The Two Gentlemen of Verona

Please see the bottom of this page for notes and related resources.

ACT II SCENE I	Milan. The Duke's Palace.
[Enter VALENTINE and SPEED]
SPEED	Sir, your glove.
VALENTINE	Not mine; my gloves are on.
SPEED	Why, then, this may be yours, for this is but one.
VALENTINE	Ha! let me see: ay, give it me, it's mine:
	Sweet ornament that decks a thing divine!
	Ah, Silvia, Silvia!
SPEED	Madam Silvia! Madam Silvia!
VALENTINE	How now, sirrah?
SPEED	She is not within hearing, sir.
VALENTINE	Why, sir, who bade you call her?
SPEED	Your worship, sir; or else I mistook.	10
VALENTINE	Well, you'll still be too forward.
SPEED	And yet I was last chidden for being too slow.
VALENTINE	Go to, sir: tell me, do you know Madam Silvia?
SPEED	She that your worship loves?
VALENTINE	Why, how know you that I am in love?
SPEED	Marry, by these special marks: first, you have
	learned, like Sir Proteus, to wreathe your arms,
	like a malecontent; to relish a love-song, like a
	robin-redbreast; to walk alone, like one that had	20
	the pestilence; to sigh, like a school-boy that had
	lost his A B C; to weep, like a young wench that had
	buried her grandam; to fast, like one that takes
	diet; to watch like one that fears robbing; to
	speak puling, like a beggar at Hallowmas. You were
	wont, when you laughed, to crow like a cock; when you
	walked, to walk like one of the lions; when you
	fasted, it was presently after dinner; when you
	looked sadly, it was for want of money: and now you	30
	are metamorphosed with a mistress, that, when I look
	on you, I can hardly think you my master.
VALENTINE	Are all these things perceived in me?
SPEED	They are all perceived without ye.
VALENTINE	Without me? they cannot.
SPEED	Without you? nay, that's certain, for, without 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	40
	physician to comment on your malady.
VALENTINE	But tell me, dost thou know my lady Silvia?
SPEED	She that you gaze on so as she sits at supper?
VALENTINE	Hast thou observed that? even she, I mean.
SPEED	Why, sir, I know her not.
VALENTINE	Dost thou know her by my gazing on her, and yet
	knowest her not?
SPEED	Is she not hard-favoured, sir?
VALENTINE	Not so fair, boy, as well-favoured.	50
SPEED	Sir, I know that well enough.
VALENTINE	What dost thou know?
SPEED	That she is not so fair as, of you, well-favoured.
VALENTINE	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.
VALENTINE	How painted? and how out of count?
SPEED	Marry, sir, so painted, to make her fair, that no
	man counts of her beauty.	60
VALENTINE	How esteemest thou me? I account of her beauty.
SPEED	You never saw her since she was deformed.
VALENTINE	How long hath she been deformed?
SPEED	Ever since you loved her.
VALENTINE	I have loved her ever since I saw her; and still I
	see her beautiful.
SPEED	If you love her, you cannot see her.
VALENTINE	Why?
SPEED	Because Love is blind. O, that you had mine eyes;	70
	or your own eyes had the lights they were wont to
	have when you chid at Sir Proteus for going
	ungartered!
VALENTINE	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, and you, being in love, cannot see to put on your hose.
VALENTINE	Belike, boy, then, you are in love; for last
	morning you could not see to wipe my shoes.	80
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.
VALENTINE	In conclusion, I stand affected to her.
SPEED	I would you were set, so your affection would cease.
VALENTINE	Last night she enjoined me to write some lines to
	one she loves.
SPEED	And have you?
VALENTINE	I have.	90
SPEED	Are they not lamely writ?
VALENTINE	No, boy, but as well as I can do them. Peace!
	here she comes.
SPEED	[Aside] O excellent motion! O exceeding puppet!
	Now will he interpret to her.
[Enter SILVIA]
VALENTINE	Madam and mistress, a thousand good-morrows.
SPEED	[Aside] O, give ye good even! here's a million of manners.
SILVIA	Sir Valentine and servant, to you two thousand.
SPEED	[Aside] He should give her interest and she gives it him.	100
VALENTINE	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.
SILVIA	I thank you gentle servant: 'tis very clerkly done.
VALENTINE	Now trust me, madam, it came hardly off;
	For being ignorant to whom it goes
	I writ at random, very doubtfully.
SILVIA	Perchance you think too much of so much pains?	110
VALENTINE	No, madam; so it stead you, I will write
	Please you command, a thousand times as much; And yet--
SILVIA	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.
SPEED	[Aside] And yet you will; and yet another 'yet.'
VALENTINE	What means your ladyship? do you not like it?
SILVIA	Yes, yes; the lines are very quaintly writ;	120
	But since unwillingly, take them again.
	Nay, take them.
VALENTINE	Madam, they are for you.
SILVIA	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.
VALENTINE	Please you, I'll write your ladyship another.
SILVIA	And when it's writ, for my sake read it over,
	And if it please you, so; if not, why, so.
VALENTINE	If it please me, madam, what then?	130
SILVIA	Why, if it please you, take it for your labour:
	And so, good morrow, servant.
[Exit]
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,
	That my master, being scribe, to himself should write
	the letter?
VALENTINE	How now, sir? what are you reasoning with yourself?	140
SPEED	Nay, I was rhyming: 'tis you that have the reason.
VALENTINE	To do what?
SPEED	To be a spokesman for Madam Silvia.
VALENTINE	To whom?
SPEED	To yourself: why, she wooes you by a figure.
VALENTINE	What figure?
SPEED	By a letter, I should say.
VALENTINE	Why, she hath not writ to me?
SPEED	What need she, when she hath made you write to	150
	yourself? Why, do you not perceive the jest?
VALENTINE	No, believe me.
SPEED	No believing you, indeed, sir. But did you perceive
	her earnest?
VALENTINE	She gave me none, except an angry word.
SPEED	Why, she hath given you a letter.
VALENTINE	That's the letter I writ to her friend.
SPEED	And that letter hath she delivered, and there an end.
VALENTINE	I would it were no worse.	160
SPEED	I'll warrant you, 'tis 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, for in print I found it.
	Why muse you, sir? 'tis dinner-time.
VALENTINE	I have dined.
SPEED	Ay, but hearken, sir; though the chameleon Love can	170
	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.
[Exeunt]

