Volume 1 / Act 5 — V. 4 Scene IV. Another part of the forest.
Reading edition
Enter Valentine.
Val. How use doth breed a habit in a man! This shadowy desert, unfrequented woods, I better brook than flourishing peopled towns: Here can I sit alone, unseen of any, 5 And to the nightingale’s complaining notes Tune my distresses and record my woes. O thou that dost inhabit in my breast, Leave not the mansion so long tenantless, Lest, growing ruinous, the building fall, 10 And leave no memory of what it was! Repair me with thy presence, Silvia; Thou gentle nymph, cherish thy forlorn swain! What halloing and what stir is this to-day? These are my mates, that make their wills their law, 15 Have some unhappy passenger in chase. They love me well; yet I have much to do To keep them from uncivil outrages. Withdraw thee, Valentine: who’s this comes here?
Enter Proteus, Silvia, and Julia.
Pro. Madam, this service I have done for you, 20 Though you respect not aught your servant doth, To hazard life, and rescue you from him That would have forced your honour and your love; Vouchsafe me, for my meed, but one fair look; A smaller boon than this I cannot beg, V. 4. 25 And less than this, I am sure, you cannot give.
Val. [Aside] How like a dream is this I see and hear! Love, lend me patience to forbear awhile.
Sil. O miserable, unhappy that I am!
Pro. Unhappy were you, madam, ere I came; 30 But by my coming I have made you happy.
Sil. By thy approach thou makest me most unhappy.
Jul. [Aside] And me, when he approacheth to your presence.
Sil. Had I been seized by a hungry lion, I would have been a breakfast to the beast, 35 Rather than have false Proteus rescue me. O, Heaven be judge how I love Valentine, Whose life’s as tender to me as my soul! And full as much, for more there cannot be, I do detest false perjured Proteus. 40 Therefore be gone; solicit me no more.
Pro. What dangerous action, stood it next to death, Would I not undergo for one calm look! O, ’tis the curse in love, and still approved, When women cannot love where they’re beloved!
45 Sil. When Proteus cannot love where he’s beloved. Read over Julia’s heart, thy first, best love, For whose dear sake thou didst then rend thy faith Into a thousand oaths; and all those oaths Descended into perjury, to love me. V. 4. 50 Thou hast no faith left now, unless thou’dst two, And that’s far worse than none; better have none Than plural faith which is too much by one: Thou counterfeit to thy true friend!
Pro. In love Who respects friend?
Sil.
All men but Proteus.
55 Pro. Nay, if the gentle spirit of moving words Can no way change you to a milder form, I’ll woo you like a soldier, at arms’ end, And love you ’gainst the nature of love,—force ye.
Sil. O heaven!
Pro.
I’ll force thee yield to my desire.
60 Val. Ruffian, let go that rude uncivil touch, Thou friend of an ill fashion!
Pro.
Valentine!
Val. Thou common friend, that’s without faith or love, For such is a friend now; treacherous man! Thou hast beguiled my hopes; nought but mine eye 65 Could have persuaded me: now I dare not say I have one friend alive; thou wouldst disprove me. Who should be trusted now, when one’s right hand Is perjured to the bosom? Proteus, I am sorry I must never trust thee more, 70 But count the world a stranger for thy sake. The private wound is deepest: O time most accurst, ’Mongst all foes that a friend should be the worst!
Pro. My shame and guilt confounds me. Forgive me, Valentine: if hearty sorrow V. 4. 75 Be a sufficient ransom for offence, I tender ’t here; I do as truly suffer As e’er I did commit.
Val. Then I am paid; And once again I do receive thee honest. Who by repentance is not satisfied 80 Is nor of heaven nor earth, for these are pleased. By penitence the Eternal’s wrath’s appeased: And, that my love may appear plain and free, All that was mine in Silvia I give thee.
Jul. O me unhappy! Swoons.
85 Pro. Look to the boy.
Val. Why, boy! why, wag! how now! what’s the matter? Look up; speak.
Jul. O good sir, my master charged me to deliver a ring to Madam Silvia, which, out of my neglect, was never 90 done.
Pro. Where is that ring, boy?
Jul.
Here ’tis; this is it.
Pro. How! let me see: Why, this is the ring I gave to Julia.
Jul. O, cry you mercy, sir, I have mistook: 95 This is the ring you sent to Silvia.
