# Result number

Work The work is either a play, poem, or sonnet. The sonnets are treated as single work with 154 parts.

Character Indicates who said the line. If it's a play or sonnet, the character name is "Poet."

Line Shows where the line falls within the work.

The numbering is not keyed to any copyrighted numbering system found in a volume of collected works (Arden, Oxford, etc.) The numbering starts at the beginning of the work, and does not restart for each scene.

Text The line's full text, with keywords highlighted within it, unless highlighting has been disabled by the user.

1

Two Gentlemen of Verona
[I, 1]

Speed

124

And yet it cannot overtake your slow purse.

2

Two Gentlemen of Verona
[I, 1]

Proteus

142

Go, go, be gone, to save your ship from wreck,
Which cannot perish having thee aboard,
Being destined to a drier death on shore.
[Exit SPEED]
I must go send some better messenger:
I fear my Julia would not deign my lines,
Receiving them from such a worthless post.

3

Two Gentlemen of Verona
[I, 2]

Lucetta

243

I cannot reach so high.

4

Two Gentlemen of Verona
[I, 3]

Antonio

320

Nor need'st thou much importune me to that
Whereon this month I have been hammering.
I have consider'd well his loss of time
And how he cannot be a perfect man,
Not being tried and tutor'd in the world:
Experience is by industry achieved
And perfected by the swift course of time.
Then tell me, whither were I best to send him?

5

Two Gentlemen of Verona
[I, 3]

Proteus

376

My lord, I cannot be so soon provided:
Please you, deliberate a day or two.

6

Two Gentlemen of Verona
[II, 1]

Valentine

433

Without me? they cannot.

7

Two Gentlemen of Verona
[II, 1]

Speed

463

If you love her, you cannot see her.

8

Two Gentlemen of Verona
[II, 1]

Speed

470

Your own present folly and her passing deformity:
for he, being in love, could not see to garter his
hose, and you, being in love, cannot see to put on your hose.

9

Two Gentlemen of Verona
[II, 2]

Proteus

574

Here is my hand for my true constancy;
And when that hour o'erslips me in the day
Wherein I sigh not, Julia, for thy sake,
The next ensuing hour some foul mischance
Torment me for my love's forgetfulness!
My father stays my coming; answer not;
The tide is now: nay, not thy tide of tears;
That tide will stay me longer than I should.
Julia, farewell!
[Exit JULIA]
What, gone without a word?
Ay, so true love should do: it cannot speak;
For truth hath better deeds than words to grace it.

10

Two Gentlemen of Verona
[II, 3]

Launce

593

Nay, 'twill be this hour ere I have done weeping;
all the kind of the Launces have this very fault. I
have received my proportion, like the prodigious
son, and am going with Sir Proteus to the Imperial's
court. I think Crab, my dog, be the sourest-natured
dog that lives: my mother weeping, my father
wailing, my sister crying, our maid howling, our cat
wringing her hands, and all our house in a great
perplexity, yet did not this cruel-hearted cur shed
one tear: he is a stone, a very pebble stone, and
has no more pity in him than a dog: a Jew would have
wept to have seen our parting; why, my grandam,
having no eyes, look you, wept herself blind at my
parting. Nay, I'll show you the manner of it. This
shoe is my father: no, this left shoe is my father:
no, no, this left shoe is my mother: nay, that
cannot be so neither: yes, it is so, it is so, it
hath the worser sole. This shoe, with the hole in
it, is my mother, and this my father; a vengeance
on't! there 'tis: now, sit, this staff is my
sister, for, look you, she is as white as a lily and
as small as a wand: this hat is Nan, our maid: I
am the dog: no, the dog is himself, and I am the
dog—Oh! the dog is me, and I am myself; ay, so,
so. Now come I to my father; Father, your blessing:
now should not the shoe speak a word for weeping:
now should I kiss my father; well, he weeps on. Now
come I to my mother: O, that she could speak now
like a wood woman! Well, I kiss her; why, there
'tis; here's my mother's breath up and down. Now
come I to my sister; mark the moan she makes. Now
the dog all this while sheds not a tear nor speaks a
word; but see how I lay the dust with my tears.

