THURIO          Therefore, as you unwind her love from him,

Lest it should ravel and be good to none

You must provide to bottom it on me;

Which must be done by praising me as much

As you in worth dispraise Sir Valentine.     (3.2.51-55)

Thurio’s conceit is fabulous but also deeply weird, especially to a modern ear. He imagines Silvia’s affections as a thread, probably of silk, and Valentine as a bobbin: therefore, as you unwind her love from him, lest it should ravel and be good to none, you must provide to bottom it on me. Silvia must be detached from Valentine, her love for him patiently and carefully unwound—but it’s imagined as being fragile, prone to fraying, tangling, or untwisting, so it needs to be wound straightaway on to another bobbin or spool, a bottom, in this case Thurio. (This is why Bottom is a weaver in Midsummer Night’s Dream; it’s the usual word for the spool on to which thread is wound for weaving, here used as a verb.) (Maybe Silvia doesn’t want to be unwound or wound up?! Maybe she wants a break, or a puppy, or a piece of toast.) Thurio imagines that thread as being kept in a kind of tension, as such winding will only occur if Proteus praises him, Thurio, to Silvia just as much as he is slandering Valentine: it must be done by praising me as much as you in worth dispraise Sir Valentine.

In a play full of men talking about women to other men, this scene is plumbing new depths… (Silvia still unnamed.)