DUKE  Thou hast prevailed. I pardon them and thee.

Dispose of them as thou know’st their deserts.

Come, let us go, we will conclude all jars

With triumphs, mirth, and rare solemnity.

VALENTINE    And as we walk along I dare be bold

With our discourse to make your grace to smile.  (5.4.156-161)

Oooooh, alright then, responds the Duke, you’ve won me over: thou hast prevailed. I pardon them and thee. All your outlaw friends are cool too. You’re ALL unbanished! Dispose of them as thou know’st their deserts: I’ll leave it up to you as to what becomes of them; you can help them find appropriate employment, can’t you?

And now, somehow, everyone needs to get offstage and the play has to be brought to some kind of conclusion: come, let us go, we will conclude all jars with triumphs, mirth, and rare solemnity. Let’s get out of this damn forest—back to civilisation—and put an end to any residual arguments or tensions (there might be a glance at Thurio—or at Silvia, who has now been silent for 100 lines) with a big party! festivities all round! let joy be unconfined—and also, oh yes, marriage ceremonies, the serious bit. Jars is musical, something discordant, and felt in the body too: the Duke is imagining the kinds of celebrations that will include music—and also, perhaps, the sorts of revels and entertainments which Julia ‘remembered’, when she played Ariadne, deserted by Theseus. A space is implicitly opened up for the possibility that such revels, disguisings and performances do not always express or resolve into harmony either…

Valentine’s got more to say, though; this is all about him and the Duke now (Proteus is silent, too, in this conclusion). And as we walk along I dare be bold with our discourse to make your grace to smile. You’ll never believe the story I’ve got to tell you as we head back to Milan—totally mad and hilarious!

Almost there. One final instalment to go…