Enter Julia and Lucetta

JULIA  Counsel, Lucetta. Gentle girl, assist me,

And e’en in kind love I do conjure thee,

Who art the table wherein all my thoughts

Are visibly charactered and engraved,

To lesson me, and tell me some good mean

How with my honour I may undertake

A journey to my loving Proteus.      (2.7.1-7)

And, back to Julia in Verona, with the dramaturgical equivalent of an old-fashioned needle-scratch on a record. Julia needs advice, again: counsel, Lucetta, tell me what I should do? Gentle girl, assist me, please, because I really need your help—she’s really laying it on thick, flattering Lucetta—and e’en in kind love I do conjure thee, because we’re friends, not just mistress and maid, otherwise I wouldn’t be asking, please, please—and you’re like my sounding board, the table wherein all my thoughts are visibly charactered and engraved. You’re where I go to think, to try ideas out, like a notebook, a table book, a set of writing tables. You’re like my diary! I trust you. And now I need you to lesson me, teach me what to do, and tell me some good mean, how best I might be able to manage—with my honour, respectably, not putting myself or my reputation in danger—how I may undertake a journey to my loving Proteus?? That last bit may well come out in a rush, after all the flattery: this is the point, how can I get to Milan? How can I get to Proteus? You’re so worldly wise, how can I make a trip like that without putting myself in danger, and without being thought, you know, too keen—easy, fair game?

Oh, the irony…