Valentine.
Cease to persuade, my loving Protheus;
Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits;
Wer't not affection chains thy tender days
To the sweet glances of thy honour'd love,
I rather would intreat thy company
To see the wonders of the world abroad,
Than (living dully sluggardiz'd at home)
Wear out thy youth with shapeless idleness.
But since thou lov'st, love still, and thrive therein;
Ev'n as I would, when I to love begin.

Pro.
Wilt thou begone? Sweet Valentine, adieu;
Think on thy Protheus, when thou, haply seest
Some rare note-worthy object in thy travel:
Wish me partaker in thy happiness
When thou dost meet good hap; and in thy danger,
If ever danger do environ thee,
Commend thy grievance to my holy prayer;
For I will be thy beads-man, Valentine.

Val.
And on a love-book pray for my success.

Pro.
Ay, on some book I love, I'll pray for thee.

Val.
That's on some shallow story of deep love,
How young Leander swam the Hellespont.

Pro.
That's a deep story of a deeper love;
No, we will love, my friend, with more success;
For you are formed by nature for a lover.

Val.
O I shall never swim the Hellespont:
To be in love! where scorn is bought with groans;
Coy looks with heart-sore sighs; one fading moment's mirth,
With twenty watchful tedious nights.
If haply won, perhaps an hapless gain:
If lost, why then a grievous labour won:
However but a folly bought with wit;
Or else a wit by folly vanquished.

Pro.
So by your circumstance you call me fool.

Val.
So, by your circumstance, I fear, you'll prove.

Pro.
'Tis love you cavil at; I am not love.

Val.
Love is your master; for he masters you.
And he that is so yoaked by a fool,
Methinks, should not be chronicled for wise.

Pro.
Yet writers say, as in the sweetest bud
The eating canker dwells, so eating love
Inhabits in the finest wits of all.

Val.
And writers say, as the most forward bud
Is eaten by the canker ere it blow;
Even so by love the young and tender wit
Is turn'd to folly, blasting in the bud,
Losing his verdure even in the prime,
And all the fair effects of future hopes.
But wherefore waste I time to counsel thee,
That art a votary of fond desire?
Once more adieu: my father at the gates
Expects my coming, there to see me mount.

Pro.
And thither will I bring thee, Valentine.

Val.
Sweet Protheus, no: now let us take our leave.
At Milan let me hear from thee by letters
Of thy success in love; and what news else
Betideth here in absence of thy friend:
And I likewise will visit thee with mine.

Pro.
All happiness bechance to the at Milan.

Val.
As much to you at home; and so farewell. [Exit.

Pro.
He after honour hunts, I after love;
He leaves his friends to dignify them more;
I leave myself, my friends, and all for love.

Thou Julia! thou hast metamorphos'd me;
Made me neglect my studies, lose my time,
War with good counsel, set the world at nought,
Made wit with musing weak, heart sick with thought. Enter Speed.

Speed.
Sir Protheus, save you; saw you my master?

Pro.
But now he parted from me for Milan.

Speed.
Twenty to one then he sets off before me,
And I have play'd the sheep in losing him.

Pro.
Indeed a sheep doth very often stray,
And if the shepherd be a while away.

Speed.

You conclude my master is a shepherd then, and I a sheep.

Pro.

I do.

Speed.

Nay, sir, that I can deny by circumstance—

Pro.

It shall go hard but I'll prove it by another.

Speed.

The shepherd seeks the sheep, and not the sheep the shepherd; but I seek my master, and not my master me; therefore I am no sheep.

Pro.

The sheep for fodder follows the shepherd, as thou for wages followest thy master; therefore thou art a sheep.—

Speed.

Such another proof will make me cry baa—

Pro.

But dost thou hear? gavest thou my letter to Julia?

Speed.

No.

Pro.

No—why that was my request—and that you should deliver it to her with your own hand.

Speed.

Why sir, you did so;—but I gave it to one I liked better than madam Julia.

Pro.

Why, thou trifling villain, explain thyself!

Speed.

Why sir, chambermaids are like porches to your doors, you must pass the one, before you can have entrance to the other: so I gave your letter to your mistress's maid Lucetta, and told her it came from you—by which means I served myself as well as you; I got some kisses, which her lady would have been too proud to reward me with.

Pro.

Well; Lecetta is handsome, and I believe an honest girl.

Speed.

To say that a waiting-woman is handsome and yet chaste, is to affirm that the knight keeps to my lady in the high bed and never truckles. Ay, sir, they are like lotteries; a man may chuse twenty before he shall find one prize. And so, sir, if that's all I am to get, I'll commend you to my master.

Pro.
Go get thee gone, for an arch villain— [Exit.
The rogue has disappointed me—I sent my letter by him,
That Julia's family might turn their fears on Valentine. [Exit.

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