Enter Proteus, solus
PROTEUS To leave my Julia shall I be forsworn?
To love fair Silvia shall I be forsworn?
To wrong my friend I shall be much forsworn,
And e’en that power which gave me first my oath
Provokes me to this threefold perjury.
Love bade me swear, and love bids me forswear.
O sweet-suggesting love, if thou hast sinned,
Teach me, thy tempted subject, to excuse it. (2.6.1-8)
What’s a boy to do? Or, Proteus, in extremis, again. The test for actor, and character, is how much sympathy he genuinely thinks he deserves, as he sets out his dilemma. What’s most striking, perhaps, is that there are three terms in this dilemma; it’s not quite a trilemma? but tending that way.
First he asks what might seem the most obvious question: to leave my Julia shall I be forsworn? Can I break the promises that I’ve made to her, by unilaterally ending our relationship? But also, to love fair Silvia shall I be forsworn? Guilty of breaking an oath to Julia in loving someone else, yes, but also perhaps the suggestion that he’s already made a commitment to Silvia, at least in his own tiny self-obsessed head, which it would be a kind of perjury not to act on. (Some editors frame these as statements, not questions. Decisions, decisions!) But the main issue, it seems, is the third element in this: to wrong my friend I shall be much forsworn. The worst thing would be betraying my friend, Valentine, by making a play for the woman he loves. (And also, implicit here, is the damage to Proteus’s own status and self-image as a gentleman, being triply forsworn, going back on his word. Not being one of the good chaps any longer, letting the side down, letting himself down.)
And e’en that power which gave me first my oath—that is, love, the Power of Love, which made me first swear loyalty to Valentine, and to Julia—that’s the same power which provokes me to this three-fold perjury. It’s all love’s fault! That’s what’s making me even contemplate such a triple betrayal! Love bade me swear, and love bids me forswear. It was love that made me make promises in the first place—and now it’s love that’s prompting me to break those promises. I am helpless, I have no agency, no free will etc etc.
A shift, though, and perhaps the beginning of a decision, although it might not seem like it: o sweet-suggesting love, if thou hast sinned, teach me, thy tempted subject, to excuse it. Oh, it’s so tempting, so seductive—and look, love, if you’ve sinned, if you’ve done something wrong in all of this, then show me—tempted too, standing on the brink of giving in to these seductive, compelling possibilities—well, I’ll forgive you, love, if you show me how to forgive myself, how to live with myself as I make my choice…
As I say, he can be genuinely anguished, and one can perhaps feel for that. But really, Proteus, get a grip, you solipsistic, sophistical idiot…
(Spoiler: Proteus does not get a grip.)