The Shakespeare Project: Two Gentlemen of Verona

Two Gents is thought of, generally, as Shakespeare’s earliest attempt at romantic comedy. The “publication” of this play is problematic – some place it before Comedy of Errors – others say that 2 Gents comes after (not too long after – maybe a couple of years). Clifford Leach, editor of the New Arden edition of the plays (1969), theorizes that Two Gentlemen of Verona might have been written in 2 phases – the first phase being in 1592, second phase being in late 1593. This might explain some of the inconsistencies (mistakes) in the play. Like – is the dude a Duke or an Emperor? It changes from scene to scene. Did Speed give the letter directly to Julia? One scene says Yes. Next scene has Lucetta come running in, saying that SHE was given the letter. Did Lucetta dress up as Julia? It’s not made clear. It seems like this is an error that subsequent drafts might have ironed out – but nevertheless – the play is full of gllitches like that. You can’t catch Shakespeare in such inconsistencies in later plays – they are airtight in every way- and also, with the later plays, I think the publication dates are much less in question. The dating becomes easier, as you get later in Shakespeare’s career.

Anyhoo. That’s neither here nor there. It makes Two Gentlemen interesting, in my opinion. To know you are looking at something that is basically in process. (That’s the thing with all of Shakespeare’s plays, though. Scholars who seem uncomfortable at looking at them as PLAYS are guilty of what the majority of civilians are guilty of: thinking that theatre is somehow a disreputable profession. You certainly don’t want to be caught taking it seriously, because that’s even worse. Some scholars prefer to look at all of this as another version of poetry. Which, naturally, it is, but sorry: They are also PLAYS. Meant to be PERFORMED.) Shakespeare, above all, knew this. So a script is, in its very nature, in process – because there are two things:
1. the words on the page. They can be enjoyed in and of themselves. That’s all well and good.
2. But the scripst are also the potential of what will be performed. By living breathing actors. I think some scholars find this ikky. They like their Shakespeare pure. Without any annoying actors mucking up the poetry.

There are certain of Shakespeare’s plays which really NEED to be performed. Taming of the Shrew comes to mind. I mean, it’s fun to read and all – but … something happens when you get that play up on its feet. It’s a rough and tumble play, with lots of physical stuff, wrestling and rolling around … but more than that – the characters seem to need to be brought to life more so than others. They can come across as stilted, or caricatur-ish when you just read it. Like they are not alive. While someone like Hamlet already IS alive. Whether or not an actor plays him. Viola IS alive. Petruchio and Kate seem very different on the page than when I’ve seen it actually performed. I saw a video of the famous Raul Julia/Meryl Streep production (which really launched her career) – and I felt like I was seeing a new play. I thought: Is it really like that? Are they improvising? I don’t recognize this from my reading of it! (It’s so freakin’ good. If you can get your hands on it – I can’t recommend it highly enough. You want to see what live theatre is about? That’s it.)

Back to Two Gents.

Quotes from Anne Barton’s introduction to the play in my The Riverside Shakespeare:

The Two Gentlemen of Verona has the uneviable distinction of being the least loved and least regarded of Shakespeare’s comedies. Even The Comedy of Errors and The Taming of the Shrew have always enjoyed a robust theatrical life. This fact has enabled them to surmount, even to mock, the disparagements of critics more concerned to praise Shakespeare’s mature comedies at the expense of his early work than to distinguish the special qualities and merits of those early plays. As it happens, The Two Gentlemen of Verona does, when sympathetically acted and directed, possess a delicate, lyrical charm. Launce and Julia are splendid acting parts and, on the stage, the dog Crab is invariably seductive. There is some fine verse and some excellent comic invention. Nevertheless, that new critical assessment which has rehabilitated Love’s Labor’s Lost and discovered that The Comedy of Errors is more than knockabout farce continues to hesitate over The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Although there have been successful productions since Wiilliam Poel demonstrated in 1898 and 1910 that the play could hold an audience, it is still infrequently performed. It continues to engage academic attention less for itself than as a limping forerunner of Shakespeare’s developed romantic style in comedy.

I saw a production of it last summer in Central Park. It was a lot of fun. It was certainly not a ‘straight’ production of it – it was a musical, it was ridiculous – and somehow it was very fitting for the ridiculous material. I had a ball. The play is very weird – and at the last minute, everything is resolved (which is true in other Shakespeare plays – but it is not QUITE as jarring as it is in Two Gents – because of the treachery of that main character. But I’ll get to that in a minute.)

