Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare
Valentine bowed.
“I hardly know how the young people of to-day make love,” continued the
Duke, “and I thought that you would be just the man to teach me how to
win the lady of my choice.”
“Jewels have been known to plead rather well,” said Valentine.
“I have tried them,” said the Duke.
“The habit of liking the giver may grow if your Grace gives her some
more.”
“The chief difficulty,” pursued the Duke, “is this. The lady is promised
to a young gentleman, and it is hard to have a word with her. She is, in
fact, locked up.”
“Then your Grace should propose an elopement,” said Valentine. “Try a
rope ladder.”
“But how should I carry it?” asked the Duke.
“A rope ladder is light,” said Valentine; “You can carry it in a cloak.”
“Like yours?”
“Yes, your Grace.”
“Then yours will do. Kindly lend it to me.”
Valentine had talked himself into a trap. He could not refuse to lend
his cloak, and when the Duke had donned it, his Grace drew from the
pocket a sealed missive addressed to Silvia. He coolly opened it, and
read these words: “Silvia, you shall be free to-night.”
“Indeed,” he said, “and here's the rope ladder. Prettily contrived, but
not perfectly. I give you, sir, a day to leave my dominions. If you are
in Milan by this time to-morrow, you die.”
Poor Valentine was saddened to the core. “Unless I look on Silvia in the
day,” he said, “there is no day for me to look upon.”
Before he went he took farewell of Proteus, who proved a hypocrite of
the first order. “Hope is a lover's staff,” said Valentine's betrayer;
“walk hence with that.”
After leaving Milan, Valentine and his servant wandered into a forest
near Mantua where the great poet Virgil lived. In the forest, however,
the poets (if any) were brigands, who bade the travelers stand. They
obeyed, and Valentine made so good an impression upon his captors that
they offered him his life on condition that he became their captain.
“I accept,” said Valentine, “provided you release my servant, and are
not violent to women or the poor.”
The reply was worthy of Virgil, and Valentine became a brigand chief.
We return now to Julia, who found Verona too dull to live in since
Proteus had gone. She begged her maid Lucetta to devise a way by which
she could see him. “Better wait for him to return,” said Lucetta, and
she talked so sensibly that Julia saw it was idle to hope that Lucetta
would bear the blame of any rash and interesting adventure. Julia
therefore said that she intended to go to Milan and dressed like a page.
“You must cut off your hair then,” said Lucetta, who thought that at
this announcement Julia would immediately abandon her scheme.
“I shall knot it up,” was the disappointing rejoinder.
Lucetta then tried to make the scheme seem foolish to Julia, but Julia
had made up her mind and was not to be put off by ridicule; and when her
toilet was completed, she looked as comely a page as one could wish to
see.
Julia assumed the male name Sebastian, and arrived in Milan in time to
hear music being performed outside the Duke's palace.
“They are serenading the Lady Silvia,” said a man to her.
Suddenly she heard a voice lifted in song, and she knew that voice. It
was the voice of Proteus. But what was he singing?
“Who is Silvia? what is she,
That all our swains commend her?
Holy, fair, and wise is she;
The heaven such grace did lend her
That she might admired be.”
Julia tried not to hear the rest, but these two lines somehow thundered
into her mind--
“Then to Silvia let us sing;
She excels each mortal thing.”
Then Proteus thought Silvia excelled Julia; and, since he sang so
beautifully for all the world to hear, it seemed that he was not only
false to Julia, but had forgotten her. Yet Julia still loved him. She
even went to him, and asked to be his page, and Proteus engaged her.
One day, he handed to her the ring which she had given him, and said,
“Sebastian, take that to the Lady Silvia, and say that I should like the
picture of her she promised me.”
Silvia had promised the picture, but she disliked Proteus. She was
obliged to talk to him because he was high in the favor of her father,
who thought he pleaded with her on behalf of Sir Thurio. Silvia had
learned from Valentine that Proteus was pledged to a sweetheart in
Verona; and when he said tender things to her, she felt that he was
disloyal in friendship as well as love.
Julia bore the ring to Silvia, but Silvia said, “I will not wrong the
woman who gave it him by wearing it.”
“She thanks you,” said Julia.
“You know her, then?” said Silvia, and Julia spoke so tenderly of
herself that Silvia wished that Sebastian would marry Julia.
Silvia gave Julia her portrait for Proteus, who would have received it
the worse for extra touches on the nose and eyes if Julia had not made
up her mind that she was as pretty as Silvia.
Soon there was an uproar in the palace. Silvia had fled.
The Duke was certain that her intention was to join the exiled
Valentine, and he was not wrong.
Without delay he started in pursuit, with Sir Thurio, Proteus, and some
servants.
The members of the pursuing party got separated, and Proteus and Julia
(in her page's dress) were by themselves when they saw Silvia, who had
been taken prisoner by outlaws and was now being led to their Captain.
Proteus rescued her, and then said, “I have saved you from death; give
me one kind look.”
“O misery, to be helped by you!” cried Silvia. “I would rather be a
lion's breakfast.”
Julia was silent, but cheerful. Proteus was so much annoyed with Silvia
that he threatened her, and seized her by the waist.
“O heaven!” cried Silvia.
At that instant there was a noise of crackling branches. Valentine came
crashing through the Mantuan forest to the rescue of his beloved. Julia
feared he would slay Proteus, and hurried to help her false lover. But
he struck no blow, he only said, “Proteus, I am sorry I must never trust
you more.”
