SCENE II. Verona. A room in Julia’s house
Enter Proteus and Julia.
PROTEUS.
Have patience, gentle Julia.
JULIA.
I must, where is no remedy.
PROTEUS.
When possibly I can, I will return.
JULIA.
If you turn not, you will return the sooner.
Keep this remembrance for thy Julia’s sake.
[_Gives him a ring._]
PROTEUS.
Why, then we’ll make exchange. Here, take you this.
[_Gives her a ring._]
JULIA.
And seal the bargain with a holy kiss.
PROTEUS.
Here is my hand for my true constancy.
And when that hour o’erslips me in the day
Wherein I sigh not, Julia, for thy sake,
The next ensuing hour some foul mischance
Torment me for my love’s forgetfulness.
My father stays my coming; answer not.
The tide is now—nay, not thy tide of tears,
That tide will stay me longer than I should.
Julia, farewell.
[_Exit Julia._]
What, gone without a word?
Ay, so true love should do. It cannot speak,
For truth hath better deeds than words to grace it.
Enter Pantino.
PANTINO.
Sir Proteus, you are stayed for.
PROTEUS.
Go, I come, I come.
Alas, this parting strikes poor lovers dumb.
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE III. The same. A street
Enter Lance with his dog Crab.
LANCE.
Nay, ’twill be this hour ere I have done weeping; all the kind of the
Lances have this very fault. I have received my proportion, like the
prodigious son, and am going with Sir Proteus to the Imperial’s court.
I think Crab my dog be the sourest-natured dog that lives: my mother
weeping, my father wailing, my sister crying, our maid howling, our cat
wringing her hands, and all our house in a great perplexity, yet did
not this cruel-hearted cur shed one tear. He is a stone, a very
pebblestone, and has no more pity in him than a dog. A Jew would have
wept to have seen our parting. Why, my grandam, having no eyes, look
you, wept herself blind at my parting. Nay, I’ll show you the manner of
it. This shoe is my father. No, this left shoe is my father; no, no,
this left shoe is my mother. Nay, that cannot be so neither. Yes, it is
so, it is so; it hath the worser sole. This shoe with the hole in it is
my mother, and this my father. A vengeance on ’t, there ’tis. Now, sir,
this staff is my sister, for, look you, she is as white as a lily and
as small as a wand. This hat is Nan, our maid. I am the dog. No, the
dog is himself, and I am the dog. O, the dog is me, and I am myself.
Ay, so, so. Now come I to my father: “Father, your blessing.” Now
should not the shoe speak a word for weeping. Now should I kiss my
father. Well, he weeps on. Now come I to my mother. O, that she could
speak now like a wood woman! Well, I kiss her. Why there ’tis; here’s
my mother’s breath up and down. Now come I to my sister. Mark the moan
she makes. Now the dog all this while sheds not a tear nor speaks a
word; but see how I lay the dust with my tears.
Enter Pantino.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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