ed in lame English verses,
by Barnabe Googe, in 1563.

_The Fable._ Valentine and Proteus, the two gentlemen, are friends.
Valentine is about to travel. Proteus, in love with Julia, will not
go with him. Antonio, Proteus' father, sends Proteus after
Valentine. Julia resolves to follow him in boy's clothes. Valentine
at Milan falls in love with the Duke's daughter, Silvia, whom the
Duke plans to marry to one Thurio. Proteus, arriving at Milan, also
falls in love with Silvia. He becomes jealous of Valentine.

Valentine tells him that he has planned to escape with Silvia that
night. Proteus betrays this plot to the Duke. The Duke banishes
Valentine and sends Proteus to Silvia to press the suit of Thurio.

Valentine joins a gang of outlaws.

Proteus woos Silvia for himself, and is rejected by her.

Julia, who has come in boy's dress from Verona to look for Proteus,
finds him still unsuccessfully courting Silvia. She enters his
service as a page. He sends her on a message to Silvia.

On her way to deliver the message, Julia meets Silvia flying from
home in search of Valentine.

In her search for Valentine, Silvia is caught by the gang of
outlaws.

Proteus rescues her, and threatens to resume his suit with
violence.

Valentine, entering, stops this.

Proteus sues for pardon to Valentine and Julia. He is received to
mercy. The Duke after dismissing Thurio, pardons Valentine, and
grants him Silvia's hand in marriage.

_Love's Labour's Lost_ is fantasy. The _Two Gentlemen of Verona_ deals
with real human relationships. It is a better play than the fantasy,
though the fantasy has moments of better poetry. It carries on one of
the problems raised in _Love's Labour's Lost_. It is the work of a
troubled mind. It comes from the mood in which the sonnets were written.

Twice in _Love's Labour's Lost_ the act of oath-breaking, of being
forsworn, is important to the play's structure. Though the vows broken
in that play are fantastic, the characters feel real dishonour at the
breaking of them. The play shows that though the idea of vow-breaking
was in Shakespeare's mind, he had not then the power, or the human
experience, or the mental peace, to grapple with it fairly, or see it
truly. The idea, that the person for whom the vows are broken brings
with her the punishment of the sin of vow-breaking