My penance is to call Lucetta back

And ask remission for my folly past.

What ho! Lucetta!

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.

⌈She drops and picks up the letter⌉

JULIA

What is’t that you

Took up so gingerly?

LUCETTA Nothing.

JULIA

Why didst thou stoop then?

LUCETTA

To take a paper up that I let fall.

JULIA

And is that paper nothing?

LUCETTA

Nothing concerning me.

JULIA

Then let it lie for those that it concerns.

LUCETTA

Madam, it will not lie where it concerns,

Unless it have a false interpreter.

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.

JULIA

As little by such toys as may be possible.

Best sing it to the tune of ‘Light o’ love’.

LUCETTA

It is too heavy for so light a tune.

JULIA

Heavy? Belike it hath some burden, then?

LUCETTA

Ay, and melodious were it, would you sing it.

JULIA

And why not you?

LUCETTA

I cannot reach so high.

JULIA

Let’s see your song.

⌈She tries to take the letters⌉

How now, minion!

LUCETTA

Keep tune there still. So you will sing it out.

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 drowned with your unruly bass.

LUCETTA

Indeed, I bid the base for Proteus.

JULIA

This bauble shall not henceforth trouble me.

Here is a coil with protestation.

She tears the letter and drops the pieces

Go, get you gone, and let the papers lie.

You would be fing’ring them to anger me.

LUCETTA (aside)

She makes it strange, but she would be best pleased

To be so angered with another letter.

Exit

JULIA

Nay, would I were so angered with the same.

O hateful hands, to tear such loving words;

Injurious wasps, to feed on such sweet honey

And kill the bees that yield it with your stings.

I’ll kiss each several paper for amends.

She picks up some of the pieces of paper

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 search it with a sovereign kiss.

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 his name twice writ:

‘Poor forlorn Proteus’, ‘passionate Proteus’,

‘To the sweet Julia’—that I’ll tear away.

And yet I will not, sith so prettily

He couples it to his complaining names.

Thus will I fold them, one upon another.

Now kiss, embrace, contend, do what you will.

Enter Lucetta

LUCETTA

Madam, dinner is ready, and your father stays.

JULIA Well, let us go.

LUCETTA

What, shall these papers lie like telltales 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

I see you have a month’s mind to them.

LUCETTA

Ay, madam, you may say what sights you see.

I see things too, although you judge I wink.

JULIA Come, come, will’t please you go?

Exeunt

1.3 Enter Antonio and Panthino

ANTONIO

Tell me, Panthino, what sad talk was that

Wherewith my brother held you in the cloister?

PANTHINO

‘Twas of his nephew Proteus, your son.

ANTONIO

Why, what of him?

PANTHINO He wondered that your lordship

Would suffer him to spend his youth at home

While other men, of slender reputation,

Put forth their sons to seek preferment out—

Some to the wars, to try their fortune there,

Some to discover islands far away,

Some to the studious universities.

For any or for all these exercises

He said that Proteus your son was meet,

And did request me to importune you

To let him spend his time no more at home,

Which would be great impeachment to his age

In having known no travel in his youth.

ANTONIO

Nor need’st thou much importune me to that

Whereon this month I have been hammering.

I have considered well his loss of time,

And how he cannot be a perfect man,

Not being tried and tutored in the world.

Experience is by industry achieved,

And perfected by the swift course of time.

Then tell me, whither were I best to send him?

PANTHINO

I think your lordship is not ignorant

How his companion, youthful Valentine,

Attends the Emperor in his royal court.

ANTONIO I know it well.

PANTHINO

‘Twere good, I think, your lordship sent him thither.