The Two Gentlemen of Verona Famous Quotes

Who is Silvia? what is she, That all our swains commend her? Holy, fair and wise is she.

The song sung under Silvia's window in Act 4, Scene 2 — Proteus arranges the serenade for a woman he is pursuing while his faithful girlfriend Julia watches from below, disguised. It is the play's most beautiful moment and one of its most cruel.

Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits.

Valentine to Proteus in Act 1, Scene 1, before leaving for Milan — the proverb argues that staying home limits the mind. Valentine will be tested and expanded by his travels; Proteus, who stays, will prove it from the other direction.

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

Valentine to Proteus in Act 1, Scene 1, teasing him about his love for Julia — within two scenes Valentine will be in love himself, and the argument he uses against Proteus will apply perfectly to him.

What light is light, if Silvia be not seen? What joy is joy, if Silvia be not by?

Valentine in Act 3, Scene 1, after being banished from Milan — the rhetorical questions equate Silvia's absence with the absence of light and joy. The play does not quite earn the intensity, but the language reaches for it.

Except I be by Silvia in the night, There is no music in the nightingale.

Valentine in Act 3, Scene 1, his exile speech — the nightingale without Silvia falls silent, dawn without her is less bright. The speech is the emotional high point of his role in the play.

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.

Valentine listing the costs of love to Proteus in Act 1, Scene 1 — the arithmetic of love (one moment of joy, twenty nights of misery) is laid out with mock-seriousness by someone who has not yet fallen in love.

That man that hath a tongue, I say, is no man, If with his tongue he cannot win a woman.

The Duke of Milan in Act 3, Scene 1, fishing for Valentine's advice on how to court a woman — he is testing his daughter's suitor, and Valentine, not realising it, gives honest counsel that helps his enemy.

In love Who respects friend?

Proteus in Act 5, Scene 4, challenged by Silvia over his betrayal of Valentine — his question is the play's most naked admission that love has superseded friendship. Silvia's answer ('All men but Proteus') is devastating.

All that was mine in Silvia I give thee.

Valentine's offer to give Silvia to Proteus in Act 5, Scene 4 — the most debated line in the play, where the male friendship reasserts itself over the relationship with the woman. Julia faints at hearing it.

What dangerous action, stood it next to death, Would I not undergo for one calm look!

Proteus to Silvia in Act 5, Scene 4, declaring that he would risk death for one unclouded look from her — he makes this claim moments before his villainy is fully exposed and he is confronted by Julia.

Let me be blest to make this happy close; 'Twere pity two such friends should be long foes.

The Duke in Act 5, Scene 4, as the play rushes to its resolution — the reconciliation of two friends and two couples is pressed into the closing minutes, faster than it is dramatised. The Duke's approval accelerates it.

I, a lost mutton, gave your letter to her, a laced mutton, and she, a laced mutton, gave me, a lost mutton, nothing for my labour.

Speed in Act 1, Scene 1, reporting to Valentine on a letter's failure — 'laced mutton' was slang for a prostitute; 'lost mutton' for a foolish man. Speed uses both puns simultaneously, to his own evident pleasure.

I think Crab, my dog, be the sourest-natured dog that lives.

Launce in Act 2, Scene 3, beginning one of Shakespeare's earliest comic monologues about his dog — Crab refuses to weep at their departure, though the whole family wept. The dog's indifference is more amusing than any sorrow.

O heaven! were man But constant, he were perfect.

Proteus in Act 5, Scene 4, at the moment of his repentance — 'but constant' is the qualification that undoes everything. Constancy is the one quality the play has spent five acts proving he lacks.

O, how this spring of love resembleth The uncertain glory of an April day, Which now shows all the beauty of the sun,

Proteus in Act 1, Scene 3, on the eve of being sent away by his father — love as an April day, bright and then clouded over. The image describes not just the moment but the entire arc of his character.