JULIA:

A virtuous gentlewoman, mild and beautiful.

I hope my master's suit will be but cold,

Since she respects my mistress' love so much.

Alas, how love can trifle with itself!

Here is her picture: let me see; I think,

If I had such a tire, this face of mine

Were full as lovely as is this of hers;

And yet the painter flatter'd her a little,

Unless I flatter with myself too much.

Her hair is auburn, mine is perfect yellow:

If that be all the difference in his love

I'll get me such a colour'd periwig.

Her eyes are grey as glass, and so are mine:

Ay, but her forehead's low, and mine's as high.

What should it be that he respects in her

But I can make respective in myself,

If this fond Love were not a blinded god?

Come, shadow, come, and take this shadow up,

For 'tis thy rival. O thou senseless form!

Thou shalt be worshipped, kiss'd, loved, and adored.

And, were there sense in his idolatry,

My substance should be statue in they stead.

I'll use thee kindly for thy mistress' sake.

That us'd me so; or else, by Jove I vow,

I should have scratch'd out your unseeing eyes,

To make my master out of love with thee. (Exit)

(Summary)

The encounter between Silvia and Julia is significant in that it marks the first time that two characters express and share concern about others: both are simultaneously outraged at the philandering Proteus and worried about the abandoned Julia. In discussing such important concepts as friendship and romantic love, the two women are able to relate to each other, despite the fact that Julia views Silvia as her rival. Silvia and Julia trade objects (Julia's ring and Silvia's picture) and stories just as Valentine and Proteus will ultimately trade women. The interaction between these two women is far more meaningful than the slapdash rush of the play's ending, in which the play's intended couples are hastily paired up again, allows. A feminist reading of the play would interpret the bond of female friendship (despite Julia's disguise) as the most important, enduring, and under-developed aspect of the play. Silvia and Julia are both resourceful women who take risks in order to be reunited with the men they love. Neither betrays her man (Julia sublimates herself in order to be true to her love, forcing herself to withstand the discomfort of helping the man she loves woo another woman), and each remains true to the other woman as well: Silvia in her sympathy for Julia, and Julia, as Sebastian, in her unwillingness to drag Silvia into Proteus' web of treachery and betrayal.