Jul. And Julia herself did give it me;
And Julia herself hath brought it hither.
Pro. How! Julia!
Jul. Behold her that gave aim to all thy oaths,
And entertain’d ’em deeply in her heart.
How oft hast thou with perjury cleft the root!
O Proteus let this habit make thee blush!
Be thou asham’d that I have took upon me
Such an immodest raiment, if shame live
In a disguise of love.
It is the lesser blot, modesty finds,
Women to change their shapes than men their minds.
Pro. Than men their minds! ’tis true. O heaven! were man
But constant, he were perfect. That one error
Fills him with faults; makes him run through all the sins.
Inconstancy falls off ere it begins.
What is Silvia’s face, but I may spy
More fresh in Julia’s with a constant eye?
Vol. Come, come, a hand from either.
Let me be blest to make this happy close;
’Twere pity two such friends should be long foes.
Pro. Bear witness, Heaven, I have my wish for ever.
Jul. And I mine.
Similar inconsistencies are in many modern plays. A dramatist has a particularly striking scene which he wishes to make the climax of his play. Into it he forces his figures regardless. Lessing made fun of this fault.
... In another still worse tragedy where one of the principal characters died quite casually, a spectator asked his neighbor, “But what did she die of?”—“Of what? Of the fifth act,” was the reply. In very truth the fifth act is an ugly evil disease that carries off many a one to whom the first four acts promised a longer life.[21]