PLAYER QUEEN         So many journeys may the sun and moon

Make us again count o’er ere love be done.

So far from cheer and from our former state,

That I distrust you. Yet, though I distrust,

Discomfort you, my lord, it nothing must.

For women fear too much, even as they love,

And women’s fear and love hold quantity –

Either none, in neither aught, or in extremity.

Now what my love is proof hath made you know

And, as my love is sized, my fear is so.

Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear,

Where little fears grow great, great love grows there.        (3.2.154-166)

The Queen is equally rapturous: so many journeys may the sun and moon make us again count o’er ere love be done. Let us add years and years unto years, another thirty years! (The suggestion is that they will die before their love does, that they will love each other until they are parted by death—and perhaps even beyond.) (The speech is knotty and also textually dodgy, with the odd incomplete couplet; this is Q2 and perhaps includes lines Shakespeare later deleted, F is a bit tighter.) The next bit’s rather opaque: so far from cheer and from our former state, that I distrust you. In essence she’s saying not that she doesn’t trust her husband, but rather that she fears for him, that she’s anxious, full of foreboding—because she loves him so much, because they love each other so much. Yet, though I distrust, discomfort you, my lord, it nothing must: don’t let that worry you! It’s just me worrying my pretty head about nothing, for women fear too much, even as they love—we’re nervous creatures!—and women’s fear and love hold quantity, they go together, in proportion to each other; the more we love, the more anxious we get! Either none, in neither aught, or in extremity. No love, no fear, or else an excess of both. That’s the deal.

Now what my love is proof hath made you know: you know how much I love you, from long, long experience. (Those thirty years we’ve had together.) And, as my love is sized, my fear is so. That’s why I’m anxious. I can’t help it, because I love you so much. It’s too good to last (and we’re both getting older)… Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear—the smallest thing, the tiniest cue for anxiety!—where little fears grow great, great love grows there. I’m only an old silly, worrying away, because I love you. Because you are my world.

The language is archaic, the syntax knotty, the text corrupt, the sentiment banal. But actually, it’s rather touching.