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The Shakespeare Story-Book
Two Gentlemen of Verona
“Now let us take our Leave”
There lived once in Verona two friends who loved each other dearly; their names were Valentine and Proteus. They were both young and gallant gentlemen, but they were very different in character, as you will presently see. Valentine was simple and honest, a loyal and devoted friend, and too candid and sincere himself to think of treachery in others. Proteus had warm affections, but he was fickle and changeable, carried away by impulse, and always so desperately eager for what he happened to want at the moment that he stopped at no means to gain his ends.
Valentine and Proteus were very happy together as companions, but at last the time came when they were to part. Valentine was not content to settle down at Verona; he wanted to see something of the world and its wider life.
“Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits,” he said to Proteus, who was trying to persuade him to stay. “If it were not that you were chained here by your affections I would rather beg your company to see the wonders of the world abroad. But since you are in love, love still, and thrive in it, even as I would when I once begin to love.”
This he said because Proteus was deeply in love at that moment with a fair lady of Verona called Julia. And then Valentine went on to tease Proteus, pretending that all love was folly, and that only foolish people let themselves be deluded into it. He little knew how soon he was himself to be caught in the same folly, and how basely and treacherously his friend was going to act towards him.
However, at that moment Proteus had no thought for anyone but Julia, and would not have left Verona on any account. The two friends took an affectionate farewell of each other, and Valentine went his way, to travel to the Court of Milan.
“He hunts after honour, I after love,” thought Proteus, when his friend had left him. “He leaves his friends to bring more credit to them by improving himself. I leave myself, my friends, and all, for love. Thou, Julia, hast changed me, made me neglect my studies, lose my time, fight against good counsel, set the world at naught, weaken my brains with dreaming, and make my heart sick with thought!”
While Proteus was indulging in this rhapsody, Speed, the clownish servant of Valentine, came hurrying up.
“Sir Proteus, save you!” he cried, in the greeting of those days. “Saw you my master?”
“He has just this minute gone to embark for Milan,” replied Proteus. “Did you give my letter to the Lady Julia?”
“Ay, sir, and she gave me nothing for my labour,” said Speed, who was out of temper at not having received the handsome fee he was hoping for.
“But what did she say?” asked Proteus eagerly.
“Oh – she nodded!”
“Come, come, what did she say?”
“If you will open your purse, sir…”
“Well, there is something for your trouble. Now, what did she say?”
“Truly, sir, I think you will hardly win her,” said Speed with a sly look, pocketing the piece of money Proteus threw to him.
“Why? Could you perceive so much from her manner?”
“Sir, I could perceive nothing at all from her – no, not so much as a ducat for delivering your letter. And as she was so hard to me who was your messenger, I fear she will prove equally hard to you. Give her no present but a stone, for she is as hard as steel.”
“What did she say? Nothing?” repeated poor Proteus.
“No, not so much as ‘Take that for your pains,’” said Speed, still harping on his own grievance. “I thank you for your bounty, sir. Henceforth carry your letters yourself. And so I will go seek my master.”
“Go, go, to save your ship from wreck!” cried Proteus, incensed at the fellow’s impertinence. “It cannot perish when you are aboard, for you are certainly destined for a drier death on shore! – I must find some better messenger to send,” he added to himself, when the saucy serving-man had taken himself off. “I am afraid my Julia would not deign to accept my lines, receiving them from such a worthless envoy.”
But, as it happened, the letter had so far not reached the hands of the lady for whom it was intended, for it was only her waiting-maid Lucetta whom Speed had seen, and to whom he had given the letter in mistake for Julia.
Lucetta went in search of her mistress, and found her in the garden, musing over many things, for by this time Julia really loved Proteus, although she would not acknowledge it even to herself. When Lucetta handed her the letter, saying she thought it had been sent by Proteus, Julia pretended to be angry, and scolded her maid for daring to receive it.
“There, take the paper again,” she said, “and see that it is returned, or never again come into my presence.”
“To plead for love deserves a better reward than to be scolded,” muttered Lucetta.
