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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.

       JULIA.

       Nay, that I will not.

       LUCETTA.

       Then never dream on infamy, but go.

       If Proteus like your journey when you come,

       No matter who’s displeas’d when you are gone.

       I fear me he will scarce be pleas’d withal.

       JULIA.

       That is the least, Lucetta, of my fear:

       A thousand oaths, an ocean of his tears,

       And instances of infinite of love,

       Warrant me welcome to my Proteus.

       LUCETTA.

       All these are servants to deceitful men.

       JULIA.

       Base men that use them to so base effect!

       But truer stars did govern Proteus’ birth;

       His words are bonds, his oaths are oracles,

       His love sincere, his thoughts immaculate,

       His tears pure messengers sent from his heart,

       His heart as far from fraud as heaven from earth.

       LUCETTA.

       Pray heav’n he prove so when you come to him.

       JULIA.

       Now, as thou lov’st me, do him not that wrong

       To bear a hard opinion of his truth;

       Only deserve my love by loving him.

       And presently go with me to my chamber,

       To take a note of what I stand in need of

       To furnish me upon my longing journey.

       All that is mine I leave at thy dispose,

       My goods, my lands, my reputation;

       Only, in lieu thereof, dispatch me hence.

       Come, answer not, but to it presently!

       I am impatient of my tarriance.

       [Exeunt.]

       ACT 3.

       SCENE I. Milan. An anteroom in the DUKE’S palace.

       [Enter DUKE, THURIO, and PROTEUS.]

       DUKE.

       Sir Thurio, give us leave, I pray, awhile;

       We have some secrets to confer about.

       [Exit THURIO.]

       Now tell me, Proteus, what’s your will with me?

       PROTEUS.

       My gracious lord, that which I would discover

       The law of friendship bids me to conceal;

       But, when I call to mind your gracious favours

       Done to me, undeserving as I am,

       My duty pricks me on to utter that

       Which else no worldly good should draw from me.

       Know, worthy prince, Sir Valentine, my friend,

       This night intends to steal away your daughter;

       Myself am one made privy to the plot.

       I know you have determin’d to bestow her

       On Thurio, whom your gentle daughter hates;

       And should she thus be stol’n away from you,

       It would be much vexation to your age.

       Thus, for my duty’s sake, I rather chose

       To cross my friend in his intended drift

       Than, by concealing it, heap on your head

       A pack of sorrows which would press you down,

       Being unprevented, to your timeless grave.

       DUKE.

       Proteus, I thank thee for thine honest care,

       Which to requite, command me while I live.

       This love of theirs myself have often seen,

       Haply when they have judg’d me fast asleep,

       And oftentimes have purpos’d to forbid

       Sir Valentine her company and my court;

       But, fearing lest my jealous aim might err

       And so, unworthily, disgrace the man,—

       A rashness that I ever yet have shunn’d,—

       I gave him gentle looks, thereby to find

       That which thyself hast now disclos’d to me.

       And, that thou mayst perceive my fear of this,

       Knowing that tender youth is soon suggested,

       I nightly lodge her in an upper tower,

       The key whereof myself have ever kept;

       And thence she cannot be convey’d away.

       PROTEUS.

       Know, noble lord, they have devis’d a mean

       How he her chamber window will ascend

       And with a corded ladder fetch her down;

       For which the youthful lover now is gone,

       And this way comes he with it presently;

       Where, if it please you, you may intercept him.

       But, good my lord, do it so cunningly

       That my discovery be not aimed at;

       For love of you, not hate unto my friend,

       Hath made me publisher of this pretence.

       DUKE.

       Upon mine honour, he shall never know

       That I had any light from thee of this.

       PROTEUS.

      

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