PROTEUS       What said she? Nothing?

SPEED            No, not so much as ‘Take this for thy pains’. To testify your bounty, I thank you, you have testerned me; in requital whereof, henceforth carry your letters yourself. And so, sir, I’ll commend you to my master.

[Exit]

PROTEUS       Go, go, be gone, to save your ship from wreck,

Which cannot perish having thee aboard,

Being destined to a drier death on shore.

I must go send some better messenger.

I fear my Julia would not deign my lines,

Receiving them from such a worthless post.

Exit                  (1.1.126-136)

What said she? Nothing? After all that? You’ve got nothing to report to me? And Speed takes a mean satisfaction in finally revealing this—which may or may not be true, of course—given that his main concern is his lack of remuneration from either Julia or Proteus. No, not so much as ‘Take this for thy pains’. She gave me nothing, and she said nothing. He can’t resist a last bitter pun: to testify your bounty, as a sign of your great generosity, I thank you, you have testerned me; a testern is a tester, sixpence, not entirely insignificant as a tip (it would get Speed into the theatre on multiple occasions, to stand in a penny place!)—but the point is mostly the pun on testify, the tester as evidence of miserliness. In requital whereof, henceforth carry your letters yourself. Do your own errands in the future! (Speed is, after all, Valentine’s servant, not Proteus’s.) And so, sir—a final sarcastic courtesy—I’ll commend you to my master. I’ll be off now, and tell Valentine you said hi.

Go, go, be gone (the audience might well agree, this has gone on long enough)—go and save your ship from wreck, which cannot perish having thee aboard, being destined to a drier death on shore. (Proverbially, those destined to be hanged couldn’t die by drowning.) You’re a rascal, you’ll come to a bad end! It’s another indication of Proteus’s weakness and slow-wittedness, relatively speaking, that he most likely speaks this as Speed leaves, rather than to his face, a vaguely witty comeback mostly gone to waste. But his heart’s not in the insult, because he has more pressing concerns: I must go send some better messenger! I fear my Julia would not deign my lines, receiving them from such a worthless post. What if she didn’t even accept my letter, from this foolish blockhead of a messenger?

And that’s the end of the first scene… It’s introduced characters, yes, and a bit of plot, but also firmly established at least one component of the play’s verbal texture and tone, a kind of wit and word-play that is not always playful, that’s got a doggedness, a laboriousness to it. Language games that are not especially playful. I think I’m more interested than I anticipated in Speed, who can come off badly in a comparison with the more flamboyant, singular Launce, and the sorts of things that he is contributing to the play’s comedy, and an idea of comedy more generally: a version of the kind of wit apparently prized by young men (which will appear in its liveliest, most appealing form—probably—with Romeo, Benvolio, Mercutio), and also of the wily servant of Roman comedy, versions of whom turn up again and again in the comedies. But Speed also seems to be an experiment in the rhythms of comedy, its repetitions, a probing of how puns can work, even if not very well. It’s telling—and this is an editor, partly in anticipation—that it’s often difficult to know whether to set Speed’s lines as verse or as prose, because they are very rhythmic and often rhyme or almost rhyme, sometimes internally.

Also: boys are SO dumb?