O, how this spring of love resembleth
Proteus:
"O, how this spring of love resembleth
The uncertain glory of an April day;
Which now shows all the beauty of the sun,
And by and by a cloud takes all away."
Proteus speaks some of the finest lines of poetry in the play in this scene in which his father is sending him away from Verona (and his beloved Julia) to a court in Milan to further his education. It was customary for young noblemen to be sent abroad and gain life experience this way. Proteus, who is madly and paralyzingly in love with Julia, has already told his friend Valentine that he will not join him in his travels to Milan, but now Proteus' father is insisting on it. In those days, parents had complete authority over their children, and Proteus will do as his father says. In his sorrow, Proteus gives the above speech, sweet and poetic and full of youthful love and the despair caused by separation from one's beloved.