DUKE  Now, daughter Silvia, you are hard beset. Sir Valentine, your father is in good health, What say you to a letter from your friends Of much good news? VALENTINE    My lord, I will be thankful To any happy messenger from thence. DUKE Know ye Don Antonio, your countryman? VALENTINE Ay, my good lord, I […]

SILVIA             A fine volley of words, gentlemen, and quickly shot off. VALENTINE    ’Tis indeed, madam, we thank the giver. SILVIA             Who is that, servant? VALENTINE Yourself, sweet lady, for you gave the fire. Sir Thurio borrows his wit from your ladyship’s looks, and spends what he borrows kindly in your company. THURIO          Sir, if you […]

THURIO          And how quote you my folly? VALENTINE    I quote it in your jerkin. THURIO My jerkin is a doublet. VALENTINE Well then, I’ll double your folly. THURIO How? SILVIA What, angry, Sir Thurio? Do you change colour? VALENTINE Give him leave, madam. He is a kind of chameleon. THURIO That hath more mind to […]

Enter Valentine, Silvia, Thurio, [and] Speed SILVIA             Servant! VALENTINE    Mistress. SPEED            [to Valentine] Master, Sir Thurio frowns on you. VALENTINE Ay, boy, it’s for love. SPEED Not of you. VALENTINE Of my mistress, then. SPEED ’Twere good you knocked him. SILVIA [to Valentine] Servant, you are sad. VALENTINE Indeed, madam, I seem so. THURIO          Seem you […]

PANTINO        Tut, man, I mean thou’lt lose the flood, and in losing the flood, lose thy voyage, and in losing thy voyage, lose thy master, and in losing thy master, lose thy service, and in losing thy service– [Lance puts up his hand] Why dost thou stop my mouth? LANCE                        For fear thou shouldst lose thy tongue. […]

[Enter Pantino] PANTINO        Lance, away, away, aboard. Thy master is shipped, and thou art to post after with oars. What’s the matter? Why weep’st thou, man? Away, ass, you’ll lose the tide if you tarry any longer. LANCE                        It is no matter if the tied were lost, for it is the unkindest tied that ever any man […]

LANCE                        Now come I to my father: ‘Father, your blessing.’ Now should not the shoe speak a word for weeping. Now should I kiss my father– [He kisses the shoe] Well, he weeps on. Now come I to my mother. O, that she could speak now, like a wold-woman! Well, I kiss her– [He kisses the other […]

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 […]