Act 5, Scene 4

Another part of the forest.

[Enter VALENTINE.]
Valentine
2023 How use doth breed a habit in a man!
2024 This shadowy desert, unfrequented woods,
2025 I better brook than flourishing peopled towns.
2026 Here can I sit alone, unseen of any,
2027 And to the nightingale's complaining notes
2028 Tune my distresses and record my woes.
2029 O thou that dost inhabit in my breast,
2030 Leave not the mansion so long tenantless,
2031 Lest, growing ruinous, the building fall
2032 And leave no memory of what it was!
2033 Repair me with thy presence, Silvia!
2034 Thou gentle nymph, cherish thy forlorn swain.
[Noise within.]
Valentine
2035 What halloing and what stir is this to-day?
2036 These are my mates, that make their wills their law,
2037 Have some unhappy passenger in chase.
2038 They love me well; yet I have much to do
2039 To keep them from uncivil outrages.
2040 Withdraw thee, Valentine: who's this comes here?
[Steps aside.]
[Enter PROTEUS, SILVIA, and JULIA.]
Proteus
2041 Madam, this service I have done for you—
2042 Though you respect not aught your servant doth—
2043 To hazard life, and rescue you from him
2044 That would have forc'd your honour and your love.
2045 Vouchsafe me, for my meed, but one fair look;
2046 A smaller boon than this I cannot beg,
2047 And less than this, I am sure, you cannot give.
[Aside]
Valentine
2048 How like a dream is this I see and hear!
2049 Love, lend me patience to forbear awhile.
Silvia
2050 O miserable, unhappy that I am!
Proteus
2051 Unhappy were you, madam, ere I came;
2052 But by my coming I have made you happy.
Silvia
2053 By thy approach thou mak'st me most unhappy.
[Aside]
Julia
2054 And me, when he approacheth to your presence.
Silvia
2055 Had I been seized by a hungry lion,
2056 I would have been a breakfast to the beast,
2057 Rather than have false Proteus rescue me.
2058 O! heaven be judge how I love Valentine,
2059 Whose life's as tender to me as my soul,
2060 And full as much—for more there cannot be—
2061 I do detest false, perjur'd Proteus.
2062 Therefore be gone; solicit me no more.
Proteus
2063 What dangerous action, stood it next to death,
2064 Would I not undergo for one calm look!
2065 O, 'tis the curse in love, and still approv'd,
2066 When women cannot love where they're belov'd!
Silvia
2067 When Proteus cannot love where he's belov'd!
2068 Read over Julia's heart, thy first best love,
2069 For whose dear sake thou didst then rend thy faith
2070 Into a thousand oaths; and all those oaths
2071 Descended into perjury, to love me.
2072 Thou hast no faith left now, unless thou'dst two,
2073 And that's far worse than none: better have none
2074 Than plural faith, which is too much by one.
2075 Thou counterfeit to thy true friend!
Proteus
2076 In love,
2077 Who respects friend?
Silvia
2078 All men but Proteus.
Proteus
2079 Nay, if the gentle spirit of moving words
2080 Can no way change you to a milder form,
2081 I'll woo you like a soldier, at arms' end,
2082 And love you 'gainst the nature of love,—force ye.
Silvia
2083 O heaven!
Proteus
2084 I'll force thee yield to my desire.
[Coming forward.]
Valentine
2085 Ruffian! let go that rude uncivil touch;
2086 Thou friend of an ill fashion!
Proteus
2087 Valentine!
Valentine
2088 Thou common friend, that's without faith or love—
2089 For such is a friend now—treacherous man,
2090 Thou hast beguil'd my hopes; nought but mine eye
2091 Could have persuaded me. Now I dare not say
2092 I have one friend alive: thou wouldst disprove me.
2093 Who should be trusted, when one's own right hand
2094 Is perjur'd to the bosom? Proteus,
2095 I am sorry I must never trust thee more,
2096 But count the world a stranger for thy sake.
2097 The private wound is deep'st. O time most curst!
2098 'Mongst all foes that a friend should be the worst!
