAL. I ha...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Note
• Dramatis Personæ
• ACT I
• Act II
• Act III
• Act IV
• Act V