Shakespeare Portal

Act 2, Scene 6

The same. The DUKE's palace.

  1. [Enter PROTEUS.]
  2. Proteus
  3. 877 To leave my Julia, shall I be forsworn;
  4. 878 To love fair Silvia, shall I be forsworn;
  5. 879 To wrong my friend, I shall be much forsworn;
  6. 880 And even that power which gave me first my oath
  7. 881 Provokes me to this threefold perjury:
  8. 882 Love bade me swear, and Love bids me forswear.
  9. 883 O sweet-suggesting Love! if thou hast sinn'd,
  10. 884 Teach me, thy tempted subject, to excuse it.
  11. 885 At first I did adore a twinkling star,
  12. 886 But now I worship a celestial sun.
  13. 887 Unheedful vows may heedfully be broken;
  14. 888 And he wants wit that wants resolved will
  15. 889 To learn his wit t' exchange the bad for better.
  16. 890 Fie, fie, unreverend tongue, to call her bad,
  17. 891 Whose sovereignty so oft thou hast preferr'd
  18. 892 With twenty thousand soul-confirming oaths.
  19. 893 I cannot leave to love, and yet I do;
  20. 894 But there I leave to love where I should love.
  21. 895 Julia I lose, and Valentine I lose;
  22. 896 If I keep them, I needs must lose myself;
  23. 897 If I lose them, thus find I by their loss,
  24. 898 For Valentine, myself; for Julia, Silvia.
  25. 899 I to myself am dearer than a friend,
  26. 900 For love is still most precious in itself;
  27. 901 And Silvia—witness heaven, that made her fair!—
  28. 902 Shows Julia but a swarthy Ethiope.
  29. 903 I will forget that Julia is alive,
  30. 904 Remembering that my love to her is dead;
  31. 905 And Valentine I'll hold an enemy,
  32. 906 Aiming at Silvia as a sweeter friend.
  33. 907 I cannot now prove constant to myself
  34. 908 Without some treachery us'd to Valentine.
  35. 909 This night he meaneth with a corded ladder
  36. 910 To climb celestial Silvia's chamber window,
  37. 911 Myself in counsel, his competitor.
  38. 912 Now presently I'll give her father notice
  39. 913 Of their disguising and pretended flight;
  40. 914 Who, all enrag'd, will banish Valentine;
  41. 915 For Thurio, he intends, shall wed his daughter;
  42. 916 But, Valentine being gone, I'll quickly cross,
  43. 917 By some sly trick blunt Thurio's dull proceeding.
  44. 918 Love, lend me wings to make my purpose swift,
  45. 919 As thou hast lent me wit to plot this drift!
  46. [Exit.]