Act 4, Scene 2

Milan. The sourt of the DUKE'S palace.

[Enter PROTEUS.]
Proteus
1547 Already have I been false to Valentine,
1548 And now I must be as unjust to Thurio.
1549 Under the colour of commending him,
1550 I have access my own love to prefer:
1551 But Silvia is too fair, too true, too holy,
1552 To be corrupted with my worthless gifts.
1553 When I protest true loyalty to her,
1554 She twits me with my falsehood to my friend;
1555 When to her beauty I commend my vows,
1556 She bids me think how I have been forsworn
1557 In breaking faith with Julia whom I lov'd;
1558 And notwithstanding all her sudden quips,
1559 The least whereof would quell a lover's hope,
1560 Yet, spaniel-like, the more she spurns my love
1561 The more it grows and fawneth on her still.
1562 But here comes Thurio. Now must we to her window,
1563 And give some evening music to her ear.
[Enter THURIO and Musicians.]
Thurio
1564 How now, Sir Proteus! are you crept before us?
Proteus
1565 Ay, gentle Thurio; for you know that love
1566 Will creep in service where it cannot go.
Thurio
1567 Ay, but I hope, sir, that you love not here.
Proteus
1568 Sir, but I do; or else I would be hence.
Thurio
1569 Who? Silvia?
Proteus
1570 Ay, Silvia, for your sake.
Thurio
1571 I thank you for your own. Now, gentlemen,
1572 Let's tune, and to it lustily awhile.
[Enter Host, and JULIA in boy's clothes.]
Host
1573 Now, my young guest, methinks you're allycholly; I pray you,
1574 why is it?
Julia
1575 Marry, mine host, because I cannot be merry.
Host
1576 Come, we'll have you merry; I'll bring you where you shall
1577 hear music, and see the gentleman that you asked for.
Julia
1578 But shall I hear him speak?
Host
1579 Ay, that you shall.
Julia
1580 That will be music.
[Music plays.]
Host
1581 Hark! hark!
Julia
1582 Is he among these?
Host
1583 Ay; but peace! let's hear 'em.
[SONG]
Musicians
1584 Who is Silvia? What is she,
1585 That all our swains commend her?
1586 Holy, fair, and wise is she;
1587 The heaven such grace did lend her,
1588 That she might admired be.
Musicians
1589 Is she kind as she is fair?
1590 For beauty lives with kindness.
1591 Love doth to her eyes repair,
1592 To help him of his blindness;
1593 And, being help'd, inhabits there.
Musicians
1594 Then to Silvia let us sing
1595 That Silvia is excelling;
1596 She excels each mortal thing
1597 Upon the dull earth dwelling.
1598 ' To her let us garlands bring.
Host
1599 How now, are you sadder than you were before?
1600 How do you, man? The music likes you not.
Julia
1601 You mistake; the musician likes me not.
Host
1602 Why, my pretty youth?
Julia
1603 He plays false, father.
Host
1604 How? out of tune on the strings?
Julia
1605 Not so; but yet so false that he grieves my very
1606 heart-strings.
Host
1607 You have a quick ear.
Julia
1608 Ay, I would I were deaf; it makes me have a slow heart.
Host
1609 I perceive you delight not in music.
Julia
1610 Not a whit,—when it jars so.
Host
1611 Hark! what fine change is in the music!
Julia
1612 Ay, that change is the spite.
Host
1613 You would have them always play but one thing?
Julia
1614 I would always have one play but one thing.
1615 But, Host, doth this Sir Proteus, that we talk on,
1616 Often resort unto this gentlewoman?
Host
1617 I tell you what Launce, his man, told me: he lov'd her out of
1618 all nick.
Julia
1619 Where is Launce?
Host
1620 Gone to seek his dog, which to-morrow, by his master's
1621 command, he must carry for a present to his lady.
Julia
1622 Peace! stand aside: the company parts.
Proteus
1623 Sir Thurio, fear not you; I will so plead
1624 That you shall say my cunning drift excels.
Thurio
1625 Where meet we?
Proteus
1626 At Saint Gregory's well.
Thurio
1627 Farewell.
[Exeunt THURIO and Musicians.]
[Enter SILVIA above, at her window.]
Proteus
1628 Madam, good even to your ladyship.
Silvia
1629 I thank you for your music, gentlemen.
1630 Who is that that spake?
Proteus
1631 One, lady, if you knew his pure heart's truth,
1632 You would quickly learn to know him by his voice.
Silvia
1633 Sir Proteus, as I take it.
Proteus
1634 Sir Proteus, gentle lady, and your servant.
Silvia
1635 What's your will?
Proteus
1636 That I may compass yours.
Silvia
1637 You have your wish; my will is even this,
1638 That presently you hie you home to bed.
1639 Thou subtle, perjur'd, false, disloyal man!
1640 Think'st thou I am so shallow, so conceitless,
1641 To be seduced by thy flattery,
1642 That hast deceiv'd so many with thy vows?
1643 Return, return, and make thy love amends.
1644 For me, by this pale queen of night I swear,
1645 I am so far from granting thy request
1646 That I despise thee for thy wrongful suit,
1647 And by and by intend to chide myself
1648 Even for this time I spend in talking to thee.
Proteus
1649 I grant, sweet love, that I did love a lady;
1650 But she is dead.
[Aside]
Julia
1651 'Twere false, if I should speak it;
1652 For I am sure she is not buried.
Silvia
1653 Say that she be; yet Valentine, thy friend,
1654 Survives, to whom, thyself art witness,
1655 I am betroth'd; and art thou not asham'd
1656 To wrong him with thy importunacy?
Proteus
1657 I likewise hear that Valentine is dead.
Silvia
1658 And so suppose am I; for in his grave,
1659 Assure thyself my love is buried.
Proteus
1660 Sweet lady, let me rake it from the earth.
Silvia
1661 Go to thy lady's grave, and call hers thence;
1662 Or, at the least, in hers sepulchre thine.
[Aside]
Julia
1663 He heard not that.
Proteus
1664 Madam, if your heart be so obdurate,
1665 Vouchsafe me yet your picture for my love,
1666 The picture that is hanging in your chamber;
1667 To that I'll speak, to that I'll sigh and weep;
1668 For, since the substance of your perfect self
1669 Is else devoted, I am but a shadow;
1670 And to your shadow will I make true love.
[Aside]
Julia
1671 If 'twere a substance, you would, sure, deceive it
1672 And make it but a shadow, as I am.
Silvia
1673 I am very loath to be your idol, sir;
1674 But since your falsehood shall become you well
1675 To worship shadows and adore false shapes,
1676 Send to me in the morning, and I'll send it;
1677 And so, good rest.
Proteus
1678 As wretches have o'ernight
1679 That wait for execution in the morn.
[Exeunt PROTEUS and SILVIA, above.]
Julia
1680 Host, will you go?
Host
1681 By my halidom, I was fast asleep.
Julia
1682 Pray you, where lies Sir Proteus?
Host
1683 Marry, at my house. Trust me, I think 'tis almost day.
Julia
1684 Not so; but it hath been the longest night
1685 That e'er I watch'd, and the most heaviest.
[Exeunt.]

