Enter Protheus.

Pro.
To leave my Julia, shall I be forsworn;
To love fair Silvia, shall I be forsworn;
To wrong my friend, I shall be much forsworn;
And even that power, which gave me first my oath,
Provokes me to this threefold perjury:
Love bad me swear, and love bids me forswear:
O sweet suggesting ^note love, if thou hast sin'd,14Q0037
Teach me, thy tempted subject, to excuse it!
At first I did adore a twinkling star,
But now I worship a celestial sun:
Unheedful vows may heedfully be broken;
And he wants wit, that wants resolved will
To learn his wit to exchange the bad for better:—
Fie, fie, unreverend tongue! to call her bad,
Whose sovereignty so oft thou hast prefer'd
With twenty thousand soul-confirming oaths.
I cannot leave to love, and yet I do;
But there ^note I leave to love, where I should love.
Julia I lose, and Valentine I lose:
If I keep them, I needs must lose myself;
If I lose them, This ^note find I by their loss,—
For Valentine, myself; for Julia, Silvia.
I to myself am dearer than a friend;
For love is still most precious in itself:
And Silvia (witness heaven, that made her fair)
Shews Julia but a swarthy Ethiope.
I will forget that Julia is alive,
Remembring that my love to her is dead;
And Valentine I'll hold an enemy,
Aiming at Silvia as a sweeter friend.
I cannot now prove constant to myself,

Without some treachery us'd to Valentine:—
This night, he meaneth with a corded ladder
To climb celestial Silvia's chamber-window;
Myself in counsel, his competitor:
Now presently I'll give her father notice
Of their disguising, and pretended flight;
Who, all enrag'd, will banish Valentine;
For Thurio, he intends, shall wed his daughter:
But, Valentine being gone, I'll quickly cross,
By some sly trick, blunt Thurio's dull proceeding.
Love, lend me wings to make my purpose swift,
As thou hast lent me wit to plot this ^note drift! [Exit.

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