[Enter Silvia]

JULIA  Gentlewoman, good day. I pray you be my mean

To bring me where to speak with Madam Silvia.

SILVIA What would you with her, if that I be she?

JULIA If you be she, I do entreat your patience

To hear me speak the message I am sent on.

SILVIA From whom?

JULIA From my master Sir Proteus, madam.

SILVIA O, he sends you for a picture?

JULIA Ay, madam.

SILVIA [calling] Ursula, bring my picture there.

[An attendant brings a picture]

Go, give your master this. Tell him from me:

One Julia, that his changing thoughts forget,

Would better fit his chamber than this shadow.   (4.4.95-106)

Enter Silvia; she might have an attendant with her and some editions supply this. Gentlewoman, good day: good morning, madam. Julia’s formal; she—presumably—already recognises Silvia, but has to ask to be sure: I pray you be my mean to bring me where to speak with Madam Silvia. Can you take me to her? Silvia’s slightly wary? too many suitors, not another one… What would you with her, if that I be she? What’s your business, what do you want with her? Julia presses on, politely, and she know this is Silvia, really: if you be she, I do entreat your patience to hear me speak the message I am sent on. Look, if you’re her, then please can I just deliver my message? Will you let me do that? From whom? The crucial thing. From my master Sir Proteus, madam—and Julia has to steel herself to say it, to speak his name, to prepare to go through with this unhappy task. But Silvia’s ahead of her: O, he sends you for a picture? Ay, madam—a small reprieve, before she has to deliver the ring, speak prettily on perfidious Proteus’s behalf. Silvia’s ready for this: Ursula, bring my picture there. Ursula could be a maid already on stage; she could be off-stage and appear just to bring the picture—which is probably small, but doesn’t seem to be a miniature, at least not one set in a jewel: Proteus described it as hanging in your chamber (4.2.112) when he asked for it. And Silvia’s clearly hoping that this might satisfy Proteus for a bit, especially with the message she’s about to send with it: Go, give your master this. Tell him from me: one Julia, that his changing thoughts forget, would better fit his chamber than this shadow. This is my message: Julia—Julia can start, her hand creeping to her cap, adjusting her stance to be more masculine—whom he seems to have forgotten all about, fickle, changeable, inconstant man that he is (Proteus, of course) would be a far more appropriate addition to his bedroom—as a picture, or, even more, in person—than this pale imitation of me. Go on, tell him that, when you give him the damn picture.