TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA
A monologue from the
play by William
Shakespeare
- 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 ev'n that pow'r which gave me first my oath
- Provokes me to this threefold perjury.
- 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.
- Unheedful vows may heedfully be broken,
- And he wants wit that wants resolvèd will
- To learn his wit t' exchange the bad for better.
- Fie, fie, unreverend tongue, to call her bad,
- Whose sovereignty so oft thou hast preferred
- 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;
- 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! --
- Shows Julia but a swarthy Ethiope.
- I will forget that Julia is alive,
- Rememb'ring that my love to her is dead,
- And Valentine I'll hold an enemy,
- Aiming at Silvia as a sweeter friend.
- 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.
- 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
- 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.
MORE MONOLOGUES BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE |
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