unties CRAB’S leash and both exit stage left.
STAGEHANDS remove bench, then place throne center stage, with a chair on either side.
Milan. The Duke’s palace.
Enter NARRATOR from stage rear, coming downstage center and leading CRAB on a leash.
NARRATOR
Proteus arrives in Milan and is greeted by his best friend, Valentine, and Valentine’s beloved, Silvia. Proteus immediately falls in love with Silvia.
Exit NARRATOR and CRAB stage left.
Enter SILVIA and VALENTINE from stage rear. SILVIA sits in chair stage right and VALENTINE sits in chair stage left.
SILVIA
Here comes the gentleman.
Enter PROTEUS from stage right. VALENTINE goes to him, greeting him warmly.
VALENTINE
Welcome, dear Proteus!
Mistress, I beseech you, entertain him
To be my fellow-servant to your ladyship.
SILVIA
Too low a mistress for so high a servant.
PROTEUS
Not so, sweet lady; but too mean a servant
(kneels; kisses her hand)
To have a look of such a worthy mistress.
VALENTINE (moves next to SILVIA)
Leave off discourse of disability:
Sweet lady, entertain him for your servant.
PROTEUS
My duty will I boast of, nothing else.
SILVIA
And duty never yet did want his meed:
Servant, you are welcome to a worthless mistress.
SILVIA gestures for PROTEUS to sit in stage right chair.
PROTEUS
I’ll die on him that says so, but yourself.
SILVIA
That you are welcome?
PROTEUS
That you are worthless.
VALENTINE coughs.
SILVIA
I’ll leave you to confer of home affairs;
When you have done, I look to hear from you.
PROTEUS
We’ll both attend upon your ladyship.
Exit SILVIA stage right.
VALENTINE walks to Proteus’s chair.
VALENTINE
Now, tell me, Proteus,
How does your lady? And how thrives your love?
PROTEUS
My tales of love were wont to weary you;
I know you joy not in a love-discourse.
VALENTINE
Ay, Proteus, but that life is alter’d now.
(walks downstage center)
For, in revenge of my contempt of love,
Love hath chased sleep from my enthralled eyes,
And made them watchers of mine own heart’s sorrow.
O gentle Proteus, Love’s a mighty lord,
And hath so humbled me, as, I confess,
Now can I break my fast, dine, sup, and sleep,
Upon the very naked name of love.
PROTEUS (walks to VALENTINE)
Enough; I read your fortune in your eye.
Was this the idol that you worship so?
(gestures to where SILVIA exited)
VALENTINE
Even she; and is she not a heavenly saint?
PROTEUS
No; but she is an earthly paragon.
VALENTINE
Call her divine.
PROTEUS
I will not flatter her.
VALENTINE
Then speak the truth by her: if not divine,
Yet let her be a principality,
Sovereign to all the creatures on the earth.
PROTEUS
Except my mistress.
Why, Valentine, what braggardism is this?
VALENTINE
Pardon me, Proteus: all I can is nothing
To her, whose worth makes other worthies nothing;
She is alone.
PROTEUS
Then let her alone.
VALENTINE
Not for the world: why, man, she is mine own;
And I as rich in having such a jewel
As twenty seas, if all their sand were pearl,
The water nectar, and the rocks pure gold.
PROTEUS
But she loves you?
VALENTINE
Ay, and we are betroth’d: nay, more, our marriage-hour,
With all the cunning manner of our flight,
Determined of; how I must climb her window,
The ladder made of cords; and all the means
Plotted and ’greed on for my happiness.
Good Proteus, go with me to my chamber,
In these affairs to aid me with thy counsel.