William Shakespeare: The Two Gentlemen Of Verona (c. 1591)

Proteus

[Image source: https://www.rsc.org.uk/the-two-gentlemen-of-verona/past-productions/simon-godwin-2014-production/production-and-rehearsal-photos . Mark Arends as Proteus in a 2014 production by the Royal Shakespeare Company. Guardian review. Telegraph review.]


The young Shakespeare, it's fair to say, had some issues around women, if we're to judge from The Taming Of The Shrew (c. 1590?), The Two Gentlemen Of Verona (c. 1591?) and the Dark Lady sonnets of c. 1592. Of course these works and the issues they raise are all very different. In the present case the issue concerns not the female leads Julia and Silvia but the play's willingness to treat Proteus' threat of rape as too lightly resolved. We feel uncomfortable with Valentine's impulsive offer of Silvia to his friend though, of course, the main dramatic point of this is to comically prolong Julia's roller-coaster of emotions. Soon afterwards Valentine is fiercely repelling Thurio from his beloved. I think we had best see Valentine's silly offer as excessive and impulsive to the point of farce, something not to be taken too seriously. Then the play can rattle to its merry close.

There's no getting round the unpleasant but obvious fact that Shakespeare's era didn't see things the way we do. Rapes were the sort of thing that a gentleman might do, like killing a man in a duel or defaulting on gambling debts. These deeds were indisputably wrong but they didn't, in the eyes of society, turn the criminal into a monster; we sense a lack of horror. And the idea of giving up one's claim on a woman to a friend (without regard to her own views), is an even more familiar element in our cultural and deeply sexist past. A year or two later Shakespeare's own The Rape of Lucrece , with its intense examination of the psychology of both rapist and victim, may be said to be one small step on the long journey towards our modern viewpoint. But even in that brilliant poem, we can see that rape is condemned more for damaging a woman's honour (i.e. her value in the eyes of men) than as a violation of a woman's will, body and mind.

[In the theatre, where the play works really well and is as popular now as it ever was, these last-scene discomforts are easily got round and the 2013 Bristol Tobacco Factory production was said to end as a feminist triumph.]

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What both Proteus' threat and Valentine's offer have in common is that they are extremely and unreflectingly impulsive. TGV is a study of youthful hormones at the flood. In the women this leads to adventurousness and decision; all for the good, unless you are a concerned parent; in the men it leads to less admirable consequences.  Especially Proteus, of course. His inconstancy leads to staggering betrayals of his best friend and his old love; not to mention the new one whom, in his frustration, he threatens to rape. The situation in which he does so is an isolated wild woodland immediately after violent and triumphant activity in rescuing her from other abductors. His blood is up. As Germaine Greer once said, you don't trust men at such times.

In making this statement I'm conscious of the paradox, pointed out by Russell Jackson in the Introduction to the Penguin edition, that the text of TGV is notably lacking in the language of eroticism. This is true, but the language is a very different thing from the fact. In Romeo and Juliet the talk is salaciously dirty, except for Romeo's and Juliet's; the only two characters in the play who are actually in love. Those young lovers, like these ones, are almost prudish in what they say, but are full of what they feel. (There are a number of curious connections between these two plays.)

No surprise, therefore that John Guare's and Galt MacDermot's follow-up to the explosive rock musical Hair was Two Gentlemen of Verona (1971). It ran for over 600 performances on Broadway but was then forgotten; revivals are now becoming more frequent.  Here's a clip from the 2005 Shakespeare in the Park production, directed by Kathleen Marshall.









I.1

The play's first scene is an important one because it shows us the two male leads together. Valentine, wittily disparaging his lovestruck friend, is off on his travels. His name tells us that he'll soon be lovestruck himself. But the gentle Proteus, who will pray for his friend, and who tries, with only partial success, to defend his commitment to love, interests us more. When Valentine ends the scene between them, Proteus is left behind to confide his distinctly conflicted feelings.