Proteus
2099 My shame and guilt confounds me.
2100 Forgive me, Valentine; if hearty sorrow
2101 Be a sufficient ransom for offence,
2102 I tender 't here; I do as truly suffer
2103 As e'er I did commit.
Valentine
2104 Then I am paid;
2105 And once again I do receive thee honest.
2106 Who by repentance is not satisfied
2107 Is nor of heaven nor earth, for these are pleas'd.
2108 By penitence the Eternal's wrath's appeas'd:
2109 And, that my love may appear plain and free,
2110 All that was mine in Silvia I give thee.
Julia
2111 O me unhappy!
[Swoons]
Proteus
2112 Look to the boy.
Valentine
2113 Why, boy! why, wag! how now!
2114 What's the matter? Look up; speak.
Julia
2115 O good sir, my master charg'd me to deliver a ring to Madam
2116 Silvia, which, out of my neglect, was never done.
Proteus
2117 Where is that ring, boy?
Julia
2118 Here 'tis; this is it.
[Gives a ring.]
Proteus
2119 How! let me see. Why, this is the ring I gave to Julia.
Julia
2120 O, cry you mercy, sir, I have mistook;
2121 This is the ring you sent to Silvia.
[Shows another ring.]
Proteus
2122 But how cam'st thou by this ring?
2123 At my depart I gave this unto Julia.
Julia
2124 And Julia herself did give it me;
2125 And Julia herself have brought it hither.
Proteus
2126 How! Julia!
Julia
2127 Behold her that gave aim to all thy oaths,
2128 And entertain'd them deeply in her heart:
2129 How oft hast thou with perjury cleft the root!
2130 O Proteus! let this habit make thee blush.
2131 Be thou asham'd that I have took upon me
2132 Such an immodest raiment; if shame live
2133 In a disguise of love.
2134 It is the lesser blot, modesty finds,
2135 Women to change their shapes than men their minds.
Proteus
2136 Than men their minds! 'tis true. O heaven! were man
2137 But constant, he were perfect: that one error
2138 Fills him with faults; makes him run through all the sins:
2139 Inconstancy falls off ere it begins.
2140 What is in Silvia's face, but I may spy
2141 More fresh in Julia's with a constant eye?
Valentine
2142 Come, come, a hand from either.
2143 Let me be blest to make this happy close;
2144 'Twere pity two such friends should be long foes.
Proteus
2145 Bear witness, heaven, I have my wish for ever.
Julia
2146 And I mine.
[Enter OUTLAWS, with DUKE and THURIO.]
