JULIA  But twice or thrice was Proteus written down–

Be calm, good wind, blow not a word away

Till I have found each letter in the letter

Except mine own name. That, some whirlwind bear

Unto a ragged, fearful, hanging rock

And throw it thence into the raging sea.

Lo, here in one line is his name twice writ:

‘Poor forlorn Proteus’, ‘Passionate Proteus,

To the sweet Julia’ –that I’ll tear away.

And yet I will not, sith so prettily

He couples it to his complaining names.

Thus will I fold them, one upon another.

Now kiss, embrace, contend, do what you will.      (1.2.118-130)

Julia continues to pick up, read, and dream with the fragments of Proteus’s letter. She recalls—despite only having glanced at the letter before tearing it—that twice or thrice was Proteus written down. It had his name in it! Be calm, good wind, blow not a word away till I have found each letter in the letter except mine own name. Those named fragments are the most precious and I must find them; but they’re all precious, every word and indeed letter in the letter (to push the scene ever-closer to the ridiculous, in the repetition)—except the scraps with Julia’s own name on them. Those, some whirlwind bear unto a ragged, fearful, hanging rock and throw it thence into the raging sea. My name can just get in the bin, be blasted into outerspace, take a running jump. (Julia is Austen’s Catherine Morland avant la lettre, as it were. At least in her Gothic landscape. Discuss.) More seriously: I don’t matter, says Julia. Lo, here in one line is his name twice writ. Awwww. AWWWWWW. ‘Poor forlorn Proteus’. ‘Passionate Proteus, to the sweet Julia’. (In the moment, it might seem churlish to wonder if she shouldn’t be being just a bit creeped out by his propensity to refer to himself repeatedly in the third person? But it fits the play’s interest in role-play and play-acting.) That—my name, sweet Julia—I’ll tear away, she says, back to her masochistic self-erasure and self-reproach. But another thought: yet I will not, sith so prettily he couples it to his complaining names. Proteus & Julia 4 EVA. Don’t we (don’t they?) look cute together? Then a more daring thought—Julia’s carried away by the intensity of her own feelings, the anger, the anxiety, the fear, the shame, the desire?—thus will I fold them, one upon another. I’ll make them—touch. Press them together. Each imagining more daring, until she runs out of words… Now kiss, embrace, contend, do what you will.