HOST. Marry, at my house: Trust me, I think, 't is almost day.
JUL. Not so; but it hath been the longest night
That e'er I watch'd, and the most heaviest.

SCENE III.-The same.

[Exeunt.

EGL. This is the hour that madam Silvia

Entreated me to call, and know her mind;
There's some great matter she 'd employ me in.-
Madam, madam!

SIL. Who calls?

SILVIA appears above, at her window

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 a,

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, 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 died,
Upon whose grave thou vow'dst pure chastity
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.

• Impose-command. The word, as a noun, does not occur again in Shakspere.
• Remorseful-compassionate.

I do desire thee, even from a heart
As full of sorrows as the sea of sands,
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 placid,
I give consent to go along with you ;
Recking as little what betideth me

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.-The same.

[Exeunt.

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 himeven 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 trencher27; and steals her capon's leg. O, 't is a foul thing when a cur cannot keep a 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 gentlemanlike 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 it was Crab; and goes me to the fellow that whips the dogs: "Friend," quoth I," you mean to whip the dog?" "Ay, marry, do I," quoth he. "You do him the more wrong," quoth I; "'t was I did the thing you wot of." He makes me no more ado, but whips me out of the chamber. How many masters would do this for their servant?

Keep-restrain.

66

Nay, I'll be sworn, I have sat in the stocks 28 for puddings he hath stolen, otherwise he had been executed: I have stood on the pillory29 for geese he hath killed, otherwise he had suffered for 't: thou think'st not of this now! -Nay, I remember the trick you served me when I took my leave of madam Silvia; did not I bid thee still mark me, and do as I do? When didst thou see me heave up my leg, and make water against a gentlewoman's farthingale? didst thou ever see me do such a trick?

Enter PROTEUS and JULIA.

PRO. Sebastian is thy name? I like thee well,

And will employ thee in some service presently.

JUL. In what you please.—I'll do what I can.

PRO. I hope thou wilt.-How now, you whoreson peasant;
Where have you been these two days loitering?

LAUN. Marry, sir, I carried mistress Silvia the dog you bade me.

PRO. And what says she to my little jewel?

[TO LAUNCE.

LAUN. Marry, she says, your dog was a cur; and tells you, currish thanks is

good enough for such a present.

PRO. But she received my dog?

LAUN. No, indeed, did she not: here have I brought him back again.

PRO. What, didst thou offer her this from me?

LAUN. Ay, sir; the other squirrel was stolen from me by the hangman's boys

in the market-place: and then I offered her mine own; who is a dog as big as ten of yours, and therefore the gift the greater.

PRO. Go, get thee hence, and find my dog again,
Or, ne'er return again into my sight.
Away, I say: Stay'st thou to vex me here?

A slave, that still an end a turns me to shame.
Sebastian, I have entertained thee,

Partly, that I have need of such a youth,
That can with some discretion do my business,
For 't is no trusting to yon foolish lout;
But, chiefly, for thy face and thy behaviour;
Which (if my augury deceive me not)

Witness good bringing up, fortune, and truth:
Therefore know thee, for this I entertain thee.
Go presently, and take this ring with thee,
Deliver it to madam Silvia:

She lov'd me well deliver'd it to me.

JUL. It seems you lov'd her not to leave her token:

She is dead, belike?

[Exit LAUNCE.

• Still an end—almost perpetually. A common form of expression in our old writers. Gifford has given several examples in a note to Massinger's 'A Very Woman.'-Act III., Scene 1. She lov'd me well, who deliver'd it to me.

To leave-to part with.

PRO. Not so; I think she lives.

JUL. Alas!

PRO. Why dost thou cry, alas!

JUL. I cannot choose but pity her.

PRO. Wherefore shouldst thou pity her?

JUL. Because, methinks, that she lov'd you as well
As you do love your lady Silvia:

She dreams on him that has forgot her love;
You dote on her that cares not for your love.
"T is pity, love should be so contrary;
And thinking on it makes me cry, alas!
PRO. Well, give her that ring, and therewithal
This letter;-that's her chamber.-Tell my lady,
I claim the promise for her heavenly picture.
Your message done, hie home unto my chamber,
Where thou shalt find me, sad and solitary.
JUL. How many women would do such a message?
Alas, poor Proteus! thou hast entertain'd
A fox, to be the shepherd of thy lambs:
Alas, poor fool! why do I pity him.
That with his very heart despiseth me?
Because he loves her, he despiseth me;
Because I love him, I must pity him.

This ring I gave him, when he parted from me,
To bind him to remember my good will:

And now am I (unhappy messenger)

To plead for that, which I would not obtain;

To carry that, which I would have refus'd;

To praise his faith, which I would have disprais'd.

I am my master's true confirmed love;

But cannot be true servant to my master,

Unless I prove false traitor to myself.
Yet I will woo for him; but yet so coldly,

As, Heaven it knows, I would not have him speed.

Enter SILVIA, attended.

Gentlewoman, good day! I pray you, be my mean
To bring me where to speak with madam Silvia.
SIL. What would you with her, if that I be she?
JUL. If you be she, I do entreat your patience

To hear me speak the message I am sent on.
SIL. From whom?

JUL. From my master, sir Proteus, madam.
SIL. O! he sends you for a picture?
JUL. Ay, madam.

[Exit PROTEUS.

SIL. Ursula, bring my picture there.

Go, give your master this: tell him, from me,
One Julia, that his changing thoughts forget,
Would better fit his chamber, than this shadow
JUL. Madam, please you peruse this letter.-
Pardon me, madam; I have unadvis'd
Deliver'd you a paper that I should not:
This is the letter to your ladyship.

SIL. I pray thee, let me look on that again.
JUL. It may not be; good madam, pardon me.
SIL. There, hold.

I will not look upon your master's lines:

I know they are stuff'd with protestations,
And full of new-found oaths; which he will break,
As easily as I do tear his paper.

JUL. Madam, he sends your ladyship this ring.

1 SIL. The more shame for him that he sends it me;
For, I have heard him say a thousand times,
His Julia gave it him at his departure:

Though his false finger have profan'd the ring,
Mine shall not do his Julia so much wrong.
JUL. She thanks you.

SIL. What say'st thou ?

JUL. I thank you, madam, that you tender her:

Poor gentlewoman! my master wrongs her much. SIL. Dost thou know her?

JUL. Almost as well as I do know myself:

To think upon her woes I do protest

That I have wept an hundred several times.

SIL. Belike, she thinks that Proteus hath forsook her.
JUL. I think she doth, and that's her cause of sorrow

SIL. Is she not passing fair?

JUL. She hath been fairer, madam, than she is:
When she did think my master lov'd her well,
She, in my judgment, was as fair as you;
But since she did neglect her looking-glass,
And threw her sun-expelling mask away,
The air hath starv'd the roses in her cheeks,
And pinch'd the lily-tincture of her face,
That now she is become as black as Ia.

[Picture brought.

"the

* In this passage pinch'd means painted, and not, as Johnson has it, pinched with cold. Black signifies dark, tanned. In the next act Thurio says, " my face is black," as opposed to "fair." It is curious that black, bleak, blight, are words having a strong affinity; and that, therefore, air," which "starv'd the roses," and "pinch'd the lily-tincture," so as to make "black," is the same as the withering and blighting agency, the bleak wind, which covers vegetation with a sterile blackness. (See Richardson's Dictionary.)