1 January 2024

 

[Enter] Valentine and Proteus

VALENTINE               Cease to persuade, my loving Proteus.

Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits.

Were’t not affection chains thy tender days

To the sweet glances of thy honoured love,

I rather would entreat thy company

To see the wonders of the world abroad

Than, living dully sluggardized at home,

Wear out thy youth with shapeless idleness.

But since thou lov’st, love still, and thrive therein–

Even as I would, when I to love begin.        (1.1.1-10)

 

You get what you pay for: here, right at the top, are the two gentlemen themselves. In later works, Shakespeare will use this opening over and over again, two characters in dialogue, telling each other things that they mostly know already by way of exposition—but in those later works, it’s often less significant characters who get this due diligence work. But here they are, Valentine and Proteus, one named in the very first line, mid conversation, having an argument (or at least a gentlemen’s disagreement) that they seem to have had before. It’s polite and affectionate, though: cease to persuade, my loving Proteus. Enough, you’ve tried your best, I’ve listened to all your arguments, but I’ve made my mind up, Valentine says to his friend. Proteus—the name is significant, the classical sea-god who is a shape-shifter, byword for inconstancy. Here he’s explicitly loving: how constant will he be in that, and in other things? And whom does Proteus love, really?

 

Valentine’s taking a slightly patronising tone, enjoining the virtues of travel, experience, seeing the world. Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits: if you don’t get out there, put yourself out there, into the real world, live a little, then you’ll be dull, boring, unsophisticated. Travel broadens the mind! (The irony is that Valentine’s sententiousness is itself boring and dull.) But there’s backstory here. Proteus doesn’t want to travel because he has a girlfriend! (Perhaps.) Were’t not affection chains thy tender days, were you not a young man in lurve (a slight sneer from Valentine? does HE have a girlfriend? well…), were you not entirely in thrall to the sweet glances of thy honoured love (yes, she’s a lovely girl, of course) I rather would entreat thy company to see the wonders of the world abroad. Come on, mate! Boys on tour! (For all the flat-footedness, there’s rich pickings for an actor here: Valentine is patronising but also insecure; now that the moment of departure has arrived, he really wants his friend to come too, for company and to endorse his own choices. And he’s jealous that Proteus has a girlfriend, a bit. At least a bit.) Then he gets a grip, goes back to patronising or at least mocking Proteus again: you’re going to stay here, dully sluggardized at home, just lying around, you unambitious slob, and wear out thy youth with shapeless idleness, not doing anything. Slacker! (Valentine’s arguments and tone would be familiar to all the readers of letters of advice and conduct manuals, aimed at ambitious young man, anxious about getting on in the world.) But since thou lov’st, love still, and thrive therein—even as I would, when I to love begin. Seeing as you’re in love, though—good luck with that, bro, hope it works out for you; you go! be constant! you do you! Because that’s what I’d want, that’s what I’d do, if—when—I fall in love, like you.

 

And that, in essence, is the plot, more or less.