Now there follows a dialogue with Speed, Valentine's man; like any dialogue with Speed, it's full of verbal tangling. The scene feints at the servant and master actually interacting so that the doings of the one affect the story of the other. (The dramatic potential of that idea would be abundantly demonstrated in the Comedy of Errors.) But here, Speed turns out to be only teasing; his doubtful competence as a messenger has not prevented Proteus' message from reaching his beloved, albeit indirectly. And in fact  in TGV Shakespeare didn't succeed in involving the servants in their masters' stories: they function excellently as commentators, explicitly and implicitly, but they don't affect the action materially. 

Proteus could be any kind of gentleman here, playing the straight man to Speed. There's a feeling of something held back. His name suggests changeability, and we see the potential. He isn't a formed personality. It's important that both Valentine and Proteus are seen as very young men, adolescents in our terms. The scene needs to be played as straight as can be. The two leads should be seen as largely identical and lacking in definition: as gentlemen and nothing more. The potential of one for comedy and the other for tragedy shouldn't yet be clear-cut.

The Two Gentlemen part of the title makes perfect thematic sense. Of Verona less so. Verona isn't even named in these early scenes, and it has no presence as a distinct place. The title's meaning refers to the later bulk of the play: then people refer to the pair as "of Verona", precisely because they're now living somewhere else. The title means, as it were, two gentlemen abroad.

[In fact, the text is haphazard about its Italian geography and when it does use the name "Verona" sometimes seems to mean "Milan".  It doesn't inspire confidence in the hypothesis that Shakespeare had travelled to Italy, except in his imagination. (Compare Othello, where Iago and Cassio describe each other as Florentine, each apparently thinking of himself as Venetian  -- or anyway not Florentine.)  You get the impression that Shakespeare when composing tossed the Italian place-names about in quite a casual way. For him they belong to the mapless world of romance.]


Moreover, Valentine apparently takes a sea-voyage between these two landlocked places. Some have wondered whether Shakespeare might have been thinking of the river barges much used as transport in northern Italy, but such lines as the following don't suggest that Shakespeare is envisaging a river.


Proteus.

Go, go, be gone, to save your ship from wreck,
Which cannot perish having thee aboard,
Being destined to a drier death on shore.

[Shakespeare cracks the same familiar joke in the opening scene of The Tempest, at the opposite end of his stage career.]

But later, in II.3, Launce does actually say "Why, man, if the river were dry, I am able to fill it with my tears...". This, however, is in connection with losing the tide! 


I.2

Julia and Lucetta. Julia's demonstration of the impulsive nature of young love, but here devoid of ill consequences. The idea that when a maid says no she means yes  is slightly disturbing (perhaps this too is part of the young Shakespeare's issues...).


I.3

Proteus' father Antonio is indeed somewhat peremptory. His rapid change of mind, and his then peremptory will, are features we will later recognize in his son. 

The Taming of the Shrew drew on autobiographical material (the strolling  players and Warwickshire locations of its Induction). We wonder if TGV likewise contains autobiographical material in the theme of young men travelling for their education; Shakespeare's acquaintances, if not himself. Lucentio, arriving at Padua at the start of Taming, is doing the same thing; in the next scene, Petruchio is closer to Shakespeare's own situation: seeking his fortune "farther than at home, / Where small experience grows."


II.1

Valentine, a commenting Speed, and Silvia's device of getting Valentine to compose her love-letter to him. The play's first transformation is that Valentine becomes a lover, like Proteus. This transformation was highly predictable. Valentine's satisfaction ("I have dined") ends the scene in a sunny manner. But we already know that Proteus is on his way to Milan: and what will the highly predictable upshot of that change of place be?

II.2

Proteus and Julia, parting. An unexpectedly curt scene. It's surprising to find the contrary Julia of I.2  now so definitely Proteus' beloved; things are moving fast. Proteus' thoughts lead to gloomy presages, and the scene is cut short by Julia's wordless departure. The impression is of an epoch already concluded. But the suffering of the pair is sincere.

