VALENTINE    Repair me with thy presence, Silvia,

Thou gentle nymph, cherish thy forlorn swain.

[Sounds within]

What hallowing, and what stir is this today?

These are my mates, that make their wills their law,

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.

[He hides]

Who’s this comes here?                    (5.4.11-18)

Repair me with thy presence, Silvia! Partly Valentine picks up his previous conceit of himself as a house fallen into disrepair without Silvia, his soul—but repair here is also restore, heal, complete. He’s OK, but he’s not OK. Then he falls back on more conventional romantic pastoral: thou gentle nymph, cherish thy forlorn swain. I’m just SAD without you. I miss you and I need you. But what is this? Noise? (Editorial stage direction, but it’s clear what’s happening, some kind of outcry or hubbub.) What hallowing—shouting, perhaps even hallooing, hunting cries—and what stir is this today? What’s this latest disturbance? (There might be a weariness in today: what have these outlaws done NOW??) These are my mates, that make their wills their law—they do what they want, my new companions—and they clearly have some unhappy passenger in chase. They’ve captured an unfortunate traveller. (Niche Nashe note: not that Unfortunate Traveller.)[1] They love me well—fabulous people, lovely, lovely guys, top blokes, and they usually do what I tell them—yet I have much to do to keep them from uncivil outrages. They can get a bit—exuberant? lively? they can go a bit far with the insults and the roughing up; uncivil in particular keeps the idea of chivalry, gentlemanlike conduct live. Withdraw thee, Valentine. Who’s this comes here? (Far better for him to be a witness for the next bit of the scene, allowing it to unfold uninterrupted, rather than an immediate participant…)

[1] The Unfortunate Traveller, Thomas Nashe’s wild, picaresque, outrageous prose fiction was first published in 1594.