I stand dishonored, 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.

Claud. Leonato, stand I here?

True, O God!

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 1

1

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 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 my 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 liberal2 villain, Confessed the vile encounters they have had A thousand times in secret.

1 i. e. "natural power." Kind is used for nature.

2 Liberal here, as in many places of these plays, means licentious be

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 ?1
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 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!

Bene.

Sir, sir, be patient: For my part, I am so attired 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. Confirmed, confirmed! O, that is stronger

made,

Which was before barred up with ribs of iron !

Would the two princes lie? and Claudio lie?

Who loved her so, that, speaking of her foulness,

Washed 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 marked

A thousand blushing apparitions start

1 Frame is order, contrivance, disposition of things.

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 zeal 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.

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 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

Maintained the change of words with any creature,
Refuse me, hate me, torture me to death.

1

Friar. There is some strange misprision in the

princes.

2

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 villanies.

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 ate up my invention,

1 Misconception.

2 Bent is here used for the utmost degree of, or tendency to, honorable conduct.