VALENTINE. To be in love, where scorn is bought with groans, Coy looks with heart-sore sighs, one fading moment’s mirth With twenty watchful, weary, tedious nights. If haply won, perhaps a hapless gain; If lost, why then a grievous labour won; However, but a folly bought with wit, Or else a wit by folly vanquished. PROTEUS. So, by your circumstance, you call me fool. VALENTINE. So, by your circumstance, I fear you’ll prove. PROTEUS. ’Tis love you cavil at. I am not Love. VALENTINE. Love is your master, for he masters you; And he that is so yoked by a fool Methinks should not be chronicled for wise. PROTEUS. Yet writers say, as in the sweetest bud The eating canker dwells, so eating love Inhabits in the finest wits of all. VALENTINE. And writers say, as the most forward bud Is eaten by the canker ere it blow, Even so by love the young and tender wit Is turned to folly, blasting in the bud, Losing his verdure even in the prime, And all the fair effects of future hopes. But wherefore waste I time to counsel thee That art a votary to fond desire? Once more adieu. My father at the road Expects my coming, there to see me shipped. PROTEUS. And thither will I bring thee, Valentine. VALENTINE. Sweet Proteus, no. Now let us take our leave. To Milan let me hear from thee by letters Of thy success in love, and what news else Betideth here in absence of thy friend; And I likewise will visit thee with mine. PROTEUS. All happiness bechance to thee in Milan. VALENTINE. As much to you at home, and so farewell. [_Exit._] PROTEUS. He after honour hunts, I after love. He leaves his friends to dignify them more; I leave myself, my friends, and all for love. Thou, Julia, thou hast metamorphosed me, Made me neglect my studies, lose my time, War with good counsel, set the world at nought; Made wit with musing weak, heart sick with thought. Enter Speed. SPEED. Sir Proteus, ’save you. Saw you my master? PROTEUS. But now he parted hence to embark for Milan. SPEED. Twenty to one, then, he is shipped already, And I have played the sheep in losing him. PROTEUS. Indeed a sheep doth very often stray, An if the shepherd be a while away. SPEED. You conclude that my master is a shepherd then, and I a sheep? PROTEUS. I do. SPEED. Why then, my horns are his horns, whether I wake or sleep. PROTEUS. A silly answer, and fitting well a sheep. SPEED. This proves me still a sheep. PROTEUS. True, and thy master a shepherd. SPEED. Nay, that I can deny by a circumstance. PROTEUS. It shall go hard but I’ll prove it by another. SPEED. The shepherd seeks the sheep, and not the sheep the shepherd; but I seek my master, and my master seeks not me. Therefore I am no sheep. PROTEUS. The sheep for fodder follow the shepherd; the shepherd for food follows not the sheep. Thou for wages followest thy master; thy master for wages follows not thee. Therefore thou art a sheep. SPEED. Such another proof will make me cry “baa”.