Enter Valentine and Speed
SPEED [offering Valentine a glove] Sir, your glove.
VALENTINE Not mine—my gloves are on.
SPEED Why then, this may be yours, for this is but one.
VALENTINE Ha, let me see. Ay, give it me, it’s mine–
Sweet ornament, that decks a thing divine!
Ah, Silvia, Silvia! (2.1.1-6)
MILAN. And it’s likely that there will be some sort of action to emphasise this change of location, and the passage of time; a song and dance number is possible, something more sophisticated than Verona can offer. Valentine might have sharpened up his outfit, acquired some stylish shades, better shoes, and Speed too, perhaps. (AC Milan shirt?) Silvia might appear in any interpolated action; she might even drop the glove, possibly even deliberately. Many choices for a production to make. But, whatever, here we are in Milan with Valentine and his servant Speed, and Speed has picked up a glove. Ostensibly at least, he thinks it’s Valentine’s own, that he’s dropped: Sir, your glove. But no, not his: not mine—my gloves are on, replies Valentine. (A reminder that as a fashionable gentleman, Valentine is wearing gloves as a matter of course.) On the page it needs a note to make Speed’s response comprehensible: why then, this may be yours, for this is but one, playing—utterly feebly—on on. Maybe a pronunciation indication? Maybe even an accent. Whatever, it’s decidedly limp (like the glove). Mostly it’s allowing Valentine to get another look at the glove (perhaps Speed is brandishing it, thrusting it in his face). So—ha, let me see. And, on closer inspection, Valentine recognises the glove! Ay—yessssss!—give it me, it’s mine. Oh yes, I want that glove alright, all for my very own. Sweet ornament—he rhapsodises—that decks a thing divine! In so saying, he’s recalling poems about gloves by Petrarch and others, which play on the relationship between glove and hand: the glove is nice/white/soft but the hand is nicer/whiter/softer. The hand is divine, it’s the hand of a goddess. And: a name. Ah, Silvia, Silvia! Valentine, not seen since 1.1, when he was mocking Proteus for being a lover, is, it seems, in love. With a girl. Called SILVIA. And this, THIS, is her glove.