II.3

Launce's memorable soliloquy about his dog Crab, "the sourest-natured dog that lives". Launce, like his master, has apparently no wish to go abroad. Crab's lack of fellow feeling asserts that a change of scene is no big deal, and that Launce is overdoing the sentiment. (Though surely going abroad was a bigger deal then than now; what were Shakespeare's Stratford leave-takings like?) Perhaps Crab prefigures Proteus' soon-to-be-revealed lack of attachment to his home town and home love.

II.4

The play's biggest scene. It begins with stale rivalry between Valentine and Thurio, then Proteus arrives unexpectedly, gets on very well with Silvia; then Valentine and Proteus have an awkward picking up of threads; and Proteus is left to soliloquize on the complete change in his feelings. 

Valentine is thoroughly enjoying being in love, and lecturing his friend about it. His absurd insistence on extorting the flower of praise for his Silvia might well be taken by Proteus as licensing his treachery. At the same time as we feel this, Valentine is obliviously prating about how "love, thou know'st, is full of jealousy" -- referring to Thurio and ignoring the more dangerous rival before him. 

Proteus' soliloquy ends:

If I can check my erring love I will; 

If not, to compass her I'll use my skill. 

It seems the die isn't quite cast, yet. This readies us for Proteus' follow-up soliloquy in II.6.  It's very parallel to Angelo's two soliloquies in Measure for Measure (II.2, II.4). Both characters know that what they're thinking is wrong, but it just won't go away. 

II.5

Another meeting in Milan, this time of the two servants. And though Valentine had been so enthusiastic when he heard about Proteus' arrival, yet in the event who can help feeling that Speed's welcome of a complaining Launce is the warmer? Valentine's queries about the folks in Verona had been a bit too superficial, stimulating Proteus' resistance: it was apparent that Valentine would rather talk about himself. 

II.6

Unheedful vows may heedfully be broken;

And he wants wit that wants resolved will

To learn his wit to change the bad for better. 

Proteus' breathtaking commitment to a double betrayal contains some familiar half-truths: resolution, will, wit, love and honesty to oneself are indeed all positives, but what matters is how you line them up. What about a resolved will to keep a vow? Humans can always find arguments for what they choose to do. 

II.7

Julia and Lucetta. Yes, it's all about the context. Julia too is driven to scandalous behaviour by love and will, but we have no qualms here. Even though her faith in Proteus is, at this juncture, deeply ironic. 

Julia's disguise, as a well-born boy in service, is the same as Viola's in Twelfth Night. 

III.1

This is several scenes in one. First, Proteus betraying his friend's confidence, and showing that he well knows how to talk the talk of duty overruling inclination. Then the Duke's somewhat farcical scene with Valentine. The latter, issuing worldly-wise maxims about love while uncomfortably conscious of a concealed rope ladder, can be very funny here. But when he's banished there's a certain depth of feeling in his soliloquy:

What light is light, if Silvia is not seen?

What joy is joy, if Silvia be not by?  . . . 

Unless I be by Silvia in the night,

There is no music in the nightingale . . .

Then Proteus and Launce arrive. Proteus shows how to be a true, concerned and helpful friend to Valentine -- if only it wasn't an act (and with the ulterior motive of intercepting any letters Valenbtine should write). In hindsight, Valentine's honest selfishness in II.4 seems eminently forgiveable.

Finally Launce, who memorably pronounces Proteus "a kind of a knave" and then switches (Shakespeare doesn't manage the continuity at all well) to reflecting on his own supposed love, on which topic Speed gets ensnared. It's pretty much a clown scene, that is, an irrelevant interlude, like the clown scene in Titus Andronicus or those in Dr Faustus.

III.2

Proteus, the Duke, Thurio. Proteus' career in ill-doing takes a further turn, gaining the Duke's permission, nay command, to tell lies about Valentine to Silvia. Proteus is now as trusted by the Duke and Thurio as previously by Julia and Valentine. While Valentine has increasingly revealed himself as nice but dim, Proteus is proving to be devilishly clever. It's quite a turnaround from the opening scene of the play. 

IV.1

Valentine and Speed meet the Outlaws. There's a perceptible turning of the tide. It's a ridiculous but funny scene, these honourable villains forming a sharp contrast to Proteus' dishonourable respectability. 

