PROTEUS       Even as one heat another heat expels,

Or as one nail by strength drives out another,

So the remembrance of my former love

Is by a newer object quite forgotten.

Is it mine eyne, or Valentine his praise,

Her true perfection, or my false transgression,

That makes me reasonless, to reason thus?

She is fair, and so is Julia that I love –

That I did love, for now my love is thawed,

Which like a waxen image ’gainst a fire

Bears no impression of the thing it was.    (2.4.184-194)

Proteus reaches for proverbs to introduce the great transformation he’s undergone—and the great betrayal he’s contemplating. Even as one heat another heat expels, or as one nail by strength drives out another (proverbial, but violent) so the remembrance of my former love is by a newer object quite forgotten. All recollection of the love that I had for Julia, and of herself too—that’s all been cast away, in favour of a new love, and a new love-object. How has this happened? Is it mine eyne, what I’ve actually seen, with my own eyes, of Silvia, or Valentine his praise, the way he’s been so effusive about her—and is it her true perfection, the fact that she’s apparently amazing, or my false transgression, my own unfaithful wavering, my own fault, that makes me reasonless, to reason thus? I’m so confused, so utterly thunderstruck—I can’t think straight, I can’t explain what’s going on, let alone justify it. Let’s see if I can work through this. She, Silvia, is fair; she’s beautiful. And so is Julia that I love—Julia’s beautiful too, though, and I love her. Or rather—and he might pause, to allow it to sink in, to test the thought, the feeling, or he might steel himself to put the feeling into words—that I did love. I used to love Julia. For now my love is thawed, which like a waxen image ’gainst a fire bears no impression of the thing it was. Everything’s changed, my love has melted, become deformed, like a sculpture made of wax left beside the fire; it’s unrecognisable, formless, no longer the same thing. My love has proved protean, shape-shifting, able to metamorphose just as my name suggests. (And the particular invocation of the impression in wax suggests a seal, as on a document, a contract, a betrothal, an understanding, like the one he has with Julia.) This movement of Proteus’s pivotal speech is framed with fire—a fever of passion, of irrationality, a fire in the blood.