Reading.
Get started

Library / Literature & Fiction

The Two Gentlemen of Verona

by William Shakespeare

Pages
about 66
Category
Literature & Fiction
Language
English
Reading time
72 min at 250 wpm
Start readingThe whole book, as cards or one word at a time. 40 min at 450 wpm in Read mode.

From the opening

VALENTINE. Cease to persuade, my loving Proteus. Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits. Were’t not affection chains thy tender days To the sweet glances of thy honoured love, I rather would entreat thy company To see the wonders of the world abroad Than, living dully sluggardized at home, Wear out thy youth with shapeless idleness. But since thou lov’st, love still, and thrive therein, Even as I would when I to love begin.

PROTEUS. Wilt thou be gone? Sweet Valentine, adieu. Think on thy Proteus when thou haply seest Some rare noteworthy object in thy travel. Wish me partaker in thy happiness When thou dost meet good hap; and in thy danger, If ever danger do environ thee, Commend thy grievance to my holy prayers, For I will be thy beadsman, Valentine.

VALENTINE. That’s on some shallow story of deep love, How young Leander crossed the Hellespont.

PROTEUS. That’s a deep story of a deeper love, For he was more than over shoes in love.

VALENTINE. ’Tis true; for you are over boots in love, And yet you never swam the Hellespont.

VALENTINE. To be in love, where scorn is bought with groans, Coy looks with heart-sore sighs, one fading moment’s mirth With twenty watchful, weary, tedious nights. If haply won, perhaps a hapless gain; If lost, why then a grievous labour won; However, but a folly bought with wit, Or else a wit by folly vanquished.

VALENTINE. Love is your master, for he masters you; And he that is so yoked by a fool Methinks should not be chronicled for wise.

PROTEUS. Yet writers say, as in the sweetest bud The eating canker dwells, so eating love Inhabits in the finest wits of all.

VALENTINE. And writers say, as the most forward bud Is eaten by the canker ere it blow, Even so by love the young and tender wit Is turned to folly, blasting in the bud, Losing his verdure even in the prime, And all the fair effects of future hopes.

A short sample. Read the whole book

More to read

Public-domain text from Project Gutenberg, Standard Ebooks or a similar open source. Copyright differs between countries. Rights holder? See our takedown process.