She shall not long continue love to him.
But say, this weed her love from Valentine",
It follows not that she will love sir Thurio.

Thu. Therefore, as you unwind her love from him,
Lest it should ravel and be good to none,

You must provide to bottom it on me;

Which must be done, by praising me as much.

As you in worth dispraise sir Valentine.

Duke. And, Proteus, we dare trust you in this kind, Because we know, on Valentine's report,

You are already love's firm votary,

And cannot soon revolt, and change your mind.
Upon this warrant shall you have access
Where you with Silvia may confer at large;
For she is lumpish, heavy, melancholy,
And for your friend's sake will be glad of you,
When you may temper her, by your persuasion,
To hate young Valentine, and love my friend.
Pro. As much as I can do I will effect.
But you, sir Thurio, are not sharp enough;
You must lay lime' to tangle her desires.
By wailful sonnets, whose composed rhymes
Should be full fraught with serviceable vows.
Duke. Ay, much is the force of heaven-bred poesy.
Pro. Say, that upon the altar of her beauty
You sacrifice your tears, your sighs, your heart.
Write, till your ink be dry, and with your tears
Moist it again; and frame some feeling line,
That may discover such integrity" :

3 But say, this WEED her love from Valentine,] It is very likely that "weed" was misheard for wean, which is substituted in the corr. fo. 1632; but either will here answer the purpose, and as the old text may unquestionably have been what the poet wrote, we make no change.

4 WHEN you may temper her,] i. e. "When" Proteus has had the opportunity given to him, not where, as in the old copies : "where" has been already stated above. "When" is from the corr. fo. 1632.

5

-

- LIME] i. e. Birdlime. In "Lucrece," Vol. vi. p. 531, we meet with the verb, which, however, is not uncommon:

"Birds never lim'd no secret bushes fear."

That may discover SUCH integrity:] Malone suspected that a line had here been lost; but the sense is complete, and we leave the words as in the folios. The corr. fo. 1632 does not supply any line, as Mr. Singer seems to state (for it is not easy here to make out his meaning, or grammatical construction), but it amends the word "such" to strict, for which it may have been mistaken, but which, under the circumstances, we do not adopt.

For Orpheus' lute was strung with poets' sinews,
Whose golden touch could soften steel and stones,
Make tigers tame, and huge leviathans

Forsake unsounded deeps to dance on sands.
After your dire-lamenting elegies,

Visit by night your lady's chamber window
With some sweet consort': 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 shows thou hast been in love.
Thu. And thy advice this night I'll put in practice.
Therefore, sweet Proteus, my direction-giver,
Let us into the city presently,

To sort some gentlemen well skill'd in music'.

I have a sonnet that will serve the turn

To give the onset to thy good advice.

Duke. About it, gentlemen.

Pro. We'll wait upon your grace

till after supper,

[Exeunt.

And afterward determine our proceedings.

Duke. Even now about it: I will pardon you.

ACT IV. SCENE I.

A Forest, between Milan and Verona.

Enter certain Outlaws.

1 Out. Fellows, stand fast: I see a passenger.

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

7 With some sweet CONSORT:] Malone remarks, that he "once thought consort might have meant, in our author's time, a band or company of musicians." There can be no doubt that it did, and the substitution of concert is a modern cor. ruption of the text. In Ecclesiasticus, ch. xxxii. v. 5, we meet with the expression, "consort of music," and many proofs might be added to show that "consort meant both the players and the music they performed.

8 Tune a deploring DUMP;] A "dump" was a melancholy poem or piece of music. See Vol. ii. p. 34; Vol. v. p. 187.

9 TO SORT Some gentlemen well skill'd in music.] To "sort" is to choose out or select. See Vol. iv. pp. 211. 270. When "sorted," the gentlemen would form a "consort." See "consort" used for company on p. 139.

Enter VALENTINE and SPEED.

3 Out. Stand, sir, and throw us that 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; for he is 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.

1 Out. Whence came you?

Val. From Milan.

3 Out. Have you long sojourn'd there?

Val. Some sixteen months; and longer might have stay'd,

If crooked fortune had not thwarted me.

2 Out. What! were you banish'd thence?

Val. I was.

2 Out. For what offence?

Val. For that which now torments 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.

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 had been often miserable 2.

3 Out. By the bare scalp of Robin Hood's fat friar3,

1 a FROPER man.] i. e. A man of good shape and appearance. In the next line the second folio omits " wealth," necessary to the metre, although the sense is very clear without it: the old corrector of the fo. 1632 adds the word in the margin, thus completing the verse.

2 Or else I had been OFTEN miserable.] The first folio repeats the adverb often, both before and after the verb: the second folio corrected that error, but committed another, by placing the adverb in the wrong situation.

3 Robin Hood's fat friar,] Friar Tuck was the "fat friar" who attended

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 an honourable kind of thievery.
Val. Peace, villain!

[They talk apart.

2 Out. Tell us this: have you any thing to take to? Val. Nothing, but my fortune.

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 lady,

An heir, and near allied unto the duke3.

2 Out. And I from Mantua, for a gentleman,

Who, 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 beautified

With goodly shape; and by your own report
A linguist, and a man of such perfection,
As we do in our quality much want—

Robin Hood and his merry men. He figures in both parts of Chettle and Munday's "Downfall and Death of Robert Earl of Huntington," 4to, 1601: see the reprint of them, 8vo, 1828. The "fat friar" was a familiar acquaintance with audiences when "The Two Gentlemen of Verona " was produced, though not from those plays, which were not written till 1598.

66

+ Thrust from the company of AWFUL men:] i. e. Men, perhaps, who stand in awe of the established authorities. The text may be right, and as Tyrwhitt remarked, Shakespeare uses the word "awful" in a nearly similar sense in Henry IV., Part II.," Vol. iii. p. 490; but still lawful would seem to read better, and it is very easy to suppose that the first letter of the word had dropped out. No instance of the use of " awful" in this manner has hitherto been pointed out, excepting in Shakespeare; but in the comedy "The Weakest goeth to the Wall," 1600, we read, what nevertheless is hardly in point,

5 AN heir, and

"In my opinion 'tis no sinne at all,

If such a sonne cast off the awfull dutie,

Which to a father otherwise were due."-Sign. F 2.

NEAR allied unto the duke.] This line varies from the old

copies in two respects, for it there stands thus:

"And heir and neece allide unto the Duke."

Both the words in Italics are errors of the press, as we learn from the corr. fo. 1632 in the first, the letter d was carelessly inserted; and in the last, c was substituted for r. The old spelling of “ near was often neere, and Malone rightly treated neece as a misprint. In "King John," A. ii. sc. 2, Vol. iii. p. 148, we have "niece" misprinted neere, and it so continued until our discovery of the corr. fo. 1632. "Heir" was formerly both masculine and feminine.

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

Are you content to be our general ?

To make a virtue of necessity,

And live, as we do, in this 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 diest.

2 Out. Thou shalt not live to brag what we have offer'd. Val. I take your offer, and will live with you;

Provided that you do no outrages

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 cave, And show thee all the treasure we have got, Which, with ourselves, all rest at thy dispose.

[Exeunt.

SCENE II.

Milan. The Court of the Palace.

Enter PROTEUS.

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

6

we'll bring thee to our CAVE,] This emendation in the corr. fo. 1632 is new and valuable, but was never before proposed: it is "cave" for crews: the context establishes that "cave" must be right, for the crews, so to call the body of banditti, were already on the stage: it was the treasure in their " cave that they were to show to Valentine. Mr. Singer prints caves; but see p. 155.