11

Two Gentlemen of Verona
[II, 6]

Proteus

931

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 even that power 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 resolved will
To learn his wit to exchange the bad for better.
Fie, fie, unreverend tongue! to call her bad,
Whose sovereignty so oft thou hast preferr'd
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,
Remembering 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!

12

Two Gentlemen of Verona
[III, 1]

Duke of Milan

1090

Proteus, I thank thee for thine honest care;
Which to requite, command me while I live.
This love of theirs myself have often seen,
Haply when they have judged me fast asleep,
And oftentimes have purposed to forbid
Sir Valentine her company and my court:
But fearing lest my jealous aim might err
And so unworthily disgrace the man,
A rashness that I ever yet have shunn'd,
I gave him gentle looks, thereby to find
That which thyself hast now disclosed to me.
And, that thou mayst perceive my fear of this,
Knowing that tender youth is soon suggested,
I nightly lodge her in an upper tower,
The key whereof myself have ever kept;
And thence she cannot be convey'd away.

13

Two Gentlemen of Verona
[III, 1]

Valentine

1133

I know it well, my Lord; and, sure, the match
Were rich and honourable; besides, the gentleman
Is full of virtue, bounty, worth and qualities
Beseeming such a wife as your fair daughter:
Cannot your Grace win her to fancy him?

14

Two Gentlemen of Verona
[III, 1]

Valentine

1163

A woman sometimes scorns what best contents her.
Send her another; never give her o'er;
For scorn at first makes after-love the more.
If she do frown, 'tis not in hate of you,
But rather to beget more love in you:
If she do chide, 'tis not to have you gone;
For why, the fools are mad, if left alone.
Take no repulse, whatever she doth say;
For 'get you gone,' she doth not mean 'away!'
Flatter and praise, commend, extol their graces;
Though ne'er so black, say they have angels' faces.
That man that hath a tongue, I say, is no man,
If with his tongue he cannot win a woman.

15

Two Gentlemen of Verona
[III, 1]

Duke of Milan

1184

Her chamber is aloft, far from the ground,
And built so shelving that one cannot climb it
Without apparent hazard of his life.

16

Two Gentlemen of Verona
[III, 1]

Valentine

1279

My ears are stopt and cannot hear good news,
So much of bad already hath possess'd them.

17

Two Gentlemen of Verona
[III, 1]

Launce

1336

I am but a fool, look you; and yet I have the wit to
think my master is a kind of a knave: but that's
all one, if he be but one knave. He lives not now
that knows me to be in love; yet I am in love; but a
team of horse shall not pluck that from me; nor who
'tis I love; and yet 'tis a woman; but what woman, I
will not tell myself; and yet 'tis a milkmaid; yet
'tis not a maid, for she hath had gossips; yet 'tis
a maid, for she is her master's maid, and serves for
wages. She hath more qualities than a water-spaniel;
which is much in a bare Christian.
[Pulling out a paper]
Here is the cate-log of her condition.
'Imprimis: She can fetch and carry.' Why, a horse
can do no more: nay, a horse cannot fetch, but only
carry; therefore is she better than a jade. 'Item:
She can milk;' look you, a sweet virtue in a maid
with clean hands.

18

Two Gentlemen of Verona
[III, 1]

Launce

1405

Out with that too; it was Eve's legacy, and cannot
be ta'en from her.

19

Two Gentlemen of Verona
[III, 1]

Launce

1415

Of her tongue she cannot, for that's writ down she
is slow of; of her purse she shall not, for that
I'll keep shut: now, of another thing she may, and
that cannot I help. Well, proceed.

20

Two Gentlemen of Verona
[III, 2]

Duke of Milan

1494

Where your good word cannot advantage him,
Your slander never can endamage him;
Therefore the office is indifferent,
Being entreated to it by your friend.