LANCE                        This shoe is my father. – No, this left shoe is my father. – No, no, this left shoe is my mother. – Nay, that cannot be so neither. – Yes, it is so, it is so, it hath the worser sole. This shoe with the hole in it is my mother, and this my father. […]

Enter Lance [with his dog Crab] LANCE                        Nay, ’twill be this hour ere I have done weeping. All the kind of the Lances have this very fault. I have received my proportion, like the prodigious son, and am going with Sir Proteus to the Imperial’s court. I think Crab, my dog, be the sourest-natured dog that lives. […]

PROTEUS       Here is my hand for my true constancy. And when that hour o’erslips me in the day Wherein I sigh not ‘Julia’ for thy sake, The next ensuing hour some foul mischance Torment me for my love’s forgetfulness. My father stays my coming – answer not. The tide is now. Nay, not thy tide […]

Enter Proteus [and] Julia PROTEUS       Have patience, gentle Julia. JULIA  I must, where is no remedy. PROTEUS When possibly I can, I will return. JULIA If you turn not, you will return the sooner. [She gives him a ring] Keep this remembrance for thy Julia’s sake. PROTEUS Why then, we’ll make exchange. [He gives her […]

VALENTINE   I would it were no worse. SPEED I’ll warrant you, ’tis as well. For often have you writ to her, and she in modesty Or else for want of idle time could not again reply, Or fearing else some messenger that might her mind discover, Herself hath taught her love himself to write unto […]

VALENTINE    To do what? SPEED To be a spokesman from Madam Silvia. VALENTINE To whom? SPEED To yourself. Why, she woos you by a figure. VALENTINE What figure? SPEED By a letter, I should say. VALENTINE Why, she hath not writ to me! SPEED What need she, when she hath made you write to yourself? Why, […]

SPEED [aside] O jest unseen, inscrutable, invisible As a nose on a man’s face, or a weathercock on a steeple. My master sues to her, and she hath taught her suitor, He being her pupil, to become her tutor. O excellent device! Was there ever heard a better?– That my master, being scribe, to himself should […]

VALENTINE    Madam, they are for you. SILVIA             Ay, ay. You writ them, sir, at my request, But I will none of them. They are for you. I would have had them writ more movingly. VALENTINE Please you, I’ll write your ladyship another. SILVIA And when it’s writ, for my sake read it over, And […]

SILVIA             A pretty period. Well, I guess the sequel. And yet I will not name it. And yet I care not. And yet, take this again. [She tries to return the letter] And yet I thank you, Meaning henceforth to trouble you no more. SPEED            [aside] And yet you will, and yet another ‘yet’. VALENTINE    […]

SILVIA I thank you, gentle servant. ’Tis very clerkly done. VALENTINE    Now trust me, madam, it came hardly off; For being ignorant to whom it goes I writ at random, very doubtfully. SILVIA Perchance you think too much of so much pains? VALENTINE No, madam, so it stead you, I will write– Please you command–a […]