VALENTINE    What would your grace have me to do in this?

DUKE  There is a lady of Verona here

Whom I affect, but she is nice and coy,

And naught esteems my aged eloquence.

Now, therefore, would I have thee to my tutor –

For long agone I have forgot to court;

Besides, the fashion of the time is changed –

How and which way I may bestow myself

To be regarded in her sun-bright eye.       (3.1.80-88)

Twisty! Sly! And laying the ground-work for an unexpected comic set-piece. Valentine is impatient and anxious but has to conceal his emotions, stay calm; he might also preen a bit, at being taken into the Duke’s confidence; whatever, he’s letting his guard down. What would your grace have me to do in this? How can I help? Smooth, smooth, even a little bit condescending.

Well. There is a lady of Verona here. There’s this girl, says the Duke, and she comes from your hometown, actually. Whom I affect—I think she’s pretty alright, actually, you know, HOT—but she is nice and coy, and naught esteems my aged eloquence. She’s playing hard to get, prim and proper, ‘shy’, and she’s not responding to my—overtures—none of my fail-safe old lines are landing with her. I’m not getting anywhere, know what I mean? Now, therefore, would I have thee to my tutor: can you give me a crash course in how to talk to modern girls? Because I’ve been out of the game for a while, and long agone I have forgot to court. Rusty, you know. Besides, the fashion of the time is changed—it’s all different now, isn’t it, from when I was young like you! Girls, they have different expectations, I think? (A bit of the senex amans, the foolish old man in love from Roman comedy, but also Capulet and his cousin in Romeo and Juliet, remembering their dancing days.) So, straight up: can you help me, teach me how and which way I may bestow myself to be regarded in her sun-bright eye. Help me display myself to advantage, make-over even? so that she’ll notice me, and look on me, and my—overtures—favourably? She’s—pretty, you know? Sun-bright can occasion a moment of plausibly vulnerable reverie…