Outlaw
2147 A prize, a prize, a prize!
Valentine
2148 Forbear, forbear, I say; it is my lord the duke.
2149 Your Grace is welcome to a man disgrac'd,
2150 Banished Valentine.
Duke of Milan
2151 Sir Valentine!
Thurio
2152 Yonder is Silvia; and Silvia's mine.
Valentine
2153 Thurio, give back, or else embrace thy death;
2154 Come not within the measure of my wrath;
2155 Do not name Silvia thine; if once again,
2156 Verona shall not hold thee. Here she stands
2157 Take but possession of her with a touch;
2158 I dare thee but to breathe upon my love.
Thurio
2159 Sir Valentine, I care not for her, I;
2160 I hold him but a fool that will endanger
2161 His body for a girl that loves him not:
2162 I claim her not, and therefore she is thine.
Duke of Milan
2163 The more degenerate and base art thou
2164 To make such means for her as thou hast done,
2165 And leave her on such slight conditions.
2166 Now, by the honour of my ancestry,
2167 I do applaud thy spirit, Valentine,
2168 And think thee worthy of an empress' love.
2169 Know then, I here forget all former griefs,
2170 Cancel all grudge, repeal thee home again,
2171 Plead a new state in thy unrivall'd merit,
2172 To which I thus subscribe: Sir Valentine,
2173 Thou art a gentleman, and well deriv'd;
2174 Take thou thy Silvia, for thou hast deserv'd her.
Valentine
2175 I thank your Grace; the gift hath made me happy.
2176 I now beseech you, for your daughter's sake,
2177 To grant one boon that I shall ask of you.
Duke of Milan
2178 I grant it for thine own, whate'er it be.
Valentine
2179 These banish'd men, that I have kept withal,
2180 Are men endu'd with worthy qualities:
2181 Forgive them what they have committed here,
2182 And let them be recall'd from their exile:
2183 They are reformed, civil, full of good,
2184 And fit for great employment, worthy lord.
Duke of Milan
2185 Thou hast prevail'd; I pardon them, and thee;
2186 Dispose of them as thou know'st their deserts.
2187 Come, let us go; we will include all jars
2188 With triumphs, mirth, and rare solemnity.
Valentine
2189 And, as we walk along, I dare be bold
2190 With our discourse to make your Grace to smile.
2191 What think you of this page, my lord?
Duke of Milan
2192 I think the boy hath grace in him; he blushes.
Valentine
2193 I warrant you, my lord, more grace than boy.
Duke of Milan
2194 What mean you by that saying?
Valentine
2195 Please you, I'll tell you as we pass along,
2196 That you will wonder what hath fortuned.
2197 Come, Proteus; 'tis your penance but to hear
2198 The story of your loves discovered:
2199 That done, our day of marriage shall be yours;
2200 One feast, one house, one mutual happiness.
[Exeunt.]

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Word definitions on hover

Notes

TLN 2023archaic vocab
“How use doth breed a habit in a man”
'Use' means habitual practice or custom; 'breed a habit' means cause a settled disposition. Valentine is saying that routine shapes character: living in the forest long enough, he has come to prefer its solitude over the city.
TLN 2024archaic vocab
“This shadowy desert, unfrequented woods”
'Desert' here does not mean a dry sandy waste but a deserted or uninhabited place — a solitary wilderness. Valentine finds the shady, untravelled forest more bearable than a city full of people.
TLN 2027classical allusion
“the nightingale's complaining notes”
The nightingale's song was heard by classical and Renaissance poets as a complaint of grief, derived from the myth of Philomela: the Athenian princess raped and silenced by Tereus, who was transformed into the nightingale and whose haunting song was heard as endless mourning. Valentine tunes his own lovesick sorrow to her 'complaining notes.'
classical Philomela
TLN 2029rhetorical device
“O thou that dost inhabit in my breast”
Valentine addresses Silvia directly as though she lives inside his heart — a standard Petrarchan conceit in which the absent beloved literally inhabits the lover's body. The extended metaphor that follows imagines his heart as a mansion that will fall to ruin if she (its tenant) stays away any longer.
historical Petrarch and the Petrarchan lover
TLN 2036cultural context
“These are my mates, that make their wills their law”
Valentine has been living as the elected captain of a band of banished outlaws in the forest — men who follow their own desires ('wills') rather than society's laws. He worries about keeping them from harming a traveller they are chasing. The phrase 'make their wills their law' marks them as outside civil order.
historical Robin Hood and the greenwood
TLN 2041cultural context
“this service I have done for you”
Proteus claims a 'reward' (meed) for rescuing Silvia — namely 'one fair look' from her. His language is that of the courtly love convention in which a lady owes her knight a favour for service rendered. Silvia's crushing reply (lines 2055-2062) exposes his claim as fraudulent: she would rather have been eaten by a lion than saved by him.
TLN 2072wordplay
“Thou hast no faith left now, unless thou'dst two, And that's far worse than none”
Silvia is playing on two senses of 'faith': (1) loyalty or faithfulness to a person, and (2) a creed or belief. To have 'plural faith' (more than one faith, like a man with two religions) was a theological absurdity — it cancels itself out. Proteus has broken faith with Julia and with Valentine, and now pretends faith to Silvia; having promised everything to everyone, he has nothing real left.
TLN 2081stage direction note
“I'll woo you like a soldier, at arms' end, And love you 'gainst the nature of love,—force ye”
Proteus announces — and then attempts — sexual assault on Silvia. 'At arms' end' means at sword's length, and the line breaks into explicit coercion: he will 'force' what she refuses to give freely. Valentine, watching from concealment, breaks cover to stop him. The scene presents the assault without euphemism; Shakespeare makes Proteus name it.
