The Two Gentlemen of Verona
ACT II SCENE VI | The same. The Duke’s Palace. | |
[Enter PROTEUS] | ||
PROTEUS | To leave my Julia, shall I be forsworn; | |
To love fair Silvia, shall I be forsworn; | ||
To wrong my friend, I shall be much forsworn; | ||
And even that power which gave me first my oath | ||
Provokes me to this threefold perjury; | 5 | |
Love bade me swear and Love bids me forswear. | ||
O sweet-suggesting Love, if thou hast sinned, | ||
Teach me, thy tempted subject, to excuse it! | ||
At first I did adore a twinkling star, | ||
But now I worship a celestial sun. | 10 | |
Unheedful vows may heedfully be broken, | ||
And he wants wit that wants resolved will | ||
To learn his wit to exchange the bad for better. | ||
Fie, fie, unreverend tongue! to call her bad, | ||
Whose sovereignty so oft thou hast preferr’d | 15 | |
With twenty thousand soul-confirming oaths. | ||
I cannot leave to love, and yet I do; | ||
But there I leave to love where I should love. | ||
Julia I lose and Valentine I lose: | ||
If I keep them, I needs must lose myself; | 20 | |
If I lose them, thus find I by their loss | ||
For Valentine myself, for Julia Silvia. | ||
I to myself am dearer than a friend, | ||
For love is still most precious in itself; | ||
And Silvia–witness Heaven, that made her fair!– | 25 | |
Shows Julia but a swarthy Ethiope. | ||
I will forget that Julia is alive, | ||
Remembering that my love to her is dead; | ||
And Valentine I’ll hold an enemy, | ||
Aiming at Silvia as a sweeter friend. | 30 | |
I cannot now prove constant to myself, | ||
Without some treachery used to Valentine. | ||
This night he meaneth with a corded ladder | ||
To climb celestial Silvia’s chamber-window, | ||
Myself in counsel, his competitor. | 35 | |
Now presently I’ll give her father notice | ||
Of their disguising and pretended flight; | ||
Who, all enraged, will banish Valentine; | ||
For Thurio, he intends, shall wed his daughter; | ||
But, Valentine being gone, I’ll quickly cross | 40 | |
By some sly trick blunt Thurio’s dull proceeding. | ||
Love, lend me wings to make my purpose swift, | ||
As thou hast lent me wit to plot this drift! | ||
[Exit] |
Next: The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act 2, Scene 7
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Explanatory notes for Act 2, Scene 6
From The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Ed. Israel Gollancz. New York: University Society.
35. Competitor, here meaning confederate, associate, or partner, is likewise used in Antony and Cleopatra, V. i.: –
“That thou, my brother, my competitor
In top of all design, my mate in empire,
Friend and companion in the front of war.”
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How to cite the explanatory notes:
Shakespeare, William. The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Ed. Israel Gollancz. New York: University Society, 1901.