Pro. But how camest thou by this ring? At my depart I gave this unto Julia.
Jul. And Julia herself did give it me; And Julia herself hath brought it hither.
V. 4. 100 Pro. How! Julia!
Jul. Behold her that gave aim to all thy oaths, And entertain’d ’em deeply in her heart. How oft hast thou with perjury cleft the root! O Proteus, let this habit make thee blush! 105 Be thou ashamed that I have took upon me Such an immodest raiment, if shame live In a disguise of love: It is the lesser blot, modesty finds, Women to change their shapes than men their minds.
110 Pro. Than men their minds! ’tis true. O heaven, were man But constant, he were perfect! That one error Fills him with faults; makes him run through all the sins: Inconstancy falls off ere it begins. What is in Silvia’s face, but I may spy 115 More fresh in Julia’s with a constant eye?
Val. Come, come, a hand from either: Let me be blest to make this happy close; ’Twere pity two such friends should be long foes.
Pro. Bear witness, Heaven, I have my wish for ever.
120 Jul. And I mine.
Enter Outlaws, with Duke and Thurio.
Outlaws. A prize, a prize, a prize!
Val. Forbear, forbear, I say! it is my lord the duke. Your Grace is welcome to a man disgraced, Banished Valentine.
Duke.
Sir Valentine!
V. 4. 125 Thu. Yonder is Silvia; and Silvia’s mine.
Val. Thurio, give back, or else embrace thy death; Come not within the measure of my wrath; Do not name Silvia thine; if once again, Verona shall not hold thee. Here she stands: 130 Take but possession of her with a touch: I dare thee but to breathe upon my love.
Thu. Sir Valentine, I care not for her, I: I hold him but a fool that will endanger His body for a girl that loves him not: 135 I claim her not, and therefore she is thine.
Duke. The more degenerate and base art thou, To make such means for her as thou hast done, And leave her on such slight conditions. Now, by the honour of my ancestry, 140 I do applaud thy spirit, Valentine, And think thee worthy of an empress’ love: Know, then, I here forget all former griefs, Cancel all grudge, repeal thee home again, Plead a new state in thy unrival’d merit, 145 To which I thus subscribe: Sir Valentine, Thou art a gentleman, and well derived; Take thou thy Silvia, for thou hast deserved her.
Val. I thank your grace; the gift hath made me happy. I now beseech you, for your daughter’s sake, V. 4. 150 To grant one boon that I shall ask of you.
Duke. I grant it, for thine own, whate’er it be.
Val. These banish’d men that I have kept withal Are men endued with worthy qualities: Forgive them what they have committed here, 155 And let them be recall’d from their exile: They are reformed, civil, full of good, And fit for great employment, worthy lord.
Duke. Thou hast prevail’d; I pardon them and thee: Dispose of them as thou know’st their deserts. 160 Come, let us go: we will include all jars With triumphs, mirth, and rare solemnity.
Val. And, as we walk along, I dare be bold With our discourse to make your Grace to smile. What think you of this page, my lord?
165 Duke. I think the boy hath grace in him; he blushes.
Val. I warrant you, my lord, more grace than boy.
Duke. What mean you by that saying?
Val. Please you, I’ll tell you as we pass along, That you will wonder what hath fortuned. 170 Come, Proteus; ’tis your penance but to hear The story of your loves discovered: That done, our day of marriage shall be yours; One feast, one house, one mutual happiness. Exeunt.
NOTES.
Note I.
Dramatis Personæ. We have followed Steevens and the later editors in reading ‘Proteus’ for ‘Protheus’; for though the latter form is invariably used in the Folios, and was, in all probability, what Shakespeare wrote, yet in choosing the name he doubtless meant to compare the fickle mind of the lover with the changeable form of the god. We have written ‘Panthino,’ not ‘Panthion,’ because the authority of the first Folio preponderates in favour of the former, in itself the more probable form of an Italian proper name. ‘Panthion’ occurs in F1, among ‘the names of all the actors,’ and in a stage direction at the beginning of Act II Sc. 2, but never in the text. ‘Panthino’ is found twice in the text, and once in a stage direction at the beginning of Act I. Sc. 3. The blunder ‘Panthmo,’ I. 3. 76, which is the reading of F1, shows that the original MS. had ‘Panthino,’ not ‘Panthion.’
