The Two Gentlemen of Verona
Act III, Scene 2
Milan. A room in the Duke’s palace.
Costume design for the duke
Walford Graham Robertson, circa 1900
- Enter Duke, Thurio.
Duke of Milan
1 - 2- Sir Thurio, fear not but that she will love you
- Now Valentine is banish’d from her sight.
Thurio
3 - 5- Since his exile she hath despis’d me most,
- Forsworn my company, and rail’d at me,
- That I am desperate of obtaining her.
Duke of Milan
6 - 12- This weak impress of love is as a figure
- Trenched in ice, which with an hour’s heat
- Dissolves to water, and doth lose his form.
- A little time will melt her frozen thoughts,
- And worthless Valentine shall be forgot.
- Enter Proteus.
- How now, Sir Proteus? Is your countryman,
- According to our proclamation, gone?
Proteus
13- Gone, my good lord.
Duke of Milan
14- My daughter takes his going grievously.
Proteus
15- A little time, my lord, will kill that grief.
Duke of Milan
16 - 19- So I believe; but Thurio thinks not so.
- Proteus, the good conceit I hold of thee
- (For thou hast shown some sign of good desert)
- Makes me the better to confer with thee.
Proteus
20 - 21- Longer than I prove loyal to your Grace
- Let me not live to look upon your Grace.
Duke of Milan
22 - 23- Thou know’st how willingly I would effect
- The match between Sir Thurio and my daughter?
Proteus
24- I do, my lord.
Duke of Milan
25 - 26- And also, I think, thou art not ignorant
- How she opposes her against my will?
Proteus
27- She did, my lord, when Valentine was here.
Duke of Milan
28 - 30- Ay, and perversely she persevers so.
- What might we do to make the girl forget
- The love of Valentine, and love Sir Thurio?
Proteus
31 - 33- The best way is to slander Valentine
- With falsehood, cowardice, and poor descent,
- Three things that women highly hold in hate.
Duke of Milan
34- Ay, but she’ll think that it is spoke in hate.
Proteus
35 - 37- Ay, if his enemy deliver it;
- Therefore it must with circumstance be spoken
- By one whom she esteemeth as his friend.
Duke of Milan
38- Then you must undertake to slander him.
Proteus
39 - 41- And that, my lord, I shall be loath to do:
- ’Tis an ill office for a gentleman,
- Especially against his very friend.
Duke of Milan
42 - 45- Where your good word cannot advantage him,
- Your slander never can endamage him;
- Therefore the office is indifferent,
- Being entreated to it by your friend.
Proteus
46 - 50- You have prevail’d, my lord; if I can do it
- By aught that I can speak in his dispraise,
- 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.
Frontpiece to Two Gentlemen of Verona for the Temple Shakespeare
1899
Thurio
51 - 55- 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 of Milan
56 - 65- 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—
- Where you may temper her by your persuasion
- To hate young Valentine and love my friend.
Proteus
66 - 70- 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 of Milan
71- Ay, much is the force of heaven-bred poesy.
Proteus
72 - 86- 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:
- 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 of Milan
87- This discipline shows thou hast been in love.
Thurio
88 - 93- 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 of Milan
94- About it, gentlemen!
Proteus
95 - 96- We’ll wait upon your Grace till after supper,
- And afterward determine our proceedings.
Duke of Milan
97- Even now about it! I will pardon you.
- Exeunt.