Valentine's
initiative in going.

QUERIES FOR DISCUSSION

Is Valentine's or Protheus's the more influential character upon the
course of events thus far?

ACT II

VALENTINE AND SILVIA

Tell the story of this Act.

Explain the courtship scene with which this Act opens as illustrating
the service of love in systems of Chivalry. (For hints on this see
Introduction to the Play in "First Folio Edition" also Note on II, i,
97).

Contrast the earnestness of Valentine's nature in this devotion to
Silvia with the fickleness of Protheus.

The two servants, Speed and Launce, may be compared, their contrasts
to each other shown, and their general resemblance to a similarly
contrasted pair--the two Dromios in the "Comedie of Errors."

QUERIES FOR DISCUSSION

Is the love of Protheus for Silvia a reflex influence from Valentine's
extreme enthusiasm?

Why does Lucetta distrust Protheus?

ACT III

THE FALSE FRIEND

What effect has the arrival of Protheus at the Milanese Court? How
does the new-comer manage to dominate this Act? Point out the skill of
Protheus in making his disclosure to the Duke seem to be reluctantly
wrung from him against the friendship he feels for Valentine and only
because of a sense of duty toward the Duke.

What does this delicacy accomplish toward his own courtship of Silvia?
If he had seemed eager to tell his friend's secrets would not the Duke
distrust him and suspect some self-interest on his part? What did his
mention of Thurio's suit do for himself?

Compare the nature of the two friends' talk; how that of Protheus
gives a better impression of himself than is true, that of Valentine,
a worse. Show the consistency in wile of Protheus in his conduct
toward the Duke, Thurio, Silvia, and Julia. Why does it succeed?
Wherein is it likely to fail?

QUERIES FOR DISCUSSION

Is Protheus impossibly false as a character? Or is his duplicity an
exemplification of the facility toward evil of this kind that is
natural to an extremely impressionable nature which lacks stability?

In what does Valentine's superiority consist? Are the maxims for the
treatment of women which he gives the Duke due to artificial system
learned from others or a part of his own experience?

ACT IV

SILVIA AND JULIA

Tell the story of the Act. All the main characters and one new one
have their parts in the next steps in the plot? What are those parts?

Valentine's fate and its result.

Silvia's determinat