Julia: I am SUCH a fool, SO uncool (1.2.60-66) #2Dudes1Dog #SlowShakespeare

JULIA  How churlishly I chid Lucetta hence

When willingly I would have had her here!

How angrily I taught my brow to frown,

When inward joy enforced my heart to smile!

My penance is to call Lucetta back

And ask remission for my folly past.

What ho! Lucetta!      (1.2.60-66)

 

More self-reproach from Julia: she needs Lucetta, who is her ally, guide, and protector; also, she’s feeling guilty and ashamed at having been rude. (Julia worries, a lot, about what other people think, and about hurting their feelings, it seems.) How churlishly I chid Lucetta hence when willingly I would have had her here! Really, I want to talk more with her about this, for all sorts of reasons; I need her. And churlishly suggests a particular worry that she’s been vulgar and unladylike as well as mean-spirited. Moreover, how angrily I taught my brow to frown when inward joy enforced my heart to smile! My heart was doing cartwheels on the inside, giddy with the excitement of it—a letter from PROTEUS—and yet, on the outside, I was being grumpy, rude, ungrateful. I am such an IDIOT. SO UNCOOL. Urrrrggggggghh. Time to swallow my pride, get a grip, and make amends, beginning by apologising to Lucetta: my penance is to call Lucetta back and ask remission for my folly past. What ho! Lucetta!

 

(It is unlikely that Lucetta has gone far. She may well even be lurking in the shadows, enjoying Julia’s writhing self-recrimination and reproach.)

 

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