DUKE  What’s here?

‘Silvia, this night I will enfranchise thee.’

’Tis so! And here’s the ladder for the purpose!

Why Phaëton, for thou art Merops’ son,

Wilt thou aspire to guide the heavenly car,

And with thy daring folly burn the world?

Wilt thou reach stars because they shine on thee?

Go, base intruder, over-weening slave,

Bestow thy fawning smiles on equal mates,

And think my patience, more than thy desert,

Is privilege for thy departure hence.          (3.1.150-160)

 

Valentine might still be hoping against hope that the poem’s been enough, that the Duke hasn’t seen the final, incriminating line. But no. What’s here? ‘Silvia, this night I will enfranchise thee’. I’m coming to rescue you this very night! ’Tis so, that’s self-evident, and here’s the ladder for the purpose! Busted.

The Duke doesn’t even bother with any kind of, and what have you got to say for yourself young man, ritual. Instead he goes full flame-thrower, quite literally, and in quite notable terms. Why, Phaëton, for thou art Merops’ son—you may be the son of the sun-god, except you’re not, you were raised by a mortal father, not a god, and you’ve gone too far, and you’re going to be punished for it, cut back down to size. Wilt thou aspire to guide the heavenly car, to drive the chariot of the sun as Phaëton fatally did, and with thy daring folly burn the world? You can’t really think I’d let you marry my daughter? (I do quite like the idea of Silvia as a heavenly car, high-performance, Italian; get back on your scooter, boy, says the Duke.) She’s totally out of your league, surely you must realise that? It’d be a disaster, completely unacceptable, utter madness, social death for her—and me. Wilt thou reach stars because they shine on thee? I can tell she’s been nice to you, even maybe led you on a bit (and so have I)—but that’s no excuse; there are limits to how far you can reasonably aspire in life.

So, go, base intruder, over-weening slave. Get out of here, you presumptuous, low-born, jumped up little man—boy. You don’t belong here, you’re out of your depth. Bestow thy fawning smiles on equal mates: go and ingratiate yourself with your own class, rather than even daring to think that you stand a chance with your betters. And think my patience, more than thy desert, is privilege for thy departure hence. I’m letting you leave without any further sanction, which is more than you deserve, because, well, I’m the bigger person here. I’m a gentleman.

This is one of the moments in the play where its title really speaks. Perhaps it would have landed with particular impact in a 1590s audience, full of anxious young men, trying to make their way in the world (and in London), in a competitive and unequal marriage market. (It matters in R&J that the Capulets and Montagues are both alike in dignity.) Perhaps being a gentleman—as Shakespeare himself eventually managed, in official terms—wasn’t ever going to be enough? (He comes back to this at the end of his career, in Winter’s Tale, when the disguised princess Perdita, thinking that she is a shepherd’s daughter, tells King Polixenes that the same sun that shines on him shines on her family’s cottage, and therefore why should she and Florizel the prince not love each other?)