Enter Host at a distance; and JULIA in boy's clothes. Host. Now, my young guest, methinks you're allycholly; I pray you, why is it?

Jul. Marry, mine host, because I cannot be merry. Host. Come, we'll have you merry: I'll bring you where you shall hear music, and see the gentleman that you ask'd for.

Jul. But shall I hear him speak?
Host. Ay, that you shall.

Jul. That will be music.

Host. Hark! hark!

Jul. Is he among these?

Host. Ay: but peace, let's hear 'em.

SONG.

Who is Silvia ? what is she,

[Music plays.

That all our swains commend her?

Holy, fair, and wise is she;

The heavens 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 let us garlands bring.

Host. How now? are you sadder than you were be

fore?

How do you, man? the music likes you not.

Jul. You mistake; the musician likes me not..

Host. Why, my pretty youth?

Jul. He plays false, father.

Host. How? out of tune on the strings?

Jul. Not so; but yet so false that he grieves my very heart-strings.

Host. You have a quick ear.

Jul. Ay, I would I were deaf! it makes me have a slow heart.

Host. I perceive, you delight not in music.
Jul. Not a whit, when it jars so.

Host. Hark, what fine change is in the music!
Jul. Ay: that change is the spite.

Host. You would have them always play but one thing? Jul. I would always have one play but one thing. But, host, doth this sir Proteus, that we talk on, Often resort unto this gentlewoman?

Host. I tell you what Launce, his man, told me, he lov'd her out of all nick.'

Jul. Where is Launce?

Host. Gone to seek his dog; which, to-morrow, by his master's command, he must carry for a present to his lady. Jul. Peace! stand aside! the company parts. Pro. Sir Thurio, fear not you! I will so plead, That you shall say, my cunning drift excels. Thu. Where meet we?

Pro. At saint Gregory's well.

Thu. Farewell.

[Exe. THURIO, and Musicians.

SILVIA appears above, at her window.
Pro. Madam, good even to your ladyship.
Sil. I thank you for your music, gentlemen:

What is that, that spake ?

Pro. One, lady, if you knew his pure heart's truth, You'd quickly learn to know him by his voice.

Sil. Sir Proteus, as I take it.

Pro. Sir Proteus, gentle lady, and your servant.
Sil. What is your will?

Pro. That I may compass yours.

Sil. You have your wish; my will is even this,

That presently you hie you home to bed.
Thou subtle, perjur'd, false, disloyal man!
Think'st thou, I am so shallow, so conceitless,
To be seduced by thy flattery,

That hast deceived so many with thy vows?
Return, return, and make thy love amends.
For me,-by this pale queen of night I swear,
I am so far from granting thy request,
That I despise thee for thy wrongful suit;
And by and by intend to chide myself,

Even for this time I spend in talking to thee.

Pro. I grant, sweet love, that I did love a lady;

[1] Beyond all reckoning or count. Reckonings are kept upon nicked or notched sticks or tallies. WARBURTON.

But she is dead.

Jul. 'Twere false, if I should speak it:

For, I am sure, she is not buried.

[Aside.

Sil. Say, that she be; yet Valentine, thy friend, Survives; to whom, thyself art witness,

I am betroth'd: And art thou not asham'd

To wrong him with thy importúnacy?

Pro. I likewise hear, that Valentine is dead. Sil. And so, suppose, am I; for in his grave, Assure thyself, my love is buried.

Pro. Sweet lady, let me rake it from the earth. Sil. Go to thy lady's grave, and call her's thence; Or, at the least, in her's sepulchre thine.

Jul. He heard not that.

Pro. Madam, if your heart be so obdúrate,
Vouchsafe me yet your picture for my love,
The picture that is hanging in your chamber;
To that I'll speak, to that I'll sigh and weep:
For, since the substance of your perfect self
Is else devoted, I am but a shadow;

And to your shadow I will make true love.

[Aside.

Jul. If 'twere a substance, you would, sure, deceive it, And make it but a shadow, as I am.

Sil. I am very loth to be your idol, sir ;

But, since your falshood shall become you well
To worship shadows, and adore false shapes,
Send to me in the morning, and I'll send it:
And so, good rest.

Pro. As wretches have o'er-night,

That wait for execution in the morn.

[Aside.

[Exeunt PROTEUS; and SILVIA, from above.

Jul. Host, will you go?

Host. By my hallidom, I was fast asleep.

