Faculty of English

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 […]

VALENTINE    Madam and mistress, a thousand good-morrows. SPEED            [aside] O God give ye good even! Here’s a million of manners. SILVIA Sir Valentine and servant, to you two thousand. SPEED [aside] He should give her interest, and she gives it him. VALENTINE As you enjoined me, I have writ your letter Unto the secret, nameless friend of […]

VALENTINE    In conclusion, I stand affected to her. SPEED            I would you were set, so your affection would cease. VALENTINE Last night, she enjoined me to write some lines to one she loves. SPEED And have you? VALENTINE I have. SPEED Are they not lamely writ? VALENTINE No, boy, but as well as I can do […]

VALENTINE    I have loved her ever since I saw her, and still I see her beautiful. SPEED            If you love her, you cannot see her. VALENTINE Why? SPEED Because Love is blind. O that you had mine eyes, or your own eyes had the lights they were wont to have when you chid at Sir Proteus for […]

VALENTINE I mean that her beauty is exquisite but her favour infinite. SPEED That’s because the one is painted and the other out of all count. VALENTINE How painted? And how out of count? SPEED Marry, sir, so painted to make her fair, that no man counts of her beauty. VALENTINE How esteem’st thou me? I […]

VALENTINE    But tell me, dost thou know my lady Silvia? SPEED            She that you gaze on so as she sits at supper? VALENTINE Hast thou observed that? Even she I mean. SPEED Why sir, I know her not. VALENTINE Dost thou know her by my gazing on her, and yet know’st her not? SPEED Is she […]

VALENTINE    Are all these things perceived in me? SPEED            They are all perceived without ye. VALENTINE Without me? They cannot. SPEED Without you? Nay, that’s certain, for without you were so simple, none else would. But you are so without these follies that these follies are within you, and shine through you like the water in an […]

SPEED            Marry, by these special marks: first, you have learned, like Sir Proteus, to wreathe your arms like a malcontent; to relish a love song like a robin redbreast; to walk alone like one that had the pestilence; to sigh like a schoolboy that had lost his ABC; to weep like a young wench that had buried her […]