Barton writes, as well:

The play’s faults of tone and structure, its various inconsistencies and contraditions, should not however be allowed to obscure its very real merits.

I found this to be a very interesting observation about the “immaturity” of Shakespeare as a playwright at this juncture (again from Barton):

Stanley Wells has pointed out to the almost exclusive reliance of this comedy upon soliloquy, duologue, and the aside as comment. Thirteen of its twenty scenes are realized entirely in terms of these three relatively uncomplicated dramatic techniques. Where Shakespeare does attempt a more complex orchestration of voices, the result tends to be awkward and ill-sustained. Characters are left to stand about, forgotten, in uncomfortable silence as the dialogue shifts back by preference to those tete-a-tete conversations which the dramatist knew how to handle. Wells remarks that although a similar technique can be observed in some Tudor interludes, neither The Comedy of Errors nor The Taming of the Shrew is limited in this way. Both these latter comedies are assured and confident in their construction of scenes involving the interplay of three or more characters. So, for that matter, are the three Henry VI plays and Richard III. The contrasted failure of The Two Gentlemen of Verona to make a success ou of anything more extended than the duet seems to suggest that it was the work of a man still more at home with narrative or lyrical verse than with drama: a man who might well have turned subsequently to the discipline of Roman comedy in order to acquire certain formal theatrical skills which he was conscious that he lacked. It is entirely possible that The Two Gentlemen of Verona was Shakespeare’s first professional play.

It’s interesting that some of the shortcomings of these plays (and please, if I could write a play as “immature” as this one, I could die in peace!) really only show up (at least glaringly) when you try to act them. You realize: Huh. I am onstage, Shakespeare has not had me leave, and yet I don’t speak for 3 pages, and I have nothing to do, and … WHY AM I HERE??? You would never feel that way when acting in, say, The Tempest or Hamlet or Macbeth – because, as mentioned above, Shakespeare is completely at the helm there, orchestrating not just his lead characters, but all of the second leads, and glorified extras, and people who have one line. It’s a symphony. You never feel extraneous. He doesn’t abandon you to your own devices. Another interesting point is about Richard III – one of Shakespeare’s earlier plays – and, obviously, chockfull of the kind of parts that actors wait their entire lives to play. It’s great. However: Shakespeare does not build breaks for the actor playing Richard III into his script. Richard III is onstage in pretty much every scene. This NEVER occurs in later plays (especially the tragedies). Shakespeare understood that actors are not superhuman beings, and they, too, need a bit of a break … especially after a big monologue, a huge fight scene, or anything involving swordplay. You can FEEL it when you do a full production. You can feel, organically; Okay, that scene was exhausting, I kind of need a bit of a break before I go on again – and lo and behold, Shakespeare has given you one. But not so in Richard III. There are no breaks. This is why that role is considered one of the most back-breaking (literally) roles in the entire Shakespeare canon – and actors who have played him have had physical problems for the rest of their lives. (Remember – Richard III is a hunch back. So to do that without any prosthetics – and to sustain it not just for an entire performance but for an entire run of a show – can be quite dangeorus. ) Anthony Sher, who kept a diary of his experience playing Richard III, not only worked on his characterization, and memorized his lines, and tried to act the damn thing. He also worked with a chiropractor on the part … to see how he could best create that hunchback, and best get through the entire run … without injuring himself permanently. The fact that Richard III gets no breaks in the action is just a beginner’s mistake (and again, please: if I could write such a play as Richard III as a beginner, I would die happy.) But hey – Shakespeare’s the one who raised the bar, so he should be able to take it. I’m quoting Seamus Heaney there – who wrote an essay criticizing some of Joyce’s verse. He wrote: “He’s great enough that he can take this criticism.” It’s not a house of cards. The greatness is sustained.

Re-reading Two Gentlemen over the last week has been very interesting. First of all: I really noticed how many monologues there are. How much of the play is actors speaking directly to the audience. It’s expedient, I suppose – you can cut right to the chase – but you also miss those complex group scenes, like in Midsummer Night’s Dream – where 10 people are all on stage, all with different objectives, concerns, inner journeys … and it’s all clear. Glorious!!

The ending of Two Gentlemen is so messed up!!