IV.2

Who is Silvia? What is she? Silvia is indeed rather a puzzle. The men all fall for her, and Julia can't resist loving her too, but the language used of her is highly objectified: people seem to be mainly concerned with  her position, her picture, her appearance, her location.  The impression is of a woman seen only in a public role: the princess that she is, or even the goddess that she isn't. 

Silvia in love merely reflects back her lover's words (II.1). And for most of the play she isn't given very many words of her own to say (and none at all, after the climactic "O Heaven!" of V.4). 

But lest there be any doubt if Silvia is merely a reflective surface:

Thou subtle, perjured, false disloyal man!

Think'st thou I am so shallow, so conceitless,

To be seduced by thy flattery,

That has deceived so many with thy vows?

She teaches Proteus the valuable lesson that, while you can certainly betray others at will in pursuit of a new love, it's worth considering what the new love is likely to make of your behaviour. (Proteus' frustration at his inability to control Silvia's feelings is what issues in the rape threat of V.4.)

The scene is framed by being witnessed by the disguised Julia, who has arrived in Milan and thus learns of her lover's treachery. Her presence onstage is another indication of the tide changing, though it's a painful experience for her. 

Proteus resorts to throwing out lies about the death of Julia and Valentine, the latter so self-evidently ridiculous that Silvia is totally untroubled. 

IV.3

Silvia's plan to escape Milan, with the assistance of Eglamour, the latter steel-coated by a vow of chastity. (Despite the ample demonstration that Proteus' vows have only inspired false confidence in his integrity, we're expected to accept Eglamour's vow as a guarantee of his good behaviour.) 

IV.4

Launce's Crab makes his own comment on the play's objectification of Silvia, by lifting his leg to her farthingale. 

Proteus employs "Sebastian" (Julia) to give the ring to Silvia. Julia's scene with Silvia is like the parallel one in Twelfth Night, but also not: whereas Olivia falls for Cesario/Viola, Silvia returns the ring to Sebastian not for his own sake but in honour of his loyalty to Julia. Hence a love tangle is replaced by an image of female solidarity, in marked contrast to the relations of the two male leads. 

V.1

A brief pretty scene at Saint Patrick's cell. Silvia and Eglamour meet and set off. 

V.2

Thurio, Proteus, Julia (disguised) and then the Duke. Silvia's flight is discovered. 

V.3 

Silvia apprehended by the Outlaws.

V.4

Valentine comments on his pastoral refuge and stands aside. Proteus enters with Silvia and Julia (disguised). Proteus' threat to Silvia, Valentine's intervention, Proteus' repentance, Valentine's pardon, the offer of Silvia, the revelation of Julia, the appearance of the Duke and Thurio, Valentine stepping up against the latter, and the Duke's happy change of heart. 

Is there anything to be said in extenuation of Proteus' threat of "forcing" Silvia, or Valentine's yielding of Silvia to Proteus? Maybe. 

Regarding the former, it might be that the presence on-stage of "Sebastian" would indicate to audiences that, whatever Proteus means, he doesn't seriously intend to rape Silvia on the spot. 

Regarding the latter, Valentine might be taking into account that as the Duke has banished him from Milan, his own chance of marrying Silvia is nil: Proteus, on the other hand, is in the Duke's good graces. Valentine's sacrifice in his friend's favour, therefore, could be played not as merely quixotic, but as containing a dose of realism. But this is hard to square with Valentine's untroubled intention, earlier in the play, to secretly elope with Silvia. 

Julia, Proteus, Silvia, Valentine

[Image source: http://www.houstonchronicle.com/entertainment/arts-theater/article/A-lively-young-cast-lifts-Two-Gentlemen-of-5667802.php. Photo by Dave Rossman, from a 2014 University of Houston production. Amelia Fischer as Julia, Kyle Curry as Proteus, Kiara Feliciano as Silvia and Crash Buist as Valentine.]

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Much Ado, Two Gentlemen, Belleforest, Bandello

These notes on Shakespeare: full list