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. Grieved I, I had but one?

Chid I for that at frugal nature's frame?

111 Smother up] "Up" gives the verb intensitive force. Cf. As you like it, II, i, 62: "kill them up."

122 The story that . . . blood] The story which is discovered to be true by the passage of blood to and fro her face. Cf. the Friar's speech (159–161) infra, describing in her face "blushing apparitions" and "angel whiteness."

126 on the rearward of] in the rear of, after. Cf. Sonnet xc, 6, " Come in the rearward of a conquered woe."

128 frame] design or capacity (to give me only one child).

110

121

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. 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. Hear me a little;

144 attired in wonder] wrapped in, clothed in wonder. Cf. Lucrece, 1601: "attired in discontent."

130

140

151

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 tenour 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

166-167 with book] with the seal or proof of experience doth verify the general effect of my reading.

160

170

180

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 villanies.

LEON. I know not. If they speak but truth of her, 190 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.

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?

200 To quit

209 What

...

of this? What will come of this, be the consequence?

200

FRIAR. Marry, this, well carried, shall on her be

half

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 accused,
Shall be lamented, pitied, and excused
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,
The 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 lived 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.

223 upon his words] owing to his words. Cf. Mids. N. Dr., II, i, 244: "To die upon [i. e. by] the hand I love so well.”

210

220

230