Proteus – supposedly our “lead” – at least he’s set up that way – then proceeds to act in the most disgusting manner imaginable – deceiving everyone – seemingly going after his friend’s girl merely because his friend is interested in her – abandoning HIS girl in the process (who then dresses up like a man and follows him, realizing his treachery eventually). The play ends with a near rape by this “lead” character – and then everyone bursts out of the bushes to stop the rape – Proteus is revealed – and he’s been such a bastard that you want him to be punished, or shunned, or SOMEthing. But no. It is all forgiven in 2 lines.

Proteus: I am ashamed! Please forgive me!
Valentine: You are forgiven.

Uhm … you are??

And the women, too, while a BIT more substantial and moral than the guy characters … also are like: Hey, it’s okay you just almost raped me. No hard feelings. And Julia, his old girlfriend, is like: No biggie. I forgive you.

But I want blood! I want revenge! It has to be the most bizarre ending in all of Shakespeare. There is no explanation for it. Actually, there’s no explanation for a lot of things in this play – which is why it’s hard to pull off a good production of it. We open on Proteus, mooning and sighing over the woman he loves, Julia. We’re supposed to like him. His best buddy, Valentine, is going off to serve in the Duke’s court (or is it the Emperor? It changes from scene to scene) – and tries to convince Proteus to come with … but no. Proteus is in love. He will stay behind. So fine, Valentine goes off. Eventually, Proteus’ dad gets sick of his son just hanging around doing nothing – so he sends him off to serve in the Duke slash Emperor’s court. Proteus arrives in the court, only to find that Valentine has fallen in love with Silvia, the Duke’s daughter. IMMEDIATELY, Proteus tosses out the memory of Julia, the one he loves back home, – and decides to steal Silvia away from his friend. But why? Out of jealousy? Or out of Silvia being clearly superior to Julia? Or out of submerged homoerotic urges? (That’s how it reads to me, frankly. Why is he so obsessed with Valentine? He doesn’t even seem interested in Silvia. He is mainly interested in thwarting the love of his friend. Hmmm.) Anyway, so begins a play of treachery – with Proteus behaving more and more evilly – and poor Julia, left behind at home, decides to chase after her man, dressing up as a boy … and once she arrives in Verona, she finds her erstwhile lover serenading some other bitch under her window! And Silvia is a great character – Proteus basically says to her: “I love you. You must be mine.” Silvia says: “But aren’t you best friends with Valentine? How could you do this?” Proteus’ point is that romance trumps friendship. Silvia disagrees and tells him that any man who would be so deceitful to his friends is not to be trusted, in general. Also she finds out about Julia, the girl he left behind, and is even MORE offended – this time on behalf of her whole sex. “If you betray her – then why on earth should I take you? I’mon HER side you bastard!” But Proteus is a man on a mission.

Eventually it all becomes right and the 4 couples join hands in holy matrimony but … uhm … it’s all a bit ikky. Would Valentine ever say to Proteus in the future, “You know we’re friends and all that, but are we ever gonna talk about the fact that you nearly raped the woman who is now my wife? How do you explain yourself??”

It’s very funny to contemplate how insanely ridiculous all of this is – and it seems to me that the only way to successfully pull it off is to play each part of it at 100%. So it really is like a farce. At the beginning of the play Proteus is 100% in love with Julia. Then he meets Silvia and instantely – INSTANTLY – without ever looking back – is 100% in love with her. Then when she spurns him, he is instantly 100% in a rage, and tries to force her to have sex with him. 100%. Then when he is busted, he is INSTANTLY 100% sorry. Heh. It’s funny. Only sociopaths behave like that!

These aren’t criticisms. They’re just observations. I find it interesting.

Majorie Garber, in her wonderful book Shakespeare After All writes:

Were Shakespeare’s play an allegory, like Spenser’s Fairie Queene, or a medieval morality play, like Everyman, the unmasking of Julia’s assumed identity and the unmasking of Proteus’ inner nature would be underscored more pointedly. As it is, the dyad of Proteus and Valentine offers a double visioni of what such young men typically are like: ardent and changeable; selfish and optimistic; needlessly, carelessly cruel and hoping always, to be forgiven. The “friends” are types of friendship, but they are also versions of each other, in different moods and modes; the jealousy-substitution-usurpation plot is both characteristic of self-regarding young men of a certain age and class, and – just one plane below the surface of this deliberately superficial play – indicative of the different ways a single individual may behave in different places and different circumstances.

