“Alas, poor Lady, desolate and left!”
Proteus soon found that his scheme for winning Silvia met with small success. He had already been false to Valentine, and now he intended to be false to Sir Thurio; but his treachery was likely to be of little avail. Silvia was far too good and true to be corrupted by his worthless gifts. When he protested his loyalty to her, she twitted him with his falsehood to his absent friend; when he praised her beauty, she bade him remember how he had been forsworn in breaking faith with Julia, whom he loved. But, notwithstanding all her rebuffs and rebukes, the more she spurned Proteus the greater grew his admiration for her; and though he knew well how basely he was acting both to Valentine and Julia, he had not enough strength of mind to turn aside from the temptation.
That night, in accordance with what they had arranged, Sir Thurio brought a band of musicians, and they sang a charming serenade outside the Duke of Milan’s palace, under Silvia’s chamber. This is the pretty song they sang:
“Who is Silvia? What is she, That all our swains commend her? Holy, fair and wise is she; The heaven such grace did lend her, That she might admired be.
“Is she kind as she is fair? For beauty lives with kindness. Love doth to her eyes repair, To help him of his blindness. And, being help’d, inhabits there.
“Then to Silvia let us sing, That Silvia is excelling; She excels each mortal thing Upon the dull earth dwelling: To her, garlands let us bring.”
Unknown to Proteus, there was another listener, of whom he little recked.
Julia, on arriving at Milan, had made inquiries for her faithless lover, and the landlord of the house where she lodged had brought her to this spot to see the man for whom she had been inquiring. Now, in her page’s costume, she was a witness of her lover’s inconstancy. Proteus had sworn a thousand vows of love to her, and yet here he was plainly playing court to another lady! Poor Julia! Sweet as the music was, it had little charm for her; she heard only the jarring discord of her lover’s false words.
“Doth this Sir Proteus that we speak of often come to visit this gentlewoman?” she asked her host.
“I tell you what Launce, his man, told me—he loves her beyond all measure,” replied the host.