JULIA.
This babble shall not henceforth trouble me.
Here is a coil with protestation! [Tears the letter.]
Go, get you gone, and let the papers lie.
You would be fingering them to anger me.
LUCETTA.
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.
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 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.