From being so much with her young mistress, the maid was treated more as a companion than as a servant, and was accustomed to speak out her mind frankly on every occasion.
“Go!” said Julia severely; but no sooner had Lucetta disappeared than she was seized with remorse.
“How churlishly I sent her away, when all the time I wanted her here!” she thought. “How angrily I tried to frown, when really my heart was smiling with secret joy! To punish myself I must call Lucetta back, and ask her pardon for my folly… What ho, Lucetta!”
“What does you ladyship want?” asked Lucetta, reappearing.
But at the sight of her maid Julia suddenly became shy again.
“Is it near dinner-time?” she asked, with an air of pretended indifference.
“I would it were, madam, so that you might spend your anger on your meat, and not on your maid,” replied Lucetta rather flippantly; and at that moment she let the letter fall, and picked it up ostentatiously.
“What is it you took up so gingerly?” inquired Julia.
“Nothing.”
“Why did you stoop, then?”
“To pick up a paper I let fall.”
“And is that paper nothing?”
“Nothing that concerns me.”
“Then let it lie there for whom it does concern.”
But Lucetta had no intention that the letter should lie unheeded on the ground, for her only purpose in dropping it was to bring it again to Julia’s notice. She little knew how her mistress longed at that moment to have it in her own possession, but was too proud to acknowledge it. Lucetta could not refrain from some pert speeches, and her jesting words irritated Julia, especially when Lucetta declared she was taking the part of Proteus.
“I will have no more chatter about this,” said Julia; and she tore the letter and threw the pieces on the ground. “Go, get you gone, and let the papers lie!”
“She pretends not to like it, but she would be very well pleased to be so angered with another letter,” said the shrewd maid, half aloud, as she walked away.
“Nay, would I were so angered with the same!” cried Julia, eagerly seizing some of the fragments. “O hateful hands to tear such loving words! I’ll kiss each little piece of paper to make amends. Look! here is written ‘Kind Julia!’ Unkind Julia! Be calm, good wind; do not blow any of the words away until I have found every letter.”
And with a loving touch she began carefully to collect the torn scraps of paper.
“Madam,” said Lucetta, coming back, “dinner is ready, and your father waits.”
“Well, let us go,” said Julia.
“Are these papers to lie here like tell-tales, madam?”
“If you care about them, you had better pick them up.”
“They shall not stay here, for fear of catching cold,” said Lucetta, with a mischievous little smile to herself.
“I see you are very anxious to have them,” said Julia.
“Ay, madam, you may say what sights you see,” said the maid, quite unabashed. “I see things, too, although you judge my eyes are shut.”
“Come, come, let us go,” said Julia.
Proteus had refused to accompany his friend Valentine, but he soon found that he was not to be allowed to remain at Verona. In those days it was considered that no young man was well brought up unless he had had the advantage of foreign travel, and an uncle of his spoke very strongly on the subject.
“I wonder that his father lets him spend his youth at home,” he said, “while other men of much less repute send out their sons to seek preferment – some to the wars, to try their fortune there; some to discover islands far away; some to study at the universities. For any or for all of these Proteus is fit. It will be a great disadvantage to him in after-years to have known no travel in his youth.”
To this Proteus’s father, Antonio, answered that he had already been thinking over the matter.
“I have reflected how he is wasting his time, and how he can never be a perfect man unless he goes out in the world to learn by experience,” he said.
And he came to the conclusion that he could not do better than send Proteus after Valentine, to the Court of the Duke of Milan. Proteus was ordered to hold himself in readiness to start the next day, and all appeals were useless. The only consolation he had in leaving Julia was that the lady now frankly admitted her love.
“Keep this remembrance for thy Julia’s sake,” she said, giving him a ring when the moment came to part.
“Why, then, we’ll make an exchange,” said Proteus. “Here, take you this. And here is my hand for my true constancy. If ever I do not remember you for a single hour, Julia, the next hour let some evil mischance torment me for my forgetfulness.”
And so, with many protestations of love and fidelity, Proteus started to rejoin his friend Valentine at Milan, and Julia was left behind at Verona.
“Who is Silvia?”
