[Enter Lucetta] LUCETTA        Madam, dinner is ready, and your father stays. JULIA  Well, let us go. LUCETTA What, shall these papers lie like tell-tales here? JULIA If you respect them, best to take them up. LUCETTA Nay, I was taken up for laying them down. Yet here they shall not lie, for catching cold. JULIA […]

JULIA  But twice or thrice was Proteus written down– Be calm, good wind, blow not a word away Till I have found each letter in the letter Except mine own name. That, some whirlwind bear Unto a ragged, fearful, hanging rock And throw it thence into the raging sea. Lo, here in one line is […]

JULIA  Look, here is writ ‘Kind Julia’ – unkind Julia! As in revenge of thy ingratitude I throw thy name against the bruising stones, Trampling contemptuously on thy disdain. And here is writ ‘Love-wounded Proteus’. Poor wounded name: my bosom as a bed Shall lodge thee till thy wound be throughly healed, And thus I […]

JULIA  This babble shall not henceforth trouble me. Here is a coil with protestation. [She tears the letter] Go, get you gone, and let the papers lie. You would be fing’ring them to anger me. LUCETTA        She makes it strange, but she would be best pleased To be so angered with another letter. [Exit] JULIA […]

LUCETTA        And yet methinks I do not like this tune. JULIA  You do not? LUCETTA No, madam, ’tis too sharp. JULIA You, minion, are too saucy. LUCETTA Nay, now you are too flat, And mar the concord with too harsh a descant. There wanteth but a mean to fill your song. JULIA The mean is […]

JULIA  Some love of yours hath writ to you in rhyme. LUCETTA        That I might sing it, madam, to a tune, Give me a note; your ladyship can set As little by such toys as may be possible. JULIA Best sing it to the tune of ‘Light o’ Love’. LUCETTA It is too heavy for […]

[Enter Lucetta] LUCETTA        What would your ladyship? JULIA              Is’t near dinner-time? LUCETTA I would it were, That you might kill your stomach on your meat And not upon your maid. [Lucetta drops the letter and picks it up again] JULIA What is’t that you Took up so gingerly? LUCETTA Nothing. JULIA Why didst thou stoop […]

JULIA  How churlishly I chid Lucetta hence When willingly I would have had her here! How angrily I taught my brow to frown, When inward joy enforced my heart to smile! My penance is to call Lucetta back And ask remission for my folly past. What ho! Lucetta!      (1.2.60-66)   More self-reproach from Julia: she […]

JULIA  And yet I would I had o’erlooked the letter. It were a shame to call her back again And pray her to a fault for which I chid her. What fool is she, that knows I am a maid And would not force the letter to my view, Since maids in modesty say ‘No’ […]

JULIA  Now, by my modesty, a goodly broker! Dare you presume to harbour wanton lines? To whisper, and conspire against my youth? Now trust me, ’tis an office of great worth, And you an officer fit for the place. There. Take the paper. [She gives back the letter] See it be returned, Or else return […]