Two Gentlemen of Verona: Act 2

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 grandam; to fast like one that takes diet; to watch like one that fears robbing; to speak puling like a beggar at Hallowmas.

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 grandam; to fast like one that takes diet; to watch like one that fears robbing; to speak puling like a beggar at Hallowmas.

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 grandam; to fast like one that takes diet; to watch like one that fears robbing; to speak puling like a beggar at Hallowmas.

...not an eye that sees you but is a physician to comment on your malady.

Last night she enjoined me to write some lines to one she loves.

O jest unseen, inscrutable, invisible
As a nose on a man’s face, or a weathercock on a steeple!

Ay, but hearken, sir, though the chameleon love can feed on the air, I am one that am nourished by my victuals and would fain have meat.

Ay, but hearken, sir, though the chameleon love can feed on the air, I am one that am nourished by my victuals and would fain have meat.

Ay, but hearken, sir, though the chameleon love can feed on the air, I am one that am nourished by my victuals and would fain have meat.

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.

I think Crab my dog be the sourest-natured dog that lives: my mother weeping, my father wailing, my sister crying, our maid howling, our cat wringing her hands, and all our house in a great perplexity, yet did not this cruel-hearted cur shed one tear.

You’ll lose the tide if you tarry any longer.

I quote it in your jerkin.

My “jerkin” is a doublet.

You have an exchequer of words and, I think, no other treasure to give your followers, for it appears by their bare liveries that they live by your bare words.

You have an exchequer of words and, I think, no other treasure to give your followers, for it appears by their bare liveries that they live by your bare words.

Now, daughter Sylvia, you are hard beset.

Ay, my good lord, I know the gentleman
To be of worth and worthy estimation,
And not without desert so well reputed.

I knew him as myself, for from our infancy
We have conversed and spent our hours together,
And though myself have been an idle truant,
Omitting the sweet benefit of time
To clothe mine age with angel-like perfection,
Yet hath Sir Proteus—for that’s his name—
Made use and fair advantage of his days

Well, sir, this gentleman is come to me
With commendation from great potentates,
And here he means to spend his time awhile.

Belike that now she hath enfranchised them
Upon some other pawn for fealty.

Belike that now she hath enfranchised them
Upon some other pawn for fealty.

Upon a homely object, Love can wink.

I beseech you
Confirm his welcome with some special favor.

And duty never yet did want his meed.

I’ll leave you to confer of home affairs.

I have done penance for contemning Love,
Whose high imperious thoughts have punished me
With bitter fasts, with penitential groans,
With nightly tears, and daily heartsore sighs,
For in revenge of my contempt of love,
Love hath chased sleep from my enthrallèd eyes
And made them watchers of mine own heart’s sorrow.

I have done penance for contemning Love,
Whose high imperious thoughts have punished me
With bitter fasts, with penitential groans,
With nightly tears, and daily heartsore sighs,
For in revenge of my contempt of love,
Love hath chased sleep from my enthrallèd eyes
And made them watchers of mine own heart’s sorrow.

No, but she is an earthly paragon.

Why, Valentine, what braggartism is this?

Is it mine eye, or Valentine’s praise,
Her true perfection, or my false transgression,
That makes me reasonless to reason thus?

Methinks my zeal to Valentine is cold,
And that I love him not as I was wont.

And ev’n that power which gave me first my oath
Provokes me to this threefold perjury.

Better forbear till Proteus make return.

Pity the dearth that I have pinèd in
By longing for that food so long a time.

Pity the dearth that I have pinèd in
By longing for that food so long a time.

The current that with gentle murmur glides,
Thou know’st, being stopped, impatiently doth rage,
But when his fair course is not hinderèd,
He makes sweet music with th’ enameled stones,
Giving a gentle kiss to every sedge

Not like a woman, for I would prevent
The loose encounters of lascivious men.

Lucetta, as thou lov’st me, let me have
What thou think’st meet and is most mannerly.

Only, in lieu thereof, dispatch me hence.