He finds Silvia's glove and
cries:
"Sweet ornament that decks a thing divine--"
the exclamation reminding us of how Romeo talks of Juliet's glove. Like
other men, Shakespeare learned life gradually, and in youth poverty of
experience forces him to repeat his effects.
Again, when Valentine praises his friend Proteus to the Duke, we find a
characteristic touch of Shakespeare. Valentine says:
"His years but young; but his experience old;
His head unmellowed; but his judgement ripe."
In "The Merchant of Venice" Bellario, the learned doctor of Padua,
praises Portia in similar terms:
"I never knew so young a body with so old a head."
But it is when Valentine confesses his love that Shakespeare speaks
through him most clearly:
"Ay, Proteus, but that life is altered now,
I have done penance for contemning love;
* * * * *
For in revenge of my contempt of love
Love hath chased sleep from my enthralled eyes
And made them watchers of my own heart's sorrow.
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