Enter Outlaws

FIRST OUTLAW         Fellows, stand fast – I see a passenger.

SECOND OUTLAW     If there be ten, shrink not, but down with ’em.

[Enter Valentine and Speed]

THIRD OUTLAW        Stand, sir, and throw us that you have about ye.

If not, we’ll make you sit, and rifle you.

SPEED [to Valentine] Sir, we are undone! These are the villains

That all the travellers do fear so much.

VALENTINE   [to the Outlaws] My friends.

FIRST OUTLAW That’s not so, sir. We are your enemies.

SECOND OUTLAW Peace! We’ll hear him.

THIRD OUTLAW Ay, by my beard will we, for he is a proper man.          (4.1.1-10)

Change of scene! A forest! And Enter Outlaws (in modern productions the sadly under-utilised Lucetta sometimes doubles here, as well as other characters from Verona). They are fellows, a crew, a team—just worth noting, in passing, in this play about ruptured friendships—and their apparent leader calls on them to stand fast, both stop and hold your ground, I see a passenger—there’s a traveller approaching, on foot. The second outlaw is confident, even blustering, or perhaps seeking to bolster his fellows’ spirits: if there be ten, shrink not, but down with ’em. We can take them! Even if there were ten of them! But it’s the third outlaw who actually speaks to Valentine and Speed: stand, sir, and throw us that you have about ye. Stop and hand over your stuff. (Are they threatening the travellers with any kind of weapons? Knives? Bow and arrows? Not impossible, but probably not remarked in the moment if there’s nothing.) A touch of bathos in the follow-up though? if not—if you don’t throw us your goods, we’ll make you sit, and rifle you. It could be said with menaces, obviously, but it’s hardly your money or your life.

Speed, however, takes this threat very seriously: sir, we are undone! These are the villains that all the travellers do fear so much! There could be a smirk of satisfaction (or surprise) exchanged between the outlaws: that’s us! we’re NOTORIOUS! perhaps a self-conscious flex of muscles, or a snarl; got to live up to that fearsome reputation! But Valentine disarms them: my friends. Ironic, of course, in the context of what Proteus has just done to him, and the outlaws are a bit miffed; doesn’t he know how scary they are? That’s not so, sir (sir, of course, ruins the effect): we are your enemies, fearsome and notorious etc. The second outlaw is more conciliatory: peace, we’ll hear him. Shut up and listen. And third outlaw is even more enthusiastic, and deferential: ay, by my beard will we, for he is a proper man. He’s a gentleman. We’d better listen.