HOST  How now? Are you sadder than you were before? How do you, man? The music likes you not.

JULIA  You mistake – the musician likes me not.

HOST Why, my pretty youth?

JULIA He plays false, father.

HOST How, out of tune on the strings?

JULIA Not so – but yet so false that he grieves my very heart-strings.

HOST You have a quick ear.

JULIA Ay, I would I were deaf. It makes me have a slow heart.

HOST I perceive you delight not in music.

JULIA Not a whit when it jars so.     (4.2.52-62)

How now? What’s the matter? (Julia might be crying or looking distressed.) Are you sadder than you were before?What’s up, what’s upset you? How do you, man? What’s going on, mate? (Underscoring that Julia is in disguise as Sebastian, and reinforcing that her disguise is completely impenetrable…) The music likes you not—aren’t you enjoying it? Oh no, you mistake, you’ve got the wrong idea, is all that Julia can respond: the musician likes me not. It’s not the song, it’s the singer, and he seems to have gone right off me. Why, my pretty youth? (Julia appears very young, a handsome youth, not a grown man.) The host is avuncular, even paternal, reassuring, encouraging Julia’s response: he plays false, father. He’s cheating on me, she means; it sounds, of course, as if she’s complaining about the tuning, and this is what the host understands: how, out of tune on the strings? Really? (Scope for comedy if the playing is indeed dodgy, or if it’s immaculate the host can be confused, incredulous.) Not so—but yet so false he grieves my very heart-strings. No, not out of tune, but still, I feel it in my heart—playing of course on the strings of the instruments and the imagined strings of the heart, holding it together and in place. This pains me at my core, this infidelity, she says, although of course the host can’t understand what she means, and moves swiftly on: you have a quick ear, he says, picking up that level of meaning and profound emotion just from that? Oh yes, she says, ay, I would I were deaf, though—I wish more than anything I hadn’t just heard what we’ve heard (and seen what we’ve seen)—it makes me have a slow heart. (Perhaps: I wish I could not hear at all; I wish I were dead, not quick, alive.) It weighs me down, and grieves me. I perceive you delight not in music, admits the host, perhaps pained or embarrassed that this little treat for his new guest has backfired, given pain rather than pleasure. Not a whit when it jars so, responds Julia. I can’t take any pleasure at all in something that is so discordant, so harsh, so painful—even if it still sounds sweet. (Ophelia will describe Hamlet’s cruel treatment of her, in his grief and—perhaps—madness as ‘sweet bells jangled out of tune [or time], and harsh’.)

And all the while, perhaps, Proteus and Thurio play on…