I love that interpretation.

Garber writes a lot upon the supposedly incomprehensible vacillations of Proteus.

As we have noted, Proteus does not fully appreciate, as the audience will, the determinative function of his name (the “changeable one”). His discrimination between the fair Silvia and Julia (the “swarthy Ethiope”) is a fair/dark distinction that will recur in a later and better comedy, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, where Hermia is at one point called an “Ethiope” in contrast to her friend and rival, Helena. (Romeo, however, will praise Juliet’s beauty by invoking this exotic image: “It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night / As a rich jewel in an Ethiope’s ear –” [Romeo and Juliet 1.5.42-43]) This does not mean, of course, that Julia is African, or looks African; “Ethiope” in this context is a deliberate rhetorical overstatement, meant to be comic: Julia may have darker hair, eyes, or brows than the “fair” Silvia, but the two women will be more similar than dissimilar (compare the “dark lady” of Shakespeare’s sonnets, also dark-haired, not dark-skinned). And – as in the case of Dream, where the rival ladies are described as contrastingly tall and short, as well as fair and dark – the comedic effect here may be heightened if the distinction is not made too great onstage. What is being exhibited here is Proteus’s own unreliable judgment, not some “real” difference between J ulia and Silvia.

That’s a great point and one that I think bears out in the text. We do not get the message that Julia is a harpy, or a troll, or unattractive. On the contrary. The play opens with Proteus sighing over her beauty. When he meets Silvia, suddenly SHE is the object of all that sighing. We don’t feel that Silvia is in any way a different caliber than Julia. It is all through Proteus’s bizarre and biased vision that we “see” these two women. Garber also makes the point that anyone who has been in high school and who found one of the popular kids attractive – merely because they were so popular, rather than because of any characteristic they may have – will understand (perhaps) Proteus’s journey here. He is not in love with Silvia because she is more lovable than Julia. He is in love with Silvia because his friend is in love with her, and therefore he must have her. Plain and simple. Proteus and Valentine are mirrors of one another, dear friends, deeply attached to each other since childhood. The prospect of romantic love threatens that primary bond. Proteus seems fine with that – he is perfectly willing to betray his friend in order to capture the girl … but in the end, balance is restored. They both get domestic bliss, and their friendship survives. Tra-la!

Things about the play I noticed this time around:

— Launce is a great character and has some terrific monologues. He’s a great clown. The main love of his life is his dog Crab – and he has a funny monologue about this (Act 2, scene 3) It also involves a puppet show, telling us of how he loves his dog. You can totally see how in the right hands this monologue could be a highlight of the show.

— Speed is also a great clown.

— Listen to this. It’s from Act III, scene 2 – in the midst of all the silliness comes this breathtaking poetry:

Say that upon the altar of her beauty
You sacrifice your tears, your sighs, your heart;
Write till your ink be dry, and with your tears
Moist it again, and frame some feeling line
That may discover such integrity:
For Orpheus’ lute was strung with poets’ sinews,
Whose golden touch could soften steel and stones,
Make tigers tame, and huge leviathans
Forsake unsounded deeps to dance on sands.

Make tigers tame, and huge leviathans
Forsake unsounded deeps to dance on sands.

That is just so good on so many levels. It satisfies. Say it out loud. It’s perfect – the alliteration in the repeated “s” sound … and then the imagery itself. It leapt off the page at me. (Uhm – like a huge leviathan forsaking the unsounded deeps). No, but seriously – the play is not full of lines like that – but wow. It’s gorgeous.

— Oh, and here’s the moment of reversal. Actually, I’ll back it up further than that. I’ll take it from the near rape.

Proteus
Nay, if the gentle spirit of moving words
Can no way change you to a milder form,
I’ll woo you like a soldier, at arm’s end,
And love you ‘gainst the nature of love – force ye.

Silvia
O heaven!

Proteus
I’ll force thee yield to my desire.

Valentine
Ruffian! let go that rude
uncivil touch,
Thou friend of an ill fashion!

Proteus
Valentine!

Valentine
Thou common friend, that’s without faith or love,
For such is a friend now! treacherous man,
Thou hast beguil’d my hopes! Nought but mine eye
Could have persuaded me; now I dare not say
I have one friend alive; thou would’st disprove me.
Who should be trusted, when one’s right hand
Is perjured to the bosom? Proteus,
I am sorry I must never trust thee more,
But count the world a stranger for they sake.
The private wound is deepest: O time most ancient!
‘Mongst all foes that a friend should be the worst!

