JULIA  Then let me go, and hinder not my course.

I’ll be as patient as a gentle stream,

And make a pastime of each weary step

Till the last step have brought me to my love.

And there I’ll rest, as after much turmoil

A blessèd soul doth in Elysium.

LUCETTA        But in what habit will you go along?

JULIA Not like a woman, for I would prevent

The loose encounters of lascivious men.

Gentle Lucetta, fit me with such weeds

As may beseem some well-reputed page.  (2.7.33-43)

Then let me go and hinder not my course: don’t try to stop me, please, and also, perhaps, get out of my way, or I won’t be answerable for my actions. But a retreat from this possibility of wild, out of control passion? If you let me go, if you help me, I’ll be as patient as a gentle stream, as mild and orderly; I’ll make a pastime of each weary step, I won’t complain about the journey or how tired I am or how much my feet hurt. I’ll enjoy it! Because every step will bring me closer to Proteus, till the last step have brought me to my love. And there I’ll rest, as after much turmoil a blessed soul doth in Elysium. The journey might be hellish, but to be with Proteus will be paradise itself. (Julia’s imagining this pilgrimage of love as a kind of death to self too, with Proteus as both reason and reward. Oh Julia.)

Lucetta’s thinking more about practicalities (perhaps she thinks there’s no point trying to talk Julia out of it): but in what habit will you go along? How will you dress? How will you disguise yourself on the road? Julia’s thought this through: well, I can’t dress like a woman, for I would prevent the loose encounters of lascivious men. Men! I’ve heard about them! I’ve heard about how women get harassed when they’re travelling, by men who won’t take no for an answer, men who think that any woman on the road, out in public, unaccompanied is fair game. (Men completely unlike Proteus, obviously.) So, gentle Lucetta—asking a favour, pretty please—fit me with such weeds as may beseem some well reputed page. Can you find me the sort of clothes a really respectable pageboy or young manservant might wear? (The respectability is part of the disguise and the safety plan; so is the livery, because if she’s dressed for a recognisable role, then that’s what people will see, rather than her real identity or her body.) (And of course Julia is written for a boy actor, perhaps—Joan of Arc in the collaborative 1 Henry VI aside—Shakespeare’s first boy-playing-girl-dressing-as-boy character.)