Page 1931 - Shakespeare - Vol. 1

Please it your grace, there is a messenger
That stays to bear my letters to my friends,
And I am going to deliver them.

DUKE

Be they of much import? [55]

VALENT INE

The tenor of them doth but signify
My health and happy being at your court.

DUKE

Nay then, no matter; stay with me awhile;
I am to break with thee of some affairs
That touch me near, wherein thou must be secret. [60]
’Tis not unknown to thee that I have sought
To match my friend Sir Thurio to my daughter.

VALENT INE

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 [65]
Beseeming such a wife as your fair daughter.
Cannot your grace win her to fancy him?

DUKE

No, trust me; she is peevish, sullen, froward,
Proud, disobedient, stubborn, lacking duty;
Neither regarding that she is my child, [70]
Nor fearing me as if I were her father;
And, may I say to thee, this pride of hers,
Upon advice, hath drawn my love from her,
And where I thought the remnant of mine age
Should have been cherished by her child-like duty, [75]
I now am full resolved to take a wife
And turn her out to who will take her in.
Then let her beauty be her wedding-dower;
For me and my possessions she esteems not.

VALENT INE