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 the beast. From this feature of Proteus comes the adjective protean, with the general meaning of "versatile", "mutable", "capable of assuming many forms". "Protean" has positive connotations of flexibility, versatility and adaptability. Proteus' name suggests the "first" (from Greek "πρῶτος" "protos", "first"), as "protogonos" (πρωτόγονος) is the "primordial" or the "firstborn". It is not certain to what this refers, but in myths where he is the son of Poseidon, it possibly refers to his being Poseidon's eldest son, older than Poseidon's other son, the sea-god Triton. The first attestation of the name, although it is not certain whether it refers