Valentine had spoken many wise words to Proteus on the folly of being in love, but he had not been long in Milan before he was in just the same sad plight that he had cautioned his friend against. The Duke of Milan had a beautiful daughter called Silvia, and it was with her that Valentine fell deeply in love. She returned his affection, and they became secretly betrothed, but they dared not let this be known, for her father favoured another suitor, Sir Thurio, a rich and well-born gentleman, but foolish and extremely vain.
The Duke of Milan, as was the custom in those days, thought himself at perfect liberty to dispose of his daughter in marriage as best pleased himself, with but scant regard for her own feelings on the subject. He suspected there was some love between Silvia and Valentine, and saw many little things when they thought him blind. He often determined to forbid Valentine his Court and his daughter’s company, but, fearing that his jealousy might perhaps be leading him into error, and that he might bring disgrace unworthily upon Valentine, he resolved not to act rashly, but by gentle means to try to discover the truth. In the meanwhile he kept a strict watch over Silvia, and, fearing some attempt on the part of the young lovers to escape secretly, he gave directions that Silvia should be lodged in an upper tower, the key of which was brought every night to himself.
Matters were in this state when, to Valentine’s great joy, Proteus arrived at the Court of Milan. In the full warmth of his generous heart, Valentine lavished praises of his friend to the Duke of Milan and to Silvia, and for the sake of the love she bore to Valentine Silvia gave Proteus a hearty welcome.
But what a base return Proteus made for the kindness heaped on him! In spite of the devotion which he had professed for Julia, in spite of his lifelong friendship with Valentine, Proteus no sooner beheld Silvia than he imagined himself desperately in love with her. All thought of loyalty and honour was recklessly flung aside. He knew he was behaving shamefully. He remembered his faithful lady in Verona; he called to mind the duty he owed his dear friend Valentine. But for the moment his weak and selfish nature carried him beyond control. He had no thought but to gratify his own desires, and he determined to throw over Julia, and to win Silvia for himself at whatever cost of treachery and dishonour.
The task did not seem an impossible one, for Valentine, in the full glow of his unsuspicious nature, was ready to place unbounded trust in his friend, and in this way he gave into his hands the means by which he was betrayed. He told Proteus that, unknown to the Duke, her father, Silvia and he were betrothed – nay, more, that the hour of their marriage and the method of their flight were already arranged. Silvia was locked into her tower every night, but Valentine was to come with a ladder of ropes, by which he could climb up and help her to descend. That very evening was fixed for the carrying out of their scheme, and Valentine was now on his way to procure the ladder of ropes by which the attempt was to be made.
Proteus listened to this plot, and then in the depths of his meanness he determined to give Silvia’s father notice of what was planned, for he thought it would turn out greatly to his own advantage to do so. Valentine would be banished, and the way would then be left open for himself to try to win Silvia. True, her father favoured another suitor, Sir Thurio, but Proteus had little fear of that dull gentleman, and he thought it would be very easy to thwart his proceedings with some sly trick.
Proteus lost no time in carrying out his scheme, and it was immediately successful. With feigned reluctance, and under the hypocritical pretence that he was only acting from a sense of duty, Proteus repeated to the Duke of Milan what Valentine had told him. He made the Duke promise that he would not reveal his treachery, and pointed out how he could easily entrap Valentine as if the discovery had been made by himself. The Duke acted on this advice. He pretended to ask Valentine’s counsel as to the best way of winning a lady to be his wife, whose friends kept her securely shut up. Valentine at once suggested the method of escape which he was hoping to use in his own case.
“A ladder quaintly made of cords,” he said, “with hooks at the end, which you can throw up, and by which you can scale the tower.”
“But how shall I convey the ladder?” asked the Duke.
“It will be so light, my lord, that you can easily carry it under your cloak,” said Valentine.
“Will a cloak as long as yours serve the purpose?”
“Why, any cloak will serve, my lord.”
“How shall I wear it?” said the Duke. “Pray let me feel your cloak upon me.”
