Friar. Know you any, Count.

Leon. I dare make his answer; none.

Claud. O, what men dare do! what men may do! what men daily do! not knowing what they do!

Bene. How now! Interjections? Why, then, some be of laughing; as ha! ha! he!

Claud. Stand thee by, Friar:-Father, by your leave;

Will you with free and unconstrainéd soul
Give me this maid, your daughter?

Leon. As freely, son, as God did give her me. Claud. And what have I to give you back, whose worth

May counterpoise this rich and precious gift? D. Pedro. Nothing, unless you render her again. Claud. Sweet prince, you learn me noble thankfulness.

There, Leonato, take her back again;
Give not this rotten orange to your friend ;
She's but the sign and semblance of her honour.
Behold, how like a maid she blushes here:
O, what authority and show of truth
Can cunning sin cover itself withal!
Comes not that blood as modest evidence
To witness simple virtue? Would you not swear,
All you that see her, that she were a maid,
By these exterior shows? But she is none:
She knows the heat of a luxurious bed:
Her blush is guiltiness, not modesty.
Leon. What do you mean, my lord?
Claud.
Not to be married,

Not to knit my soul to an approvéd wanton.
Leon. Dear my lord, if you, in your own

proof,

Have vanquished the resistance of her youth,
And made defeat of her virginity,—

Claud. I know what you would say: If I have

known her,

You'll say, she did embrace me as a husband,
And so extenuate the 'forehand sin:
No, Leonato,

I never tempted her with word too large;
But, as a brother to his sister, shewed
Bashful sincerity and comely love,

Hero. And seemed I ever otherwise to you? Claud. Out on thy seeming! I will write against it:

You seem to me as Dian in her orb;
As chaste as is the bud ere it be blown :
But you are more intemperate in your blood
Than Venus, or those pampered animals
That rage in savage sensuality.

Hero. Is my lord well, that he doth speak so wide?

Leon. Sweet prince, why speak not you?

Claud. Leonato, stand I here?

Is this the Prince? Is this the Prince's brother? Is this face Hero's? Are our eyes our own?

Leon. All this is so; but what of this, my lord? Claud. Let me but move one question to your daughter;

And, by that fatherly and kindly power
That you have in her, bid her answer truly.
Leon. I charge thee do so, as thou art my child.
Hero. O God defend me! how am I beset!
What kind of catechising call you this?

Claud. To make you answer truly to your

Hero itself can blot out Hero's virtue.
What man was he talked with you yesternight,
Out at your window, betwixt twelve and one?
Now, if you are a maid, answer to this.

Hero. I talked 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 grievéd 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,
Confessed the vile encounters they have had
A thousand times in secret.

Fy, fy! they are

D. John. Not to be named, 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,
And on my eyelids shall conjecture hang,
To turn all beauty into thoughts of harm,
And never shall it more be gracious.

Leon. Hath no man's dagger here a point for
me?
[HERO SWOONS.

Beat. Why, how now, cousin? wherefore sink

you down?

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 wouldst not quickly die,
Thought I thy spirits were stronger than thy
shames,

Myself would, on the rearward of reproaches,
Strike at thy life. Grieved I, I had but one?
Chid I for that at frugal Nature's frame?
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 smirchéd 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 loved, and mine I praised,
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!

And given way unto this course of fortune,
By noting of the lady: I have marked
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 appeared 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.

If I know more of any man alive
Than that which maiden modesty doth warrant,
Let all my sins lack mercy.-O my father,
Prove you that any man with me conversed
At hours unmeet, or that I yesternight
Maintained the change of words with any creature,
Refuse me, hate me, torture me to death.
Friar. There is some strange misprision in the
Princes.

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 villanies.

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 havoc of my means,
Nor my bad life reft me so much of friends,
But they shall find, awaked 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.

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 maintained,
Upon the instant that she was accused,
Shall be lamented, pitied, and excused,
Of every hearer. For it so falls out,
That what we have we prize not to the worth
Whiles we enjoy it; but being lacked and lost,
Why, then we rack the value, then we find
The virtue that possession would not shew us
Whiles it was ours. So will it fare with Claudio:
When he shall hear she died upon his words,
The idea of her life shall sweetly creep
Into his study of imagination;
And every lovely organ of her life
Shall come apparelled in more precious habit,
More moving-delicate and full of life,
Into the eye and prospect of his soul,

Than when she lived indeed :-then shall he

mourn

(If ever love had interest in his liver),
And wish he had not so accuséd her;
No, though he thought his accusation true.
Let this be so, and doubt not but success
Will fashion the event in better shape
Than I can lay it down in likelihood.
But if all aim but this be levelled false,
The supposition of the lady's death
Will quench the wonder of her infamy :
And, if it sort not well, you may conceal her
(As best befits her wounded reputation)
In some reclusive and religious life,
Out of all eyes, tongues, minds, and injuries.