Proteus
My shame and guilt confound me. [Yeah, but why did you do it??]
Forgive me, Valentine; [Uhm, no.] if hearty sorrow
Be a sufficient ransom for offense,
I tender’t here: [What – you’re sorry for nearly raping Silvia and betraying Julia and deceiving EVERYONE? I don’t care that you’re sorry.] I do as truly suffer
As e’er I did commit. [Yeah, right. You’re just bummed you got BUSTED.]

Valentine
Then I am paid; [!!!!!!!]
And once again I do receive thee honest. [You’re an idiot]
Who by repentance is not satisfied
Is not of heaven nor earth [Yeah, but, don’t you want to know WHY your friend behaved like such a douchebag?], for these are pleas’d;
By penitence th’Eternal’s wrath’s appeas’d:
And that my love may appear plain and free,
All that was mine in Silvia I give thee. [!!!!!!!]

Julia
O me unhappy! [Swoons]

Okay – so we’re about half a page from the end of the play now. Julia, also hiding in the bushes, dressed as a boy, faints at the prospect of Valentine “giving” Silvia to Proteus – who is HERS … (meanwhile: what does Silvia have to say about all of this? “Hey, thanks a mil, pal, for passing me off to this would-be rapist here.”) … and they all rush to help “the boy” (Julia) and it is in that moment that it is revealed who she is. That she is Proteus’ old flame come to find him. He then gives up his raping ways, takes Julia’s hand, Valentine takes Silvia’s hand – and she says NOTHING – I hope she gives him hell later – and they all go off happily.

Garber writes in her book about this amazing little sequence:

And yet less than twenty lines later this same Valentine will deliver himself of the play’s most astonishing line, one that has sent critics and editors scurrying to find an explanation (a scribal error, a textual variant, a mistaken speaker, a mere strategem on Valentine’s part?) of what he could possibly mean. When Proteus offers his apology – “My shame and guilt confounds me. / Forgive me, Valentine” — Valentine instantly responds by apparently abandoning all claims to the lady he loves, ceding her to his friend instead:

And that my love may appear plain and free,
All that was mine in Silvia I give thee.

5.4.82-83

The cross-dressed Julia promptly swoons away, again prompting a critical debate. Is she faking, or not? And what is one to make of Valentine’s offer? Can he be serious? Is he willing to swap Silvia for Proteus’s friendship?

The answer, it seems pretty clear, is that no one is serious here – or, alternatively, that everyone is serious. Valentine follows one social script and then another: the stereotypical lover and the friend-by-the-book. In both he is genially over-the-top.

Ha. I like that.

Sociopaths, all of ’em.

Quotes/exchanges from the play I like

1.2.14-32
Julia
What think’st thou of the gentle Proteus?

Lucetta
Lord, Lord! to see what folly reigns in us!

Julia
How now? what means this passion at his name?

Lucetta
Pardon, dear madam, ’tis a passing shame
That I (unworthy body as I am)
Should censure thus on lovely gentlemen.

Julia
Why not on Proteus, as of all the rest?

Lucetta
Then thus: of many good I think him best.

Julia
Your reason?

Lucetta
I have no other but a woman’s reason:
I think him so, because I think him so.

Julia
And wouldst thou have me cast my love on him?

Lucetta
Ay – if you thought your love not cast away.

Julia
Why, he, of all the rest, hath never mov’d me.

Lucetta
Yet he, of all the rest, I think best loves ye.

Julia
His little speaking shows his love but small.

Lucetta
Fire that’s closest kept burns most of all.

Julia
They do not love that do not show their love.

Lucetta
O, they love least that let men know their love.

“I think him so, because I think him so.” Excellent answer.

And I love this:

2.1.171-175
Speed
Ay, but hearken, sir; though the chameleon Love can feed on the air, I am one that am nourish’d by my victuals, and would fain have meat. O, be not like your mistress – be mov’d, be mov’d.

At the time it was supposed that chameleons subsisted on air. I didn’t know that – but the chameleon image comes up more than once in this play, and I love how it is used as a metaphor.

