A Forest between Milan and Verona.
 Enter certain OUTLAWS.

1st Outlaw	Fellows, stand fast; I see a passenger.

2nd Outlaw	If there be ten, shrink not, but down with 'em.

                        Enter VALENTINE and SPEED.

3rd Outlaw	Stand, sir, and throw us that you have about ye.
	If not, we'll make you sit, and rifle you.

Speed	Sir, we are undone; these are the villains
	That all the travellers do fear so much.

Valentine	My friends-

1st Outlaw	That's not so, sir, we are your enemies.

2nd Outlaw	Peace! We'll hear him.

3rd Outlaw	Ay, by my beard will we, for he is a proper man.

Valentine	Then know that I have little wealth to lose;
	A man I am, crossed 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.

2nd Outlaw	Whither travel you?

Valentine	To Verona.

1st Outlaw	Whence came you?

Valentine	From Milan.

3rd Outlaw	Have you long sojourned there?

Valentine	Some sixteen months, and longer might have stayed
	If crooked fortune had not thwarted me.

1st Outlaw	What, were you banished thence?

Valentine	I was.

2nd Outlaw	For what offence?

Valentine	For that which now torments me to rehearse.
	I killed a man, whose death I much repent;
	But yet I slew him manfully, in fight,
	Without false vantage or base treachery.

1st Outlaw	Why, ne'er repent it, if it were done so.
	But were you banished for so small a fault?

Valentine	I was, and held me glad of such a doom.

2nd Outlaw	Have you the tongues?

Valentine	My youthful travel therein made me happy,
	Or else I often had been miserable.

3rd Outlaw	By the bare scalp of Robin Hood's fat friar,
	This fellow were a king for our wild faction.

1st Outlaw	We'll have him. Sirs, a word.

Speed	Master, be one of them;
	It's an honourable kind of thievery.

Valentine	Peace, villain.

2nd Outlaw	Tell us this: have you anything to take to?

Valentine	Nothing but my fortune.

3rd Outlaw	Know, then, that some of us are gentlemen,
	Such as the fury of ungoverned youth
	Thrust from the company of awful men.
	Myself was from Verona banishd,
	For practising to steal away a lady,
	An heir, and near allied unto the duke.

2nd Outlaw	And I from Mantua, for a gentleman,
	Who, in my mood, I stabbed unto the heart.

1st Outlaw	And I, for such like petty crimes as these.
	But to the purpose, for we cite our faults
	That they may hold excused 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-

2nd Outlaw	Indeed, because you are a banished 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?

3rd Outlaw	What sayst 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.

1st Outlaw	But if thou scorn our courtesy, thou diest.

2nd Outlaw	Thou shalt not live to brag what we have offered.

Valentine	I take your offer, and will live with you,
	Provided that you do no outrages
	On silly women or poor passengers.

3rd Outlaw	No, 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.
