PROTEUS       I will forget that Julia is alive, Remembering that my love to her is dead, And Valentine I’ll hold an enemy, Aiming at Silvia as a sweeter friend. I cannot now prove constant to myself Without some treachery used to Valentine.           (2.6.27-32)   Proteus has made his mind up, and he sounds shockingly callous—there […]

CW: racism PROTEUS       I cannot leave to love, and yet I do. But there I leave to love where I should love. Julia I lose, and Valentine I lose. If I keep them, I needs must lose myself. If I lose them, thus find I by their loss For Valentine, myself, for Julia, Silvia. I […]

PROTEUS       At first I did adore a twinkling star, But now I worship a celestial sun. Unheedful vows may heedfully be broken, And he wants wit that wants resolved will To learn his wit t’exchange the bad for better. Fie, fie, unreverend tongue, to call her bad Whose sovereignty so oft thou hast preferred With […]

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 […]

CW: anti-semitism LANCE            Thou shalt never get such a secret from me but by a parable. SPEED ’Tis well that I get it so. But Lance, how sayst thou that my master is become a notable lover? LANCE I never knew him otherwise. SPEED Than how? LANCE A notable lubber, as thou reportest him to be. […]

SPEED            Why then, how stands the matter with them? LANCE                        Marry, thus: when it stands well with him, it stands well with her. SPEED What an ass art thou! I understand thee not. LANCE What a block art thou, that thou canst not! My staff understands me. SPEED What thou sayst? LANCE Ay, and what I […]

Enter Speed and Lance [with his dog Crab] SPEED            Lance, by mine honesty, welcome to Padua. LANCE            Forswear not thyself, sweet youth, for I am not welcome. I reckon this always, that a man is never undone till he be hanged, nor never welcome to a place till some certain shot be paid and the hostess say […]

PROTEUS       Methinks my zeal to Valentine is cold, And that I love him not as I was wont – O, but I love his lady too-too much, And that’s the reason I love him so little. How shall I dote on her with more advice, That thus without advice begin to love her? ’Tis but […]

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 […]

VALENTINE    Good Proteus, go with me to my chamber, In these affairs to aid me with thy counsel. PROTEUS       Go on before. I shall inquire you forth. I must unto the road, to disembark Some necessaries that I needs must use, And then I’ll presently attend you. VALENTINE Will you make haste? PROTEUS I will. […]