FRIAR. Lady, you come hither to be married to this count?

HERO. I do.

FRIAR. If either of you know any inward impediment why you should not be conjoined, I charge you, on your souls, to utter it.

CLAUD. Know you any, Hero?

HERO. None, my lord.

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 a!]

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 unconstrained 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 approved wanton.
LEON. Dear my lord, if you, in your own proof
Have vanquish'd 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;

"The words in brackets are not in the folio, but in the quarto.
b Shakspere had not forgotten his Accidence.

But, as a brother to his sister, show'd

Bashful sincerity, and comely love.

HERO. And seem'd I ever otherwise to you?
CLAUD. Out on the 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 pamper'd animals

That rage in savage sensuality.

HERO. Is my lord well, that he doth speak so wide?
LEON. Sweet prince, why speak not you b?

D. PEDRO.

What should I speak?

I stand dishonour'd, that have gone about

To link my dear friend to a common stale.
LEON. Are these things spoken? or do I but dream?
D. JOHN. Sir, they are spoken, and these things are true.
BENE. This looks not like a nuptial.

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, 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 name.
HERO. Is it not Hero? Who can blot that name
With any just reproach?

▪ In the originals, both the quarto and folio, we have "Out on thee seeming." Pope changed this phrase into "Out on thy seeming." We believe that the poet used "Out on the seeming the specious resemblance-" I will write against it"—that is, against this false representation, along with this deceiving portrait,

"You seem to me as Dian in her orb," &c.

The commentators separate "I will write against it" from what follows, as if Claudio were about to compose a treatise upon the subject of woman's deceitfulness.

Tieck proposes to give this line to Claudio, who thus calls upon the prince to confirm his declaration.

So the folio; in the quarto, do so. The pause which is required after the do, by the omission of so, gives force to the command.

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 a villain,
Confess'd the vile encounters they have had
A thousand times in secret.

Not to be nam'd, my lord, not to be spoken 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 plac'd
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?

BEAT. Why, how now, cousin? wherefore sink you down?

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

[HERO Swoons.

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.

FRIAR. Have comfort, lady.

LEON. Dost thou look up ?

How now, cousin Hero?

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 wouldst not quickly die,

⚫ Liberal-licentiously free. So in Othello:'-" Is he not a most profane and liberal coun

sellor ?"

Thought I thy spirits were stronger than thy shames,
Myself would, on the rearward of reproaches,
Strike at thy life. Griev'd I, I had but one?
Chid I for that at frugal nature's frame a?
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 mir'd 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!

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.

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 alive

Than that which maiden modesty doth warrant,
Let all my sins lack mercy!40 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 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 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 havoc 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.

And let my counsel sway you in this case.

Your daughter here the princes left for dead;
Let her a while 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?

COMEDIES.-VOL. II.

D