PROTEUS       Yet writers say ‘As in the sweetest bud

The eating canker dwells, so doting love

Inhabits in the finest wits of all.’

VALENTINE    And writers say ‘As the most forward bud

Is eaten by the canker ere it blow,

Even so by love the young and tender wit

Is turned to folly, blasting in the bud,

Losing his verdure even in the prime,

And all the fair effects of future hopes.’ (1.1.42-50)

Proteus does his best to push back, reaching for sententious wisdom, as he thinks: yet writers say ‘As in the sweetest bud the eating canker dwells, so doting love inhabits in the finest wits of all’. It’s a sign of intelligence, of a high degree of wit, of refinement and an elevated sensibility to be in love! Just as the most beautiful flowers, the sweetest and most fragrant, are targeted by the cankerworm, and eaten from within—it’s the same with love and faithful lovers! It’s the best of them! (That Proteus thinks of the flower as a bud emphasises his youth; this is not the flower that has come to full maturity.)

Valentine’s not having any of that, and besides, two can play at that game. And writers say ‘As the most forward bud is eaten by the canker ere it blow’—yes, the most precocious bud, that gets ahead of itself, is eaten from within before it has a chance to blossom—‘even so by love the young and tender wit is turned to folly, blasting in the bud’—the young, the immature in love simply make fools of themselves, losing all reason, failing to show any signs of their apparent intelligence—when they think they’re in love. It’s not as if it’s a single worm, though, it’s as if that tender, precocious wit is blasting in the bud, withering, completely corrupted by disease, ‘losing his verdure even in the prime’, losing all its freshness, unable to flourish at the point at which it should be peaking in its promise and beauty, losing ‘all the fair effects of future hopes’. That’s it, spoiled, trashed, all grand plans rubbished, all potential wasted. You’re ruining your life! Game over.

Bit extreme from Valentine; he’s interested more in the rhetorical victory than actually winning the argument’s substance (and it’s not even really an argument, it’s point-scoring). And it’s notable that both of them begin with writers say; this is partly an appeal to authority (these are not real quotations, they’re made up, given a gloss of vague attribution), a standard technique and pose in this kind of disputation—but it’s also a reminder of these men’s youth, still tied to classroom methods and arguing from their (imagined) reading, rather than experience. Does Valentine even know any girls?