Thereat Proteus felt his guilt, and fell on his knees, saying, “Forgive
me! I grieve! I suffer!”
“Then you are my friend once more,” said the generous Valentine. “If
Silvia, that is lost to me, will look on you with favor, I promise that
I will stand aside and bless you both.”
These words were terrible to Julia, and she swooned. Valentine revived
her, and said, “What was the matter, boy?”
“I remembered,” fibbed Julia, “that I was charged to give a ring to the
Lady Silvia, and that I did not.”
“Well, give it to me,” said Proteus.
She handed him a ring, but it was the ring that Proteus gave to Julia
before he left Verona.
Proteus looked at her hand, and crimsoned to the roots of his hair.
“I changed my shape when you changed your mind,” said she.
“But I love you again,” said he.
Just then outlaws entered, bringing two prizes--the Duke and Sir Thurio.
“Forbear!” cried Valentine, sternly. “The Duke is sacred.”
Sir Thurio exclaimed, “There's Silvia; she's mine!”
“Touch her, and you die!” said Valentine.
“I should be a fool to risk anything for her,” said Sir Thurio.
“Then you are base,” said the Duke. “Valentine, you are a brave man.
Your banishment is over. I recall you. You may marry Silvia. You deserve
her.”
“I thank your Grace,” said Valentine, deeply moved, “and yet must ask
you one more boon.”
“I grant it,” said the Duke.
“Pardon these men, your Grace, and give them employment. They are better
than their calling.”
“I pardon them and you,” said the Duke. “Their work henceforth shall be
for wages.”
“What think you of this page, your Grace?” asked Valentine, indicating
Julia.
The Duke glanced at her, and said, “I think the boy has grace in him.”
“More grace than boy, say I,” laughed Valentine, and the only punishment
which Proteus had to bear for his treacheries against love and
friendship was the recital in his presence of the adventures of
Julia-Sebastian of Verona.
ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL
In the year thirteen hundred and something, the Countess of Rousillon
was unhappy in her palace near the Pyrenees. She had lost her husband,
and the King of France had summoned her son Bertram to Paris, hundreds
of miles away.
Bertram was a pretty youth with curling hair, finely arched eyebrows,
and eyes as keen as a hawk's. He was as proud as ignorance could make
him, and would lie with a face like truth itself to gain a selfish end.
But a pretty youth is a pretty youth, and Helena was in love with him.
Helena was the daughter of a great doctor who had died in the service
of the Count of Rousillon. Her sole fortune consisted in a few of her
father's prescriptions.
When Bertram had gone, Helena's forlorn look was noticed by the
Countess, who told her that she was exactly the same to her as her
own child. Tears then gathered in Helena's eyes, for she felt that the
Countess made Bertram seem like a brother whom she could never marry.
The Countess guessed her secret forthwith, and Helena confessed that
Bertram was to her as the sun is to the day.
She hoped, however, to win this sun by earning the gratitude of the King
of France, who suffered from a lingering illness, which made him lame.
The great doctors attached to the Court despaired of curing him, but
Helena had confidence in a prescription which her father had used with
success.
Taking an affectionate leave of the Countess, she went to Paris, and was
allowed to see the King.
He was very polite, but it was plain he thought her a quack. “It would
not become me,” he said, “to apply to a simple maiden for the relief
which all the learned doctors cannot give me.”
“Heaven uses weak instruments sometimes,” said Helena, and she declared
that she would forfeit her life if she failed to make him well.
“And if you succeed?” questioned the King.
“Then I will ask your Majesty to give me for a husband the man whom I
choose!”
So earnest a young lady could not be resisted forever by a suffering
king. Helena, therefore, became the King's doctor, and in two days the
royal cripple could skip.
He summoned his courtiers, and they made a glittering throng in the
throne room of his palace. Well might the country girl have been
dazzled, and seen a dozen husbands worth dreaming of among the handsome
young noblemen before her. But her eyes only wandered till they found
Bertram. Then she went up to him, and said, “I dare not say I take you,
but I am yours!” Raising her voice that the King might hear, she added,
“This is the Man!”
“Bertram,” said the King, “take her; she's your wife!”
“My wife, my liege?” said Bertram. “I beg your Majesty to permit me to
choose a wife.”
“Do you know, Bertram, what she has done for your King?” asked the
monarch, who had treated Bertram like a son.
“Yes, your Majesty,” replied Bertram; “but why should I marry a girl who
owes her breeding to my father's charity?”
“You disdain her for lacking a title, but I can give her a title,” said
the King; and as he looked at the sulky youth a thought came to him, and
he added, “Strange that you think so much of blood when you could not
distinguish your own from a beggar's if you saw them mixed together in a
bowl.”
“I cannot love her,” asserted Bertram; and Helena said gently, “Urge
him not, your Majesty. I am glad to have cured my King for my country's
sake.”
“My honor requires that scornful boy's obedience,” said the King.
“Bertram, make up your mind to this. You marry this lady, of whom you
are so unworthy, or you learn how a king can hate. Your answer?”
Bertram bowed low and said, “Your Majesty has ennobled the lady by your
interest in her. I submit.”
“Take her by the band,” said the King, “and tell her she is yours.”
Bertram obeyed, and with little delay he was married to Helena.