Array MyBooks Classics - The Complete Works of William Shakespeare - Illustrated edition (37 plays, 160 sonnets and 5 Poetry Books With Active Table of Contents)

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 honor,

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 honor,

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.

Friar.

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.

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

That what we have we prize not to the worth

Whiles we enjoy it, but being lack’d and lost,

Why then we rack the value; then we find

The virtue that possession would not show us

Whiles it was ours. So will it fare with Claudio:

When he shall hear she died upon his words,

Th’ idea of her life shall sweetly creep

Into his study of imagination,

And every lovely organ of her life

Shall come apparell’d in more precious habit,

More moving, delicate, and full of life,

Into the eye and prospect of his soul,

Than when she liv’d indeed. Then shall he mourn,

If ever love had interest in his liver,

And wish he had not so accused 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 levell’d 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 honor, I will deal in this

As secretly and justly as your soul

Should with your body.

Leon.

Being that I flow in grief,

The smallest twine may lead me.

Friar.

’Tis well consented; presently away,

For to strange sores strangely they strain the cure.

Come, lady, die to live; this wedding-day

Perhaps is but prolong’d, have patience and endure.

Exit [with all but Benedick and Beatrice].

Bene. Lady Beatrice, have you wept all this while?

Beat. Yea, and I will weep a while longer.

Bene. I will not desire that.

Beat. You have no reason, I do it freely.

Bene. Surely I do believe your fair cousin is wrong’d.

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

Bene. Is there any way to show 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 lov’d 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 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 devis’d to it. I protest I love thee.

Beat. Why then God forgive me!

Bene. What offense, sweet Beatrice?

Beat. You have stay’d me in a happy hour, I was about to protest I lov’d 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 any thing 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 ’a not approv’d in the height a villain, that hath slander’d, scorn’d, dishonor’d my kinswoman? O that I were a man! What, bear her in hand until they come to take hands, and then with public accusation, uncover’d slander, unmitigated rancor—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 wrong’d, she is sland’red, she is undone.

Bene. Beat—

Beat. Princes and counties! Surely a princely testimony, a goodly count, Count Comfect, 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 cur’sies, valor into compliment, and men are only turn’d 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. By this hand, I love thee.

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

Bene. Think you in your soul the Count Claudio hath wrong’d Hero?

Beat. Yea, as sure as I have a thought or a soul.

Bene. Enough, I am engag’d, I will challenge him. I will kiss your hand, and so I 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.]

¶

William Hamilton , p. — John Peter Simon , e.