[Exit Valentine.]
Even as one heat another heat expels,
Or as one nail by strength drives out another,
So the remembrance of my former love
Is by a newer object quite forgotten.
Is it mine eye, or Valentine’s praise,
Her true perfection, or my false transgression,
That makes me reasonless to reason thus?
She is fair; and so is Julia that I love—
That I did love, for now my love is thawed,
Which like a waxen image ’gainst a fire
Bears no impression of the thing it was.
Methinks my zeal to Valentine is cold,
And that I love him not as I was wont.
O, but I love his lady too too much,
And that’s the reason I love him so little.
How shall I dote on her with more advice
That thus without advice begin to love her?
’Tis but her picture I have yet beheld,
And that hath dazzled my reason’s light;
But when I look on her perfections,
There is no reason but I shall be blind.
If I can check my erring love, I will;
If not, to compass her I’ll use my skill.
[Exit.]
SCENE V. The same. A street
Enter Speed and Lance with his dog Crab.
SPEED.
Lance, by mine honesty, welcome to Milan!
LANCE.
Forswear not thyself, sweet youth, for I am not welcome. I reckon this always, that a man is never undone till he be hanged, nor never welcome to a place till some certain shot be paid and the hostess say “Welcome”.
SPEED.
Come on, you madcap. I’ll to the alehouse with you presently, where, for one shot of five pence, thou shalt have five thousand welcomes. But, sirrah, how did thy master part with Madam Julia?
LANCE.
Marry, after they closed in earnest, they parted very fairly in jest.
SPEED.
But shall she marry him?