Valentine could scarcely refuse, and the next moment the Duke had drawn forth from the cloak not only a letter addressed to Silvia, saying that Valentine would set her free that night, but also the ladder of ropes that was to be used for that purpose.
Then the Duke’s anger blazed forth.
“Go, base intruder! Overweening slave!” he exclaimed; and in words of the most contemptuous wrath he ordered Valentine to leave his Court and his territories, and never to be seen in them again on pain of death.
False to his Friend
The Duke of Milan had scarcely left Valentine, and the latter was still dazed by the calamity which had befallen him, when Proteus brought him word that the proclamation for his banishment had been made public.
Silvia, however, was still true to him. With sobs and tears, she implored pardon for him on her knees, but her father was relentless. If Valentine were found again in his dominions he should be put to death. Moreover, he was so enraged at his daughter’s daring to plead for her young lover that he commanded she should be kept in close prison.
The crafty Proteus counselled Valentine to depart at once, bidding him not to lose hope, pretending the greatest sympathy with his love affairs, and promising that if he sent letters they should be safely conveyed to Silvia. Having thus hurried Valentine away with the utmost despatch, Proteus returned to the Duke of Milan, to let him know that his orders had been obeyed.
“My daughter is in great grief about his going,” said the Duke.
“A little time will kill that grief, my lord.”
“So I believe, but Sir Thurio here does not think so,” said the Duke, and he then went on to consult Proteus as to the best way of winning Silvia’s affections from the absent Valentine, in order that she might transfer them to Sir Thurio.
It was agreed among them that the best plan would be for Proteus to speak all he could in dispraise of Valentine, while at the same time he was to speak in praise of Sir Thurio. For this purpose Proteus was to be allowed free access to Silvia, who, for his friend’s sake, would be glad to see him.
Proteus agreed to this, but said that Thurio himself must do something to win the lady’s favour. He suggested that he should try to please her with poetry and music, and that he should bring musicians, and sing a serenade by night under her chamber window. Thurio said he would put the plan in practice that very night; he knew some gentlemen well skilled in music, and he had a song written that would be just suitable. As for the Duke, he was delighted with the suggestion, and bade them set to work at once to carry it into effect.
Meanwhile, in Verona, Julia was sorrowing for the absence of Proteus, and at last her longing to see him again grew so keen that she determined to follow him to Milan. Her waiting-maid, Lucetta, who had plenty of shrewd common-sense, tried to persuade her not to go, but Julia would listen to no reason.
“I feel as if I were dying with starvation until I see him again,” she said. “If you only knew what it is to love anyone, you would know how utterly useless it is to try to argue about it in words.”
As a young and beautiful lady travelling alone would be likely to attract a good deal of notice, for safety’s sake Julia decided to adopt the dress of a page, and she bade Lucetta procure for her all that was necessary to play the part properly. In vain Lucetta tried to warn her that perhaps Proteus would not be pleased to see her. Many men were fickle and changeable, she said; they often pretended much more affection than they really felt.
Julia indignantly replied that some men might, but not her Proteus. Her trust in his fidelity was not to be shaken.
“His words are bonds, his oaths cannot be broken, his love is sincere, his thoughts are stainless, his tears are pure messengers straight from heaven, his heart is as free from fraud as heaven from earth!” she cried.
“Pray heaven he prove so when you come to him!” said the shrewd waiting-woman.
So the faithful, loving Julia set out on her journey to Milan. Alas, poor lady, she little knew what a sorry welcome was awaiting her!
“Alas, poor Lady, desolate and left!”
Proteus soon found that his scheme for winning Silvia met with small success. He had already been false to Valentine, and now he intended to be false to Sir Thurio; but his treachery was likely to be of little avail. Silvia was far too good and true to be corrupted by his worthless gifts. When he protested his loyalty to her, she twitted him with his falsehood to his absent friend; when he praised her beauty, she bade him remember how he had been forsworn in breaking faith with Julia, whom he loved. But, notwithstanding all her rebuffs and rebukes, the more she spurned Proteus the greater grew his admiration for her; and though he knew well how basely he was acting both to Valentine and Julia, he had not enough strength of mind to turn aside from the temptation.
