Array The griffin classics - William Shakespeare - Complete Collection

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 will 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, show’d

Bashful sincerity and comely love.

Hero.

And seem’d I ever otherwise to you?

Claud.

Out on thee 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 pamp’red animals

That rage in savage sensuality.

Hero.

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

Leon.

Sweet Prince, why speak not you?

D. Pedro.

What should I speak?

I stand dishonor’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.

Hero.

“True”! O God!

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 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 honor,

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.

Fie, fie, they are not to be named, my lord,

Not to be spoke of;

There is not chastity enough in language

Without offense 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?

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?

Friar.

Have comfort, lady.

Leon.

Dost thou look up?

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,

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?

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 fall’n

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,

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 tenure 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 alive

Than that which maiden modesty doth warrant,

Let all my sins lack mercy! O my father,