HERO swoons BEATRICE Why, how now, cousin! wherefore sink you down? DON JOHN Come, let us go. These things, come thus to light, Smother her spirits up.
Exeunt DON PEDRO, DON JOHN, and CLAUDIO BENEDICK How doth the lady? BEATRICE Dead, I think. Help, uncle!
Hero! why, Hero! Uncle! Signior Benedick! Friar! LEONATO O Fate! take not away thy heavy hand.
Death is the fairest cover for her shame That may be wish'd for. BEATRICE How now, cousin Hero! FRIAR FRANCIS Have comfort, lady. LEONATO Dost thou look up? FRIAR FRANCIS Yea, wherefore should she not? LEONATO 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 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 smirch'd 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! BENEDICK Sir, sir, be patient.
For my part, I am so attired in wonder, I know not what to say. BEATRICE O, on my soul, my cousin is belied! BENEDICK Lady, were you her bedfellow last night? BEATRICE No, truly not; although, until last night, I have this twelvemonth been her bedfellow. LEONATO 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 loved her so, that, speaking of her foulness, Wash'd it with tears? Hence from her! let her die. FRIAR FRANCIS Hear me a little;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 To start into her face, a thousand innocent shames In angel whiteness beat 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 tenor of my book; trust not my age, My reverence, calling, nor divinity, If this sweet lady lie not guiltless here Under some biting error. LEONATO 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 FRANCIS Lady, what man is he you are accused of? HERO They know that do accuse me; I know none:
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 Maintain'd the change of words with any creature, Refuse me, hate me, torture me to death! FRIAR FRANCIS There is some strange misprision in the princes. BENEDICK Two of them have the very bent of honour;And if their wisdoms be misled in this, The practise of it lives in John the bastard, Whose spirits toil in frame of villanies. LEONATO 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. FRIAR FRANCIS Pause awhile, 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. LEONATO What shall become of this? what will this do? FRIAR FRANCIS 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.