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Word definitions on hover

Notes

TLN 1549archaic vocab
“Under the colour of commending him”
'Colour' means pretext or cover. Proteus is using the excuse of praising Thurio as a way to get close enough to Silvia to push his own suit.
TLN 1560cultural context
“spaniel-like, the more she spurns my love”
A spaniel was proverbially a fawning, obedient dog that followed its master the more eagerly the more it was kicked. Proteus compares his own lovesick persistence to a beaten dog that keeps returning — a self-aware but helpless admission of his obsession.
TLN 1565wordplay
“love Will creep in service where it cannot go”
Proteus is punning: 'go' means both 'walk upright' and 'succeed openly.' Love that cannot stride in boldly will sneak in as a servant. The line also explains why he arrives before Thurio — he is so obsessed he cannot wait.
TLN 1573archaic vocab
“methinks you're allycholly”
The Host's mispronunciation of 'melancholy' (sadness, low spirits). The garbling signals that he is a genial, uneducated innkeeper; the irony is that his diagnosis is accurate — Julia is heartbroken.
TLN 1575wordplay
“Marry, mine host, because I cannot be merry”
'Marry' is a mild oath from the Virgin Mary's name, but Julia's reply turns it into a pun: 'Marry... merry' — I cannot be Mary/merry. The wordplay on her own name's echo is bleak: she is in Milan to reclaim Proteus, disguised as a boy, and is about to hear him serenade her rival.
TLN 1584cultural context
“Who is Silvia? What is she”
This is the play's famous serenade, hired by Thurio to win Silvia but covertly directed by Proteus toward his own pursuit of her. 'Swains' means rural lovers or suitors. The song praises Silvia as a near-divine beauty — exactly the Petrarchan blazon of the unattainable lady — while the disguised Julia must stand and listen.
historical Petrarch and the Petrarchan lover
TLN 1600wordplay
“The music likes you not”
'Likes' here means 'pleases.' The Host thinks Julia is disappointed by the music; she corrects him — 'the musician likes me not' (the player does not love me). When she says he plays 'false,' she means both out of tune and faithlessly. The whole exchange runs on the double meaning of 'false' and 'heart-strings.'
TLN 1617archaic vocab
“he lov'd her out of all nick”
'Out of all nick' means beyond all reckoning or score-keeping — excessively, past measure. A 'nick' was a notch cut on a tally-stick to record a count; 'out of all nick' means the count has gone off the tally altogether. Launce told the Host that Proteus loves Silvia to an extreme beyond counting.
TLN 1644classical allusion
“this pale queen of night I swear”
Silvia swears by the moon, here called the 'pale queen of night' — a name for Diana, goddess of the moon and of chastity. The oath is pointed: Silvia is swearing by the goddess of female constancy that she will never yield to Proteus.
classical Diana, virgin goddess of the moon
TLN 1665cultural context
“Vouchsafe me yet your picture for my love”
Proteus asks for a portrait of Silvia to worship in place of the real woman. Exchanging miniature portraits was a standard Elizabethan courtship practice. His request admits he cannot have the 'substance' and will settle for the 'shadow' — but the word-play on shadow and substance then draws in Julia, who is literally the 'shadow' (disguised person) of herself.
TLN 1678rhetorical device
“As wretches have o'ernight That wait for execution in the morn”
Proteus compares his rest before seeing Silvia's portrait to the 'rest' of a condemned man waiting overnight for morning execution. The simile is a dark self-portrait: to Proteus, not having Silvia is a death sentence, and the portrait is only a stay of the inevitable. It also reveals — beyond his stated complaint — something unhinged in the intensity of his pursuit.
TLN 1681archaic vocab
“By my halidom, I was fast asleep”
'Halidom' (also 'holidam') was a mild oath meaning by holy things — by the blessed sacrament or by one's salvation. It was old-fashioned even in Shakespeare's day, fitting for the simple, pious Host. His having slept through the entire painful exchange adds the final comic irony to the scene.
TLN 1685syntax grammar
“the most heaviest”
'The most heaviest' is a double superlative — both 'most' and '-est' mark the highest degree, which is grammatically redundant by modern rules but was acceptable in Elizabethan English as a rhetorical intensifier. Julia means 'the most heavy,' the most grief-laden, of all the nights she has ever kept vigil.