PROTEUS       At first I did adore a twinkling star,

But now I worship a celestial sun.

Unheedful vows may heedfully be broken,

And he wants wit that wants resolved will

To learn his wit t’exchange the bad for better.

Fie, fie, unreverend tongue, to call her bad

Whose sovereignty so oft thou hast preferred

With twenty thousand soul-confirming oaths.      (2.6.9-16)

So Proteus continues to feel his way through his dilemma, or rather reason his way through it, giving a gloss of rational, aphoristic respectability—like a schoolboy debater—to his psychological and emotional self-deception and coldly anticipated cruelty. This is how it is, right? At first I did adore a twinkling star, that was Julia, shiny shiny shiny. Small, distant; perhaps a bit cheap and cheerful? And also, perhaps the suggestion—depending on date—that he’s loved Julia in a second-hand, Petrarchan way, as a place-holder sonnet-beloved, akin to Sidney’s Stella. (The sun/star comparison is conventional though.) But now—but now, now, I’ve woken up, grown up—now I worship a celestial sun. This is the real deal, warmth, light, life-giving fire.

Then a pivot into what sounds like proverbial wisdom: unheedful vows may heedfully be broken; if you don’t know the full implication of what you’re swearing to, then surely you’re able to change your mind once you’re better informed? (Sounds like a legal problem for the Inns of Court student, about intent and informed consent…) Moreover—yeah, yeah, this makes sense, and look, alliteration, it must be true—he wants wit that wants resolved will to learn his wit t’exchange the bad for better. You’re an idiot, you want your head read, if you lack the—fortitude, decisiveness—BALLS—to have the maturity to own your previous bad decisions and make better ones, to swap a bad deal, an inferior model for the latest thing, get what you’re really entitled to. Oh yes. It’s all part of becoming a man.

Fortunately, then a smidge of remorse and self-reproach. Fie, fie, unreverend tongue, to call her bad whose sovereignty so oft thou hast preferred with twenty-thousand soul-confirming oaths. That’s going a bit far, OK, alright, to describe Julia as bad—this isn’t a zero-sum game, or at least it doesn’t have to be?—when you’ve spent so much time swearing that she’s the one, the one and only girl in the world. Over and over, swearing on your very life. (Makes you look a bit of a mug, too, if you’re suddenly saying that you were so obsessed with someone—bad?) I don’t have to be a total dick about this, do I? says Proteus. (Too late, my dude, too late.)