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And even that power which gave me first my oath

       Provokes me to this threefold perjury:

       Love bade me swear, and Love bids me forswear.

       O sweet-suggesting Love! if thou hast sinn’d,

       Teach me, thy tempted subject, to excuse it.

       At first I did adore a twinkling star,

       But now I worship a celestial sun.

       Unheedful vows may heedfully be broken;

       And he wants wit that wants resolved will

       To learn his wit t’ exchange the bad for better.

       Fie, fie, unreverend tongue, to call her bad,

       Whose sovereignty so oft thou hast preferr’d

       With twenty thousand soul-confirming oaths.

       I cannot leave to love, and yet I do;

       But there I leave to love where I should love.

       Julia I lose, and Valentine I lose;

       If I keep them, I needs must lose myself;

       If I lose them, thus find I by their loss,

       For Valentine, myself; for Julia, Silvia.

       I to myself am dearer than a friend,

       For love is still most precious in itself;

       And Silvia—witness heaven, that made her fair!—

       Shows Julia but a swarthy Ethiope.

       I will forget that Julia is alive,

       Remembering that my love to her is dead;

       And Valentine I’ll hold an enemy,

       Aiming at Silvia as a sweeter friend.

       I cannot now prove constant to myself

       Without some treachery us’d to Valentine.

       This night he meaneth with a corded ladder

       To climb celestial Silvia’s chamber window,

       Myself in counsel, his competitor.

       Now presently I’ll give her father notice

       Of their disguising and pretended flight;

       Who, all enrag’d, will banish Valentine;

       For Thurio, he intends, shall wed his daughter;

       But, Valentine being gone, I’ll quickly cross,

       By some sly trick blunt Thurio’s dull proceeding.

       Love, lend me wings to make my purpose swift,

       As thou hast lent me wit to plot this drift!

       [Exit.]

       SCENE 7. Verona. A room in JULIA’S house.

       [Enter JULIA and LUCETTA.]

       JULIA.

       Counsel, Lucetta; gentle girl, assist me:

       And, ev’n in kind love, I do conjure thee,

       Who art the table wherein all my thoughts

       Are visibly character’d and engrav’d,

       To lesson me and tell me some good mean

       How, with my honour, I may undertake

       A journey to my loving Proteus.

       LUCETTA.

       Alas, the way is wearisome and long.

       JULIA.

       A true-devoted pilgrim is not weary

       To measure kingdoms with his feeble steps;

       Much less shall she that hath Love’s wings to fly,

       And when the flight is made to one so dear,

       Of such divine perfection, as Sir Proteus.

       LUCETTA.

       Better forbear till Proteus make return.

       JULIA.

       O! know’st thou not his looks are my soul’s food?

       Pity the dearth that I have pined in

       By longing for that food so long a time.

       Didst thou but know the inly touch of love.

       Thou wouldst as soon go kindle fire with snow

       As seek to quench the fire of love with words.

       LUCETTA.

       I do not seek to quench your love’s hot fire,

       But qualify the fire’s extreme rage,

       Lest it should burn above the bounds of reason.

       JULIA.

       The more thou damm’st it up, the more it burns.

       The current that with gentle murmur glides,

       Thou know’st, being stopp’d, impatiently doth rage;

       But when his fair course is not hindered,

       He makes sweet music with th’ enamell’d stones,

       Giving a gentle kiss to every sedge

       He overtaketh in his pilgrimage;

       And so by many winding nooks he strays,

       With willing sport, to the wild ocean.

       Then let me go, and hinder not my course.

       I’ll be as patient as a gentle stream,

       And make a pastime of each weary step,

       Till the last step have brought me to my love;

       And there I’ll rest as, after much turmoil,

       A blessed soul doth in Elysium.

       LUCETTA.

       But in what habit will you go along?

       JULIA.

       Not like a woman, for I would prevent

       The loose encounters of lascivious men.

       Gentle Lucetta, fit me with such weeds

       As may beseem some well-reputed page.

       LUCETTA.

       Why then, your ladyship must cut your hair.

       JULIA.

       No, girl; I’ll knit it up in silken strings

       With twenty odd-conceited true-love knots:

       To be fantastic may become a youth

       Of greater time than I shall show to be.

       LUCETTA.

       What fashion, madam, shall I make your breeches?

       JULIA.

       That fits as well as ‘Tell me, good my lord,

       What compass will you wear your farthingale?’

       Why even what fashion thou best likes, Lucetta.

       LUCETTA.

       You must needs have them with a codpiece, madam.

       JULIA.

       Out, out, Lucetta, that will be ill-favour’d.

       LUCETTA.

       A round hose, madam, now’s not worth a pin,

       Unless you have a codpiece to stick pins on.

       JULIA.

       Lucetta, as thou lov’st me, let me have

       What thou think’st meet, and is most mannerly.

       But tell me, wench, how will the world repute me

       For undertaking so unstaid a journey?

       I fear me it will make me scandaliz’d.

       LUCETTA.

       If you think so, then stay at home and go not.

      

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