Enter Duke, Thurio, and Proteus

DUKE  Sir Thurio, give us leave, I pray, awhile.

We have some secrets to confer about.

[Exit Thurio]

Now tell me, Proteus, what’s your will with me?

PROTEUS       My gracious lord, that which I would discover

The law of friendship bids me to conceal.

But when I call to mind your gracious favours

Done to me, undeserving as I am,

My duty pricks me on to utter that

Which else no worldly good should draw from me.          (3.1.1-9)

A new act, back to Milan, and one of the play’s turning points. Why’s Thurio there? It allows the scene to begin with comedy—Thurio flouncing off, unwillingly—but also neatly establishes that Proteus has already got close to the Duke and gained his confidence sufficiently to be able to seek a private conversation. So, Sir Thurio—formally addressed—give us leave, I pray, awhile. Hop it. We have some secrets to confer about; we—Proteus might betray a flash of satisfaction at that—just the two of us, trusting each other, weighty matters. Now tell me, Proteus—less formal? although it’s mostly shaped by the meter—what’s your will with me? What’s all this about, what do you want of me? What favour are you asking, perhaps; is that what the Duke’s suggesting, that Proteus has a petition about which he’s embarrassed?

Proteus lays it on nauseatingly thick. My gracious lord, that which I would discover—what I’m about to tell you, about to reveal!—the law of friendship bids me to conceal. I shouldn’t be telling you this at all, because it’s violating the trust of someone I love. I’m going out on a limb here, for you. But, you see, when I call to mind your gracious favours done to me—you’ve been so kind, so welcoming, patronised me in the best possible sense—undeserving as I am (and I haven’t done anything to deserve such treatment, I’m just a humble gentleman from Verona, so ordinary, so unassuming; I’m a worm in fact) my duty pricks me on to utter that which else no worldly good should draw from me. In the circumstances I can’t stay silent! I owe it to you! It’s the least I can do! So I’ve got to tell you this, I’ve got no choice—believe me, in other circumstances even the most enormous reward (hint hint) couldn’t get it out of me.

(Proteus isn’t Iago, or Richard III, or Edmund, or even Mark Antony damning Brutus for being an honourable man. But this is gesturing at their territory, their modus operandi, when Iago says to Othello, oh no, that surely wasn’t Cassio just now, he wouldn’t be slinking away looking so shifty, or, have you ever seen your wife with a handkerchief? He’s planting the seeds, establishing his own credentials, his apparent lack of agenda or self-interest, and allowing his interlocutor to join the dots, and to trust him.)