Hero. O God defend me! how am I beset!What kind of catechizing call you this?

Claud. To make you answer truly to your name. Hero. Is it not Hero? Who can blot that name With any just reproach?

Claud.

Marry, that can Hero;

Hero itself can blot out Hero's virtue.

What man was he talk'd with you yesternight
Out at your window, betwixt twelve and one?
Now, if you are a maid, answer to this.

Hero. I talk'd with no man at that hour, my lord.
D. Pedro. Why, then are you no maiden.-Leonato,
I am sorry you must hear; Upon mine honour,
Myself, my brother, and this grieved count,
Did see her, hear her, at that hour last night,
Talk with a ruffian at her chamber-window;
Who hath, indeed, most like a liberal villain,
Confess'd the vile encounters they have had
A thousand times in secret.

D. John.

Fye, fye! they are Not to be nam'd, my lord, not to be spoke of; There is not chastity enough in language,

Without offence, to utter them: Thus, pretty lady, I am sorry for thy much misgovernment.

Claud. O Hero! what a Hero hadst thou been, If half thy outward graces had been placed About thy thoughts, and counsels of thy heart! But, fare thee well, most foul, most fair! farewell, Thou pure impiety, and impious purity! For thee I'll lock up all the gates of love,

8 Too free of tongue.

And on my eye-lids shall conjecture hang,
To turn all beauty into thoughts of harm,
And never shall it more be gracious.9

Leon. Hath no man's dagger here a point for me? [HERO Swoons. Beat. Why, how now, cousin? wherefore sink you down?

D. John. Come, let us go: these things, come thus to light,

Smother her spirits up.

[Exeunt Don PEDRO, Don JOHN, and CLAUDIO.

Bene. How doth the lady?

Beat.

Dead, I think;-help, uncle ;

Hero! why, Hero!-Uncle !-Signior Benedick!

friar!

Leon. O fate, take not away thy heavy hand!

Death is the fairest cover for her shame,

That may be wish'd for.

Beat.

How now, cousin Hero?

Dost thou look up?

Friar. Have comfort, lady.

Leon.

Friar. Yea; Wherefore should she not?

Leon. Wherefore? Why, doth not every earthly thing

Cry shame upon her? Could she here deny

The story that is printed in her blood?-
Do not live, Hero; do not ope thine eyes:

For did I think thou would'st not quickly die,

Thought I thy spirits were stronger than thy shames, Myself would, on the rearward of reproaches,

9 Attractive.

Strike at thy life. Griev'd I, I had but one?
Chid I for that at frugal nature's frame?1
O, one too much by thee! Why had I one?
Why ever wast thou lovely in my eyes?
Why had I not, with charitable hand,
Took up a beggar's issue at my gates;
Who smirched thus, and mired with infamy,
I might have said, No part of it is mine,
This shame derives itself from unknown loins?
But mine, and mine I lov'd, and mine I prais'd,
And mine that I was proud on; mine so much,
That I myself was to myself not mine,
Valuing of her; why, she-O, she is fallen
Into a pit of ink! that the wide sea

Hath drops too few to wash her clean again;
And salt too little, which may season give
To her foul tainted flesh!

Bene.

Sir, sir, be patient: For my part, I am so attir'd in wonder,

I know not what to say.

Beat. O, on my soul, my cousin is belied! Bene. Lady, were you her bedfellow last night? Beat. No, truly, not; although, until last night, I have this twelvemonth been her bedfellow..

Leon. Confirm'd, confirm'd! O, that is stronger made,

Which was before barr'd up with ribs of iron!
Would the two princes lie? and Claudio lie?

Who lov'd her so, that, speaking of her foulness,
Wash'd it with tears? Hence from her; let her die.
Friar. Hear me a little;

1 Disposition of things.

2 Sullied.

For I have only been silent so long,

And given way unto this course of fortune,
By noting of the lady: I have mark'd
A thousand blushing apparitions start
Into her face; a thousand innocent shames
In angel whiteness bear away those blushes;
And in her eye there hath appear'd a fire,
To burn the errors that these princes hold
Against her maiden truth :-Call me a fool;
Trust not my reading, nor my observations,
Which with experimental seal doth warrant
The tenour of my book; trust not my age,
My reverence, calling, nor divinity,
If this sweet lady lie not guiltless here
Under some biting error.

Leon.

Friar, it cannot be:

Thou seest, that all the grace that she hath left,

Is, that she will not add to her damnation

A sin of perjury; she not denies it:

Why seek'st thou then to cover with excuse
That which appears in proper nakedness?

Friar. Lady, what man is he you are accus'd of? Hero. They know, that do accuse me; I know none: If I know more of any man ålive,

Than that which maiden modesty doth warrant,
Let all my sins lack mercy!-O my father,
Prove you that any man with me convers'd

At hours unmeet, or that I yesternight

Maintain'd the change of words with any creature, Refuse me, hate me, torture me to death.

Friar. There is some strange misprision3 in the princes.

3 Misconception.

Bene. Two of them have the very bent of honour;

And if their wisdoms be misled in this,

The practice of it lives in John the bastard,

Whose spirits toil in frame of villainies.

Leon. I know not; If they speak but truth of her, These hands shall tear her; if they wrong her honour, The proudest of them shall well hear of it.

Time hath not yet so dried this blood of mine,

Nor age so eat up my invention,

Nor fortune made such havock of my means,
Nor my bad life reft me so much of friends,
But they shall find, awak'd in such a kind,
Both strength of limb, and policy of mind,
Ability in means, and choice of friends,

To quit me of them throughly.

Friar.

Pause a while,

And let my counsel sway you in this case.

Your daughter here the princes left for dead;
Let her awhile be secretly kept in,

And publish it, that she is dead indeed:
Maintain a mourning ostentation:
And on your family's old monument
Hang mournful epitaphs, and do all rites
That appertain unto a burial.

Leon. What shall become of this? What will this do?
Friar. Marry, this, well carried, shall on her behalf
Change slander to remorse; that is some good :
But not for that, dream I on this strange course,
But on this travail look for greater birth.
She dying, as it must be so maintain'd,
Upon the instant that she was accus'd,
Shall be lamented, pitied and excus'd,
Of every hearer: For it so falls out,