TLN 2088archaic vocab
“Thou common friend, that's without faith or love”
'Common' here means available to all, promiscuous, debased — not the standard 'ordinary' sense. Valentine means Proteus is a friend to anyone and therefore a true friend to nobody: his friendship is as worthless as a 'common woman' (a prostitute).
TLN 2097rhetorical device
“The private wound is deep'st. O time most curst! 'Mongst all foes that a friend should be the worst”
Valentine's couplet uses an epigram (a pointed, memorable summing-up) to crystallise his grief: betrayal by a friend hurts more than any public enemy could. The paradox — that the closest friend becomes the worst foe — is the emotional core of the whole play, and it reaches the reader as a general truth, not just a personal complaint.
TLN 2106biblical allusion
“Who by repentance is not satisfied Is nor of heaven nor earth”
Valentine is applying the Christian doctrine that sincere repentance (penitence) satisfies both God and the offended party: if heaven forgives the truly penitent, so must an earthly friend. The allusion grounds his forgiveness of Proteus in standard Protestant theology about contrition.
TLN 2119cultural context
“this is the ring I gave to Julia”
The exchange of rings was a binding pledge of betrothal in Elizabethan practice. Proteus gave Julia a ring when they parted (2.2); he later sent another ring to Silvia via his disguised page 'Sebastian' (Julia herself). Julia now produces both: the one Proteus gave her as a love-token, and the one he sent Silvia as a false token. The double ring exposes his double betrayal at a glance.
TLN 2127archaic vocab
“Behold her that gave aim to all thy oaths”
'Gave aim' is an archery term: the 'aim-giver' stood near the target and called back to the archer whether shots were high, low, or wide, so the archer could correct. Julia is saying she was the target of all Proteus's vows of love — the one his oaths were aimed at — and she is still here to witness what he has done with them.
TLN 2129archaic vocab
“How oft hast thou with perjury cleft the root”
'Cleft the root' means split something to the core — 'perjury cleft the root' is perjury that cuts down to the very foundation of trust. The image is of an axe splitting a tree at its base, destroying it utterly.
TLN 2134rhetorical device
“It is the lesser blot, modesty finds, Women to change their shapes than men their minds”
Julia distinguishes between her disguise (a woman changing outward 'shape' by cross-dressing) and Proteus's betrayal (a man changing his inner 'mind' — his love, his loyalty). Her disguise was 'a disguise of love' (line 2133), driven by faithfulness, not inconstancy; his transformations are moral, not sartorial.
classical Proteus, the shape-changing sea-god
TLN 2147archaic vocab
“A prize, a prize, a prize”
'Prize' in this context is a nautical and military term for a captured vessel or prisoner — something seized as spoils. The outlaw is announcing that the Duke and Thurio have been captured as valuable prisoners. Valentine immediately overrules him.
TLN 2154archaic vocab
“Come not within the measure of my wrath”
'Measure' here is a fencing term for the distance at which a sword can reach. 'Within the measure of my wrath' means within sword's reach — Valentine is telling Thurio to stay back or be cut down.
TLN 2187archaic vocab
“we will include all jars With triumphs, mirth, and rare solemnity”
'Jars' means quarrels or discords (as in 'jarring' notes). 'Triumphs' here does not mean military victories but festive public celebrations — processions, masques, revels. The Duke promises to wrap up all the quarrels of the play in a festival: the word 'solemnity' means a formal, dignified ceremony (not a gloomy one).
TLN 2192cultural context
“I think the boy hath grace in him; he blushes”
The Duke sees 'Sebastian' (actually Julia in disguise) blush — a sign he reads as girlish modesty but mistakes for boyish embarrassment. Valentine's answer, 'more grace than boy,' hints to the audience that the 'page' is a woman, without yet explaining this to the Duke. The unmasking of Julia's disguise is deferred to the road-walk off-stage, preserving decorum for the women of the play.