THIRD OUTLAW        Know, then, that some of us are gentlemen

Such as the fury of ungoverned youth

Thrust from the company of lawful men.

Myself was from Verona banishèd

For practising to steal away a lady,

An heir, and near allied unto the Duke.

SECOND OUTLAW     And I from Mantua, for a gentleman

Who, in my mood, I stabbed unto the heart.         (4.1.41-48)

The outlaws now establish their own ‘credentials’, and of course they chime, ironically, with Valentine’s. The third outlaw is keen for Valentine to know that at least some of us are gentlemen, an identity so central to the play—and they are those such as the fury of ungoverned youth thrust from the company of lawful men. Some of us are just youthful tearaways, he says, thrown out, exiled because we kept getting into scrapes, out of control. We’re not really bad, we’re not like common criminals, is the subtext. Reassuring for Valentine; he can still be an outlaw and a gentleman it seems! Myself, adds the third outlaw, was from Verona banished for practising to steal away a lady, an heir, and near allied unto the Duke. Valentine might start, slightly? (What the third outlaw has in fact described is the crime of raptus, rape, abduction of an heiress for the purposes of forced marriage—which might be assumed to include sexual assault—which those eloping in similar circumstances were anxious to differentiate their actions from.) A bit of a reality check for Valentine: is this you, too? The second outlaw, though, is more straightforward, and less self-exculpatory: I was banished from Mantua, he says, for a gentleman who, in my mood, I stabbed unto the heart. No excuses here: I’m just a murderer. In my mood though: I let my emotions, my passions get the better of me; I lost control. Important note. And comic outlaws, but real crimes. (Also: this is another version of Romeo…)