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 displeased when you are gone.
I fear me he will scarce be pleased 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 III
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 determined 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 judged me fast asleep,
And oftentimes have purposed 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 shunned—
I gave him gentle looks, thereby to find
That which thyself hast now disclosed 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 conveyed away.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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