The text used in this book is in most cases taken from the New Penguin Shakespeare editions of the plays and the line references given correspond to these.

The Thomas More soliloquy was edited for this edition.

Cymbeline is forthcoming in New Penguin Shakespeare in 2003.

Two Gentlemen of Verona

[II, iii, 1–30] Off on his travels with his master Proteus, Launce the servant-boy has had to say his fond farewells: all have been gratifyingly sad to see him go except for ‘man’s best friend’:

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, 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, sir, 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. O, 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 an old 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.

[II, iv, 190–212] Previously in love with Julia, but now newly smitten with Silvia, his best friend’s girl, Proteus finds it as hard to comprehend his fickle feelings as he does to justify them:

Even as one heat another heat expels,

Or as one nail by strength drives out another,

So the remembrance of my former love

Is by a newer object quite forgotten.

Is it my mind, or Valentine’s praise,

Her true perfection, or my false transgression,