Enter Duke [and] Thurio

DUKE  Sir Thurio, fear not but that she will love you

Now Valentine is banished from her sight.

THURIO          Since his exile she hath despised me most,

Forsworn my company, and railed at me,

That I am desperate of obtaining her.

DUKE This weak impress of love is as a figure

Trenchèd in ice, which with an hour’s heat

Dissolves to water and doth lose his form.

A little time will melt her frozen thoughts,

And worthless Valentine shall be forgot.    (3.2.1-10)

Thurio’s being moany and insecure and perhaps running out of patience, and the Duke—who wants him to marry Silvia because he is Very Rich—is trying to reassure him. Fear not but that she will love you now Valentine is banished from her sight. She’ll come round! Of course she’ll fall for you now Valentine’s out of the way! Thurio’s gloomy and pessimistic, however: since his exile she hath despised me most—she hates me all the more since you banished him—forsworn my company and railed at me. She doesn’t want anything to do with me! She harangues me, calls me names! And so I am desperate of obtaining her. I’m beginning to give up hope that she’ll ever be mine. (Petulant, entitled, pathetic, unaware, of course, that he’s been played as much as the Duke, Valentine, and Silvia herself by Proteus.)

The Duke hastens to reassure him again: don’t worry, women are really shallow and fickle, you just need to give her a bit more time. This weak impress of love is as a figure trenched in ice: her feelings for Valentine are superficial, like something scratched into ice, which with an hour’s heat dissolves to water and doth lose his form. Pretty soon it melts away—just an hour in the sun!—and then it’s gone. (His conceit varies a familiar one for memory, the wax tablet, which when used in relation to women is used to suggest their malleability, their lack of retention, the way that the soft wax of their hearts and minds is incapable of holding a firm impression.) You just need to warm her up a bit, too, might be another suggestion… But a little time will melt her frozen thoughts, and worthless Valentine shall be forgot. Soon! The ice maiden will thaw!