Next: The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act 2, Scene 2
___________

Explanatory notes for Act 2, Scene 1
From The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Ed. Israel Gollancz. New York: University Society.

2. one: - On and one were sometimes pronounced alike, and also written so; this is but a quibble based on such identity of pronunciation.

24. takes diet: - To take diet is to be under a regimen for a disease.

26. Hallowmas: - The feast of All-hallows, or All Saints, at which time the poor in some places went from parish to parish a-souling, as they called it; that is, begging and puling (or singing small, as Bailey's Dictionary explains puling), for soul-cakes, and singing what they called the souler's song. These terms point out the condition of this benevolence, which was, that the beggars should pray for the souls of the giver's departed friends.

27. none else would; i.e. 'no one else would perceive them.'

73. going ungartered: - This is mentioned by Rosalind (As You Like It, III. iii.) as one of the undoubted marks of love: "Then your hose should be ungartered, your bonnet unhanded," etc.

78. to put on your hose, various suggestions have been made for the emendation of these words: - 'to beyond your nose,' 'to put spectacles on your nose,' 'to put on your shoes,' 'to button your hose.' It is not certain that a rhyming couplet was intended. Probably 'unable to see to put on one's hose' was a proverbial expression meaning 'unable to tell which leg to put into one's hose first,' i.e. 'not to have one's wits about one.'

85. Set for seated, in opposition to stand in the preceding line. It appears, however, to be used metaphorically in the sense applied to the sun when it sinks below the horizon.

94. As motion signified a puppet-show, whereat the showman was called the interpreter, Speed means, "What a fine puppet show shall we have now! Here is the principal puppet to whom my master will act as showman."

99. Sir Valentine and servant: - "Here," says Sir J. Hawkins, "Silvia calls her lover servant, and again her gentle servant. This was the common language of ladies to their lovers, at the time when Shakespeare wrote." Henry James Pye, in his Comments on the Commentators, observes that, "in the Noble Gentlemen of Beaumont and Fletcher, the lady's gallant has no other name in the dramatis personae than servant," and that "mistress and servant are always used for lovers in Dryden's plays." Knight, however, believes "that Shakespeare here uses the words in a much more general sense than that which expresses the relations between two lovers. At the very moment that Valentine calls Silvia mistress he says that he has written for her a letter - 'some lines to one she loves' - unto a 'secret nameless friend'; and what is still stronger evidence that the word 'servant' had not the full meaning of lover, but meant a much more general admirer, Valentine, introducing Proteus to Silvia, says,

'Sweet lady, entertain him
To be my fellow-servant to your ladyship;'

and Silvia, consenting, says to Proteus,

'Servant, you are welcome to a worthless mistress.'

"Now, when Silvia says this, which, according to the meaning which has been attached to the words servant and mistress, would be a speech of endearment, she had accepted Valentine really as her betrothed lover, and she had been told by Valentine that Proteus

'Had come along with me, but that his mistress
Did hold his eyes lock'd in her crystal looks.'

"It appears, therefore, that we must receive these words in a very vague sense, and regard them as titles of courtesy, derived, perhaps, from the chivalric times, when many a harnessed knight and sportive troubadour described the lady whom they had gazed upon in the tiltyard as their 'mistress,' and the same lady looked upon each of the gallant train as a 'servant' dedicated to the defence of her honour, or the praise of her beauty."

166. for in print I found it. Probably these lines are quoted from some old ballad or play, though their source has not yet been found. One cannot help thinking that Shakespeare is quoting from some play of the 'Two Italian Gentleman' type; the reprinted extracts contain passages strongly reminding one of these lines.

________

How to cite the explanatory notes:
Shakespeare, William. The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Ed. Israel Gollancz. New York: University Society, 1901. Shakespeare Online. 10 Aug. 2010. (date when you accessed the information) < http://www.shakespeare-online.com/plays/two_2_1.html >.

_________

Related Resources