Now here’s the little snake Proteus, justifying his treachery, in Act II, scene 6:

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 ev’n that pow’r which gave me first my oath
Provokes me to this threefold perjury.
Love bade me swear, and Love bids me forswear.
O sweet-suggesting Love, if thou hast sinn’d
Teach me, thy tempted subject, to excuse it!
At first I did adore a twinnkling 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 preferr’d
With twenty thousand soul-confirming oaths.
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 to myself am dearer than a friend,
For love is still most precious in itself,
And Silvia (witness heaven, that made her fair)
Shows Julia but a swarthy Ethiope.

Anyway, he does go on and on … and it’s actually a very interesting monologue. I recognize myself in it at certain times in my life. When I must be true to myself, even if it means hurting another. But when does that kind of thinking go too far? When does it become immoral? What is worth being loyal to? What if your heart tells you one thing and your loyalty tells you another? If you think there are easy cut and dry answers to these questions, then you probably hate all art. Because art isn’t designed only to give you answers, or to settle ambiguities. Sometimes it is just there to present the ambiguity. To (like Hamlet says) “put a mirror up to nature”.

That’s why I like that monologue – even though he is, in essence, justifying his own treachery. Don’t we all do that? Even villains in life don’t think of themselves as villains. They can tell you WHY they do what they do, and they feel perfectly justified.

Here’s more between Julia and Lucetta. Julia now loves Proteus. This is in Act II, scene 7.

Julia
O, know’st thou not his looks are my soul’s food?
Pity the dearth that I have pined in,
By longing for that food so long a time.
Didst thou but know the inly touch of love,
Thou wouldst as soon go kindle fire with snow
As seek to quench the fire of love with words.

Lucetta
I do not seek to quench your love’s hot fire,
But qualify the fire’s extreme rage,
Lest it should burn above the bounds of reason.

Julia
The more thou dam’st it up, the more it burns:
The current that with gentle murmur glides,
Thou know’st, being stopp’d, impatiently doth rage;
But when his fair course is not hindered,
He makes sweet music with th’ enammel’d stones,
Giving a gentle kiss to every sedge
He overtaketh in his pilgrimage;
And so by many winding nooks he strays
With willing sport to the wild ocean.
Then let me go, and hinder not my course.

God, I just love that. It just rings with such truth for me. I so know what she is talking about.

The encounter between Speed and Launce in Act III, scene 1 is brilliant. Just perfect ba-dum-ching humor. Can’t be improved upon. This is my favorite exchange in it:

Speed
“Item, She is proud.

Launce
Out with that too; it was Eve’s legacy, and cannot be ta’en from her.

Another quote I love from the play is said by the Duke, Act III, scene 2:

Duke
This weak impress of love is as a figure
Trenched in ice, which with an hour’s heat
Dissolves to water, and doth lose his form.
A little time will melt her frozen thoughts,
And worthless Valentine will be forgot.

I love “trenched in ice”.

Oh – and one of the Outlaws who basically kidnap Valentine and turn him into their leader(Act 4, scene 1) says:

Are you content to be our general?
To make a virtue of necessity
And live as we do in this wilderness?

“Make a virtue of necessity”. I thought it was Shakespeare who originated that phrase – but turns out its first appearance is in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.

And I’ll finish up with a mini-monologue by Valentine – now ensconced as the leader of the outlaws in the woods (having been banished by the Duke for falling in love with Silvia). Valentine now lives a wild life, on the outskirts of society (a typical theme in Shakespeare, it comes up again and again) – and at the beginning of the last scene in the play, he enteres, alone. He speaks (and I love these lines, they really resonate for me, personally):

Valentine
How use doth breed a habit in a man!
This shadowy desert, unfrequented woods,
I better brook than flourishing peopled towns:
Here can I sit alone, unseen of any,
And to the nightingale’s complaining notes
Tune my distresses and record my woes.
O thou that does inhabit in my breast,
Leave not the mansion so long tenantless,
Lest growing ruinous, the building fall
And leave no memory of what it was.
Repair me with thy prresence, Silvia;
Thou gentle nymph, cherish thy forlorn swain.

It moves me. The tenantless mansion of the heart. And yes. It can grow ruinous. The building can fall, if neglected too long. (This brings to mind the end of Tess of the D’Urbevilles – I need to find the appropriate quote, but it has to do with: once you find yourself ready, in terms of outward circumstances lining up, for happiness – it may actually be too late. The building may have fallen. Too much neglect, too much structural damage. I live with this fear.)

I feel for Valentine there. He speaks a deep truth, one I know well.