Note II.
I. 1. 28 sqq. Mr Sidney Walker (Criticisms on Shakespeare, III. p. 9) says we ought ‘perhaps’ to read
‘No, I will not, for it boots not.’
Doubtless he meant also to re-arrange the following lines, and so get rid of the Alexandrine at 30; thus:
‘Val. No, I will not, for it boots not. Pro. What? Val. To be In love, where scorn is bought with groans; coy looks With heart-sore sighs; one fading moment’s mirth,’ &c.
Note III.
I. 2. 53. What a fool is she. The first Folio reads ‘What ’foole is she,’ doubtless to indicate an ellipsis of the indefinite article, which, for the sake of the metre, was to be slurred over in pronunciation. As we have not followed the Folio in reading th’ or th for the before a consonant, so we have thought it best to insert here the omitted letter a, especially as the use of the apostrophe is by modern custom much more restricted than it was in the Folio. For example, we find ’Save for God save (Tempest, II. 1. 162), and at ’nostrils for at’s nostrils or at the nostrils (Id. II. 2. 60).
Note IV.
II. 1. 68, 69. This passage is corrupt. The usual explanation, which satisfies Delius, is inadmissible, because Valentine would certainly not appear, like the Knight of La Mancha, without his hose. A rhyming couplet was probably what the author intended. Many conjectures might be made, as for example:
‘For he, being in love, could not see to garter his hose; And you, being in love, cannot see to beyond your nose.’
Or, ‘to put spectacles on your nose.’ Or possibly, ‘to put on your shoes,’ the point of which remark Valentine’s disordered dress might make clear to the audience. Rosalind, when enumerating the marks of a man in love, mentions the untied shoe as well as the ungartered hose, As You Like It, Act III. Sc. 2. The same misprint, ‘hose’ for ‘shoes,’ occurs in the first edition of Greene’s Groatsworth of Wit. See Mr Dyce’s preface to his edition of Greene’s Dramatic Works, p. xxviii.
Note V.
II. 4. 7, 95, 111. As Speed after line 7 does not say a word during the whole of this long scene, we have sent him off the stage. It is not likely that the clown would be kept on as a mute bystander, especially when he had to appear in the following scene.
The Folios give line 110 to Thurio, who, if the reading be right, must have quitted the stage during the scene. The most probable time for this would be on Proteus’ entrance, line 95. Mr Dyce however argues that ‘Thurio, after what the Duke, in the presence of Silvia, had said to him about welcoming Proteus, would hardly run off the moment Proteus appeared.’ But Thurio is not held up as a model of courtesy, and he might as well be off the stage as on it, for any welcome he gives to Proteus. Besides, in line 101 Valentine ignores Thurio altogether, who, if he had been present, would not have remained silent under the slight.
On the whole, we think that the arrangement we have given is the best, as involving no change in the original reading. The question however is a difficult and doubtful one—indeed, far more difficult and doubtful than it is important, or instructive.
Note VI.
II. 4. 192. Theobald’s correction, ‘mine eye,’ or as Mr Spedding suggests, ‘my eye’ (’my eie’ in the original spelling), is supported by a passage in the Comedy of Errors, III. 2. 55:
‘It is a fault that springeth from your eye.’
If this were not satisfactory, another guess might be hazarded:
‘Is it mine unstaid mind or Valentine’s praise.’
The resemblance of ‘mine’ and ‘mind’ in the printer’s eye (final d and final e being perpetually mistaken for each other) might cause the omission of the two words. ‘Valentine’ is found as a dissyllable I. 2. 38. ‘Sir Valentine’s page, &c.’: perhaps also III. 1. 191:
‘There’s not a hair on ’s head but ’tis a Valentine,’
and, if Capell’s arrangement be right, V. 2. 34.
Note VII.
II. 5. 1, III. 1. 81, and V. 4. 129. We have retained ‘Padua’ in the first of these passages and ‘Verona’ in the second and third, because it is impossible that the words can be a mere printer’s, or transcriber’s, error. These inaccuracies are interesting as showing that Shakespeare had written the whole of the play before he had finally determined where the scene was to be laid.
Note VIII.
In the printed book, the remainder of the page following Note VII is empty, and the overleaf page is blank. There is no Note VIII (referenced in the notes for Scenes IV. 3 andIV. 4).