Bene. Signior Leonato, let the Friar advise you :
And though you know my inwardness and love
Is very much unto the Prince and Claudio,
Yet, by mine honour, I will deal in this
As secretly and justly as your soul
Should with your body.

Beat. You have no reason, I do it freely. Bene. Surely, I do believe your fair cousin is wronged.

Beat. Ah, how much might the man deserve of me that would right her!

Bene. Is there any way to shew such friendship?
Beat. A very even way, but no such friend.
Bene. May a man do it?

Beat. It is a man's office, but not yours.

Bene. I do love nothing in the world so well as you; is not that strange?

Beat. As strange as the thing I know not. It were as possible for me to say, I loved nothing so well as you :-but believe me not; and yet I lie not; I confess nothing, nor I deny nothing: -I am sorry for my cousin.

Bene. By my sword, Beatrice, thou lovest me.
Beat. Do not swear by it, and eat it.

Bene. I will swear by it, that you love me; and I will make him eat it, that says I love not you. Beat. Will you not eat your word?

Bene. With no sauce that can be devised to it. protest I love thee.

Beat. Why then, God forgive me! Bene. What offence, sweet Beatrice? Beat. You have stayed me in a happy hour; I was about to protest I loved you.

Bene. And do it with all thy heart.

Beat. I love you with so much of my heart, that none is left to protest.

Bene. Come, bid me do anything for thee.
Beat. Kill Claudio.

Bene. Ha! not for the wide world.

Beat. You kill me to deny it: Farewell.

Bene. Tarry, sweet Beatrice.

Beat. I am gone, though I am here. There

is no love in you:-Nay, I pray you, let me go. Bene. Beatrice,―

Beat. In faith, I will go.

Bene. We'll be friends first.

Beat. You dare easier be friends with me, than

fight with mine enemy.

Bene. Is Claudio thine enemy?

Beat. Is he not approved in the height a villain, that hath slandered, scorned, dishonoured my kinswoman? O, that I were a man! What! bear her in hand until they come to take hands, and then with public accusation, uncovered slander, unmitigated rancour-O God, that I were a man! I would eat his heart in the market-place. Bene. Hear me, Beatrice;

Beat. Talk with a man out at a window ?-a proper saying!

Bene. Nay, but, Beatrice ;

Beat. Sweet Hero! she is wronged, she is slandered, she is undone.

Bene. Beat

Beat. Princes and counties! Surely, a princely testimony, a goodly count-confect; a sweet gallant, surely! O, that I were a man for his sake! or that I had any friend would be a man for my sake! But manhood is melted into courtesies, valour into compliment, and men are only turned into tongue, and trim ones too: he is now as valiant as Hercules, that only tells a lie, and swears it. I cannot be a man with wishing, therefore I will die a woman with grieving.

Bene. Tarry, good Beatrice.

I love thee.

By this hand,

Beat. Use it for my love some other way than swearing by it.

Bene. Think you in your soul the Count Claudio hath wronged Hero?

Beat. Yea, as sure as I have a thought, or a soul. Bene. Enough, I am engaged, I will challenge him; I will kiss your hand, and so leave you. By this hand, Claudio shall render me a dear account. As you hear of me, so think of me. Go, comfort your cousin. I must say she is dead: and so, farewell. [Exeunt.

SCENE II.-A Prison.

Enter DOGBERRY, VERGES, and Sexton, in gowns ;
and the Watch, with CONRADE and BORACHIO.
Dogb. Is our whole dissembly appeared?
Verg. O, a stool and a cushion for the sexton!
Sexton. Which be the malefactors?
Dogb. Marry, that am I and my partner.
Verg. Nay, that's certain; we have the exhi-
bition to examine.

Sexton. But which are the offenders that are to be examined? let them come before master constable.

Dogb. Yea, marry, let them come before me.— What is your name, friend?