That night, in accordance with what they had arranged, Sir Thurio brought a band of musicians, and they sang a charming serenade outside the Duke of Milan’s palace, under Silvia’s chamber. This is the pretty song they sang:
“Who is Silvia? What is she,
That all our swains commend her?
Holy, fair and wise is she;
The heaven such grace did lend her,
That she might admired be.
“Is she kind as she is fair?
For beauty lives with kindness.
Love doth to her eyes repair,
To help him of his blindness.
And, being help’d, inhabits there.
“Then to Silvia let us sing,
That Silvia is excelling;
She excels each mortal thing
Upon the dull earth dwelling:
To her, garlands let us bring.”
Unknown to Proteus, there was another listener, of whom he little recked.
Julia, on arriving at Milan, had made inquiries for her faithless lover, and the landlord of the house where she lodged had brought her to this spot to see the man for whom she had been inquiring. Now, in her page’s costume, she was a witness of her lover’s inconstancy. Proteus had sworn a thousand vows of love to her, and yet here he was plainly playing court to another lady! Poor Julia! Sweet as the music was, it had little charm for her; she heard only the jarring discord of her lover’s false words.
“Doth this Sir Proteus that we speak of often come to visit this gentlewoman?” she asked her host.
“I tell you what Launce, his man, told me – he loves her beyond all measure,” replied the host.
“Peace, stand aside, they are going,” said Julia, stepping further back into the shadow; and she heard Proteus say:
“Sir Thurio, do not fear; I will plead your cause so well that you will own my cunning wit is matchless.”
“Where do we meet?” asked Sir Thurio, as he prepared to depart with the musicians.
“At St. Gregory’s Well.”
“Farewell!”
And Proteus was left alone as Silvia appeared on the balcony of her window above.
“Madam, good even to your ladyship,” said Proteus.
“I thank you for your music, gentlemen. Who was that who spoke?”
“One, lady, whom – if you knew his true heart – you would quickly learn to know by his voice.”
“Sir Proteus, as I take it.”
“Sir Proteus, gentle lady, and your servant.”
“What is your will?”
“That I may fulfil yours.”
“You have your wish. My will is this: that you immediately go home to bed, you subtle, perjured, false, disloyal man! Do you think I am so shallow, so witless, as to be won by your flattery – you, who have deceived so many with your vows! Return, return, and make amends to your own lady. As for me, I swear by this moon that I am so far from granting your request that I despise you for your wrongful suit, and could chide myself even for the time I spend in talking to you.”
“I grant that I did love a lady,” said Proteus, “but she is dead.”
“Supposing that she is, yet Valentine, your friend, is alive, to whom you yourself are witness that I am betrothed. Are you not ashamed to wrong him with this persistency?”
“I hear likewise that Valentine is dead.”
“Imagine, then, that I am also dead; for, be assured, my love is buried in his grave.”
“Sweet lady, let me take it from the earth.”
“Go to your own lady’s grave, and call her love thence, or, at least, bury your own in hers.”
“Madam, if your heart is so pitiless, yet grant me your picture, for the sake of my love. For since you yourself are devoted elsewhere, I am but a shadow, and to your shadow will I give my love.”
“I am very loath to be your idol, sir, but since it suits your falsehood to admire shadows, send to me in the morning, and I will send the picture. And so, good rest!”
“As wretches have overnight who wait for execution in the morning,” said Proteus.
Poor Julia overheard all this conversation between her faithless suitor and the lady Silvia. It was impossible to doubt his falsehood any longer, yet so true and loving was her nature that she could not harden her heart to go away and never see him again. As it happened, Sir Proteus was staying at the very house in Milan where she had found a lodging. His thoughts just then were entirely absorbed with his latest fancy, and it never occurred to him to connect the stranger lad, who called himself Sebastian, with his own lady Julia at Verona. But something about the pretty boy attracted his liking. Proteus’s servant Launce was a silly clown, whose half-witted blunders were always bringing his master into ridicule, and, judging from Sebastian’s face and bearing that he was well-born and trustworthy, Proteus took him into his service as page.