The Two Gentlemen of Verona: The 30-Minute Shakespeare. William Shakespeare

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       SILVIA

      That you are welcome?

       PROTEUS

      That you are worthless.

      VALENTINE coughs.

       SILVIA

      I’ll leave you to confer of home affairs;

      When you have done, I look to hear from you.

       PROTEUS

      We’ll both attend upon your ladyship.

      Exit SILVIA stage right.

      VALENTINE walks to Proteus’s chair.

       VALENTINE

      Now, tell me, Proteus,

      How does your lady? And how thrives your love?

       PROTEUS

      My tales of love were wont to weary you;

      I know you joy not in a love-discourse.

       VALENTINE

      Ay, Proteus, but that life is alter’d now.

       (walks downstage center)

      For, in revenge of my contempt of love,

      Love hath chased 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,

      Now can I break my fast, dine, sup, and sleep,

      Upon the very naked name of love.

      PROTEUS (walks to VALENTINE)

      Enough; I read your fortune in your eye.

      Was this the idol that you worship so?

      (gestures to where SILVIA exited)

       VALENTINE

      Even she; and is she not a heavenly saint?

       PROTEUS

      No; but she is an earthly paragon.

       VALENTINE

      Call her divine.

       PROTEUS

      I will not flatter her.

       VALENTINE

      Then speak the truth by her: if not divine,

      Yet let her be a principality,

      Sovereign to all the creatures on the earth.

       PROTEUS

      Except my mistress.

      Why, Valentine, what braggardism is this?

       VALENTINE

      Pardon me, Proteus: all I can is nothing

      To her, whose worth makes other worthies nothing;

      She is alone.

       PROTEUS

      Then let her alone.

       VALENTINE

      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.

       PROTEUS

      But she loves you?

       VALENTINE

      Ay, and we are betroth’d: nay, more, our marriage-hour,

      With all the cunning manner of our flight,

      Determined 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.

       PROTEUS

      Go on before; I shall inquire you forth:

      And then I’ll presently attend you.

       VALENTINE

      Will you make haste?

       PROTEUS

      I will.

      Exit VALENTINE stage right.

      (to audience) Even as one heat another heat expels,

      Or as one nail by strength drives out another,

      So the remembrance of my former love

      Is by a newer object quite forgotten.

      Is it mine eye, or Valentine’s praise,

      Her true perfection, or my false transgression,

      That makes me, reasonless, to reason thus?

      She’s 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.

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