THURIO.
And thy advice this night I’ll put in practice.
Therefore, sweet Proteus, my direction-giver,
Let us into the city presently
To sort some gentlemen well skilled in music.
I have a sonnet that will serve the turn
To give the onset to thy good advice.
DUKE.
About it, gentlemen!
PROTEUS.
We’ll wait upon your Grace till after supper,
And afterward determine our proceedings.
DUKE.
Even now about it! I will pardon you.
[_Exeunt._]
ACT IV
SCENE I. A forest between Milan and Verona
Enter certain Outlaws.
FIRST OUTLAW.
Fellows, stand fast. I see a passenger.
SECOND OUTLAW.
If there be ten, shrink not, but down with ’em.
Enter Valentine and Speed.
THIRD OUTLAW.
Stand, sir, and throw us that you have about ye.
If not, we’ll make you sit, and rifle you.
SPEED.
Sir, we are undone: these are the villains
That all the travellers do fear so much.
VALENTINE.
My friends—
FIRST OUTLAW.
That’s not so, sir. We are your enemies.
SECOND OUTLAW.
Peace! We’ll hear him.
THIRD OUTLAW.
Ay, by my beard, will we, for he is a proper man.
VALENTINE.
Then know that I have little wealth to lose.
A man I am crossed with adversity;
My riches are these poor habiliments,
Of which if you should here disfurnish me,
You take the sum and substance that I have.
SECOND OUTLAW.
Whither travel you?
VALENTINE.
To Verona.
FIRST OUTLAW.
Whence came you?
VALENTINE.
From Milan.
THIRD OUTLAW.
Have you long sojourned there?
VALENTINE.
Some sixteen months, and longer might have stayed
If crooked fortune had not thwarted me.
FIRST OUTLAW.
What, were you banished thence?
VALENTINE.
I was.
SECOND OUTLAW.
For what offence?
VALENTINE.
For that which now torments me to rehearse;
I killed a man, whose death I much repent,
But yet I slew him manfully in fight,
Without false vantage or base treachery.
FIRST OUTLAW.
Why, ne’er repent it, if it were done so.
But were you banished for so small a fault?
VALENTINE.
I was, and held me glad of such a doom.
SECOND OUTLAW.
Have you the tongues?
VALENTINE.
My youthful travel therein made me happy,
Or else I often had been miserable.
THIRD OUTLAW.
By the bare scalp of Robin Hood’s fat friar,
This fellow were a king for our wild faction.
FIRST OUTLAW.
We’ll have him. Sirs, a word.
SPEED.
Master, be one of them. It’s an honourable kind of thievery.
VALENTINE.
Peace, villain.
SECOND OUTLAW.
Tell us this: have you anything to take to?
VALENTINE.
Nothing but my fortune.
THIRD OUTLAW.
Know then that some of us are gentlemen,
Such as the fury of ungoverned youth
Thrust from the company of awful men.
Myself was from Verona banished
For practising to steal away a lady,
An heir, and near allied unto the Duke.
SECOND OUTLAW.
And I from Mantua, for a gentleman
Who, in my mood, I stabbed unto the heart.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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