ARKCODEX
Act IV, Scene 1
1The frontiers of Mantua. A forest.
2Enter certain Outlaws.
3First OutlawFellows, stand fast; I see a passenger.
4Second OutlawIf there be ten, shrink not, but down with ’em.
5Enter Valentine and Speed.
6Third OutlawStand, sir, and throw us that you have about ye:
If not, we’ll make you sit and rifle you.
7SpeedSir, we are undone; these are the villains
That all the travellers do fear so much.
8ValentineMy friends—
9First OutlawThat’s not so, sir: we are your enemies.
10Second OutlawPeace! we’ll hear him.
11Third OutlawAy, by my beard, will we, for he’s a proper man.
12ValentineThen know that I have little wealth to lose:
A man I am cross’d with adversity;
My riches are these poor habiliments,
Of which if you should here disfurnish me,
You take the sum and substance that I have.
13Second OutlawWhither travel you?
14ValentineTo Verona.
15First OutlawWhence came you?
16ValentineFrom Milan.
17Third OutlawHave you long sojourned there?
18ValentineSome sixteen months, and longer might have stay’d,
If crooked fortune had not thwarted me.
19First OutlawWhat, were you banish’d thence?
20ValentineI was.
21Second OutlawFor what offence?
22ValentineFor that which now torments me to rehearse:
I kill’d a man, whose death I much repent;
But yet I slew him manfully in fight,
Without false vantage or base treachery.
23First OutlawWhy, ne’er repent it, if it were done so.
But were you banish’d for so small a fault?
24ValentineI was, and held me glad of such a doom.
25Second OutlawHave you the tongues?
26ValentineMy youthful travel therein made me happy,
Or else I often had been miserable.
27Third OutlawBy the bare scalp of Robin Hood’s fat friar,
This fellow were a king for our wild faction!
28First OutlawWe’ll have him. Sirs, a word.
29SpeedMaster, be one of them; it’s an honourable kind of thievery.
30ValentinePeace, villain!
31Second OutlawTell us this: have you any thing to take to?
32ValentineNothing but my fortune.
33Third OutlawKnow, then, that some of us are gentlemen,
Such as the fury of ungovern’d youth
Thrust from the company of awful men:
Myself was from Verona banished
For practising to steal away a lady,
An heir, and near allied unto the duke.
34Second OutlawAnd I from Mantua, for a gentleman,
Who, in my mood, I stabb’d unto the heart.
35First OutlawAnd I for such like petty crimes as these,
But to the purpose—for we cite our faults,
That they may hold excus’d our lawless lives;
And partly, seeing you are beautified
With goodly shape and by your own report
A linguist and a man of such perfection
As we do in our quality much want—
36Second OutlawIndeed, because you are a banish’d man,
Therefore, above the rest, we parley to you:
Are you content to be our general?
To make a virtue of necessity
And live, as we do, in this wilderness?
37Third OutlawWhat say’st thou? wilt thou be of our consort?
Say ay, and be the captain of us all:
We’ll do thee homage and be ruled by thee,
Love thee as our commander and our king.
38First OutlawBut if thou scorn our courtesy, thou diest.
39Second OutlawThou shalt not live to brag what we have offer’d.
40ValentineI take your offer and will live with you,
Provided that you do no outrages
On silly women or poor passengers.
41Third OutlawNo, we detest such vile base practices.
Come, go with us, we’ll bring thee to our crews,
And show thee all the treasure we have got;
Which, with ourselves, all rest at thy dispose. Exeunt.