The Two Gentlemen of Verona (a Fragment)

LAUNCE: [.] (Pulling out a paper) Here is the cate-log of her condition. 'Imprimis: She can fetch and carry'. Why, a horse can do no more: nay, a horse cannot fetch, but only carry; therefore is she better than a jade. 'Item: She can milk'; look you, a sweet virtue in a maid with clean hands. [.] - SPEED: (Reads) 'Imprimis: She can milk'. - LAUNCE: Ay, that she can. - SPEED: 'Item: She brews good ale'. - LAUNCE: And thereof comes the proverb: 'Blessing of your heart, you brew good ale'. - SPEED: 'Item: She can sew'. - LAUNCE: That's as much as to say, can she so? - SPEED: 'Item: She can knit'. - LAUNCE: What need a man care for a stock with a wench, when she can knit him a stock? - SPEED: 'Item: She can wash and scour'. - LAUNCE: A special virtue: for then she need not be washed and scoured. - SPEED: 'Item: She can spin'. - LAUNCE: Then may I set the world on wheels, when she can spin for her living. - SPEED: 'Item: She hath many nameless virtues'. - LAUNCE: That's as much as to say, bastard virtues; that, indeed, know not their fathers and therefore have no names. - SPEED: Here follow her vices. - LAUNCE: Close at the heels of her virtues. - SPEED: 'Item: She is not to be kissed fasting in respect of her breath'. - LAUNCE: Well, that fault may be mended with a breakfast. Read on. - SPEED: 'Item: She hath a sweet mouth'. - LAUNCE: That makes amends for her sour breath. - SPEED: 'Item: She doth talk in her sleep'. - LAUNCE: It's no matter for that, so she sleep not in her talk. - SPEED: 'Item: She is slow in words'. - LAUNCE: O villain, that set this down among her vices! To be slow in words is a woman's only virtue: I pray thee, out with't, and place it for her chief virtue. - SPEED: 'Item: She is proud'. - LAUNCE: Out with that too; it was Eve's legacy, and cannot be ta'en from her. - SPEED: 'Item: She hath no teeth'. - LAUNCE: I care not for that neither, because I love crusts. - SPEED: 'Item: She is curst'. - LAUNCE: Well, the best is, she hath no teeth to bite. - SPEED: 'Item: She will often praise her liquor'. - LAUNCE: If her liquor be good, she shall: if she will not, I will; for good things should be praised. - SPEED: 'Item: She is too liberal'. - LAUNCE: Of her tongue she cannot, for that's writ down she is slow of; of her purse she shall not, for that I'll keep shut: now, of another thing she may, and that cannot I help. Well, proceed. - SPEED: 'Item: She hath more hair than wit, and more faults than hairs, and more wealth than faults'. - LAUNCE: Stop there; I'll have her: she was mine, and not mine, twice or thrice in that last article. Rehearse that once more. - SPEED: 'Item: She hath more hair than wit'. - LAUNCE: More hair than wit? It may be; I'll prove it. The cover of the salt hides the salt, and therefore it is more than the salt; the hair that covers the wit is more than the wit, for the greater hides the less. What's next? - SPEED: 'And more faults than hairs'. - LAUNCE: That's monstrous: O, that that were out! - SPEED: 'And more wealth than faults'. - LAUNCE: Why, that word makes the faults gracious. Well, I'll have her. ( The Two Gentlemen of Verona - Act III, Scene I)

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Drawing such a long string of qualities and shortcomings of a subject, including the compulsory heading "Observations", represents a basic purpose of a psychologist's work, especially of a school psychologist's (it is called psycho-pedagogical chart). It is also an entertainment of generation after generation of secondary-school pupils who call it "Oracle", thus playing psychological characterization . So why not this pre-marital chart advanced by William Shakespeare?



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