Jul. Pray you, where lies sir Proteus?

Host. Marry, at my house: Trust me, I think, 'tis almost day.

Jul. Not so; but it hath been, the longest night

That e'er I watch'd, and the most heaviest. [Exeunt.

SCENE III.

The same. Enter EGLAMOUR.

Egl. This is the hour that madam Silvia Intreated me to call, and know her mind;

There's some great matter she'd employ me in.-
Madam, madam !

SILVIA appears above at her window.

Sil. Who calls?

Egl. Your servant, and your friend;

One that attends your ladyship's command.

Sil. Sir Eglamour, a thousand times good morrow.
Egl. As many, worthy lady, to yourself.
According to your ladyship's impose,2
I am thus early come, to know what service
It is your pleasure to command me in.

Sil. O Eglamour, thou art a gentleman,
(Think not, I flatter, for, I swear, I do not,)
Valiant, wise, remorseful,3 well accomplish'd.
Thou art not ignorant, what dear good will
I bear unto the banish'd Valentine ;

Nor how my father would enforce me marry
Vain Thurio, whom my very soul abhorr'd.
Thyself hast lov'd; and I have heard thee say,
No grief did ever come so near thy heart,
As when thy lady and thy true love dy'd,
Upon whose grave thou vow'st pure chastity.4
Sir Eglamour, I would to Valentine,

To Mantua, where, I hear, he makes abode ;
And, for the ways are dangerous to pass,
I do desire thy worthy company,
Upon whose faith and honour I repose.
Urge not my father's anger, Eglamour,
But think upon my grief, a lady's grief;
And on the justice of my flying hence,
To keep me from a most unholy match,
Which heaven and fortune still reward with plagues.
I do desire thee, even from a heart

As full of sorrows as the sea of sands,

[2] Impose is injunction, command. A task set at college, in consequence of a fault, is still called an imposition. STEEV.

[3] Remorseful is pitiful. So, in Chapman's translation of the 2d book of Homer's Iliad, 1598:

"Descend on our long-toyled host with thy remorsefull eye." STEEV. [4] It was common in former ages for widowers and widows to make vows of chastity in honour of their deceased wives or husbands. In Dugdale's Antiquities of Warwickshire, p. 1013, there is the form of a commission by the bishop of the diocese for taking a vow of chastity made by a widow. It seems that, besides observing the vow, the widow was, for life, to wear a veil and a mourning habit. Some such distinction we may suppose to have been made in respect of male votarists; and therefore this circumstance might inform the players how sir Eglamour should be dressed; and will account for Silvia's having chosen him as a person in whom she could confide, without injury to her own character. STEEV.

To bear me company, and go with me:
If not, to hide what I have said to thee,
That I may venture to depart alone.

Egl. Madam, I pity much your grievances;
Which since I know they virtuously are plac'd,
I give consent to go along with you;
Recking as little what betideth me,5

As much I wish all good befortune you.
When will you go?

Sil. This evening coming.
Egl. Where shall I meet you?
Sil. At friar Patrick's cell,
Where I intend holy confession.
Egl. I will not fail your ladyship:

Good-morrow, gentle lady.

Sil. Good-morrow, kind sir Eglamour.

SCENE IV.

[Exeunt.

The same. Enter LAUNCE, with his dog.

When a man's servant shall play the cur with him, look you, it goes hard: one that I brought up of a puppy; one that I saved from drowning, when three or four of his blind brothers and sisters went to it! I have taught him-even as one would say precisely, Thus I would teach a dog. I was sent to deliver him, as a present to mistress Silvia, from my master; and I came no sooner into the dining-chamber, but he steps me to her trencher, and steals her capon's leg. O, 'tis a foul thing when a cur cannot keep himself in all companies! I would have, as one should say, one that takes upon him to be a dog indeed, to be, as it were, a dog at all things. If I had not had more wit than he, to take a fault upon me that he did, I think verily he had been hanged for't; sure as I live, he had suffered for't you shall judge. He thrusts me himself into the company of three or four gentlemen-like dogs, under the duke's table: he had not been there (bless the mark) a pissing while; but all the chamber smelt him. Out with the dog, says one; What cur is that? says another; Whip him out, says the third; Hang him up, says the duke. I, having been acquainted with the smell before, knew

[5] To reck is to care for. Both Chaucer and Spenser use this word with the same signification. STEEV,