Characters in Romeo and Juliet he is given a direct connection to his brother. Although he has a very small role in Shakespeare's play, earlier versions of the story gave him no role or mention at all. In fact, they gave even Mercutio a very minor role. Shakespeare was the first English dramatist to use the name "Valentine" on stage, in his earlier plays, "Titus Andronicus" and "The Two Gentlemen of Verona". In "Titus", Valentine plays a minor role, but in "Two Gentlemen", he is one of the title characters. Incidentally, the Valentine of "Two Gentlemen" borrows heavily from Arthur Brooke's Romeus in "The Tragical
Proteus shape-changing, has much in common with the central but elusive figure of alchemy, Mercurius. The poet John Milton, aware of the association of Proteus with the Hermetic art of alchemy, wrote in "Paradise Lost" of alchemists who sought the philosopher's stone: In his 1658 discourse "The Garden of Cyrus", Sir Thomas Browne, pursuing the figure of the quincunx, queried: "Why Proteus in Homer the Symbole of the first matter, before he settled himself in the midst of his Sea-Monsters, doth place them out by fives?" Shakespeare uses the image of Proteus to establish the character of his great royal villain