BEAT. Will you go hear this news, signior? BENE. I will live in thy heart, die in thy lap, and be buried in thy eyes; and, moreover, I will go with thee to thy uncle's. [Exeunt. Enter DON PEDRO, CLAUDIO, and Attendants, with music and tapers. CLAUD. Is this the monument of Leonato? ATTEN. It is, my lord. CLAUD. [Reads from a scroll.] "Done to death by slanderous tongues Was the Hero that here lies: Death, in guerdon of her wrongs, Gives her fame which never dies: Now, music sound, and sing your solemn hymn. SONG. "Pardon, Goddess of the night, Midnight, assist our moan; Heavily, heavily: Graves, yawn, and yield your dead, Till death be uttered, Heavenly, heavenly." CLAUD. Now unto thy bones good night! D. PEDRO. Good morrow, masters; put your torches out: Dapples the drowsy east with spots of gray: go. CLAUD. And, Hymen, now with luckier issue speeds Than this, for whom we render'd up this woe! [Exeunt. • Heavenly, heavenly. In the quarto the reading is heavily, heavily. The editors appear to have mistaken the meaning of uttered, interpreting the passage to mean till songs of death be uttered heavily. To utter is here to put out-to expel. Death is expelled heavenly-by the power of heaven. The passage has evidently reference to the sublime verse of Corinthians. COMEDIES.-VOL. II. E SCENE IV.-A Room in Leonato's House. Enter LEONATO, ANTONIO, BENEDICK, BEATRICE, URSULA, Friar, and HERO. FRIAR. Did I not tell you she was innocent? LEON. So are the prince and Claudio, who accus'd her, To call young Claudio to a reckoning for it. ANT. Which I will do with confirm'd countenance. BENE. To bind me, or undo me, one of them. Signior Leonato, truth it is, good signior, From Claudio, and the prince. But what's BENE. Your answer, sir, is enigmatical: But, for my will, my will is, your good will FRIAR. your will? And my help. [Here comes the prince, and Claudio a.] Enter DON PEDRO and CLAUDIO, with Attendants. D. PEDRO. Good morrow to this fair assembly. The passage in brackets is omitted in the folio. [Exeunt Ladies. LEON. Call her forth, brother, here's the friar ready. D. PEDRO. Good morrow, Benedick: Why, what's the matter, So full of frost, of storm, and cloudiness? CLAUD. I think he thinks upon the savage bull: Tush, fear not, man, we 'll tip thy horns with gold, As once Europa did at lusty Jove, When he would play the noble beast in love. BENE. Bull Jove, sir, had an amiable low; And some such strange bull leap'd your father's cow, Much like to you, for you have just his bleat. Re-enter ANTONIO, with the Ladies masked. CLAUD. For this I owe you: here come other reckonings. ANT. This same is she, and I do give you her. CLAUD. Why, then she's mine: Sweet, let me see your face. HERO. And when I liv'd, I was your other wife : a One Hero died [defil'd ;] but I do live, And, surely as I live, I am a maid. D. PEDRO. The former Hero! Hero that is dead! LEON. She died, my lord, but whiles her slander liv'd. When, after that the holy rites are ended, BENE. Soft and fair, friar.—Which is Beatrice ? BEAT. I answer to that name [unmasking]; what is BENE. Do not you love me? BEAT. your will? Why no, no more than reason. • The word defil'd is also wanting in the folio. [Exit ANTONIO. [Unmasking. Why no. Steevens rejects the why, upon the old principle of its being "injurious to metre." When Benedick in the same way replies to the question of Beatrice, "Do not you love me?" the poet throws a spirit and variety into the answer, by making it, "Troth no, no more than reason." Steevens BENE. Why then your uncle, and the prince, and Claudio, BEAT. Do not you love me? BENE. Are much deceiv'd; for they did swear you did. LEON. Come, cousin, I am sure you love the gentleman. A halting sonnet of his own pure brain, HERO. And here's another, Writ in my cousin's hand, stolen from her pocket, BENE. A miracle; here's our own hands against our hearts!-Come, I will have thee; but, by this light, I take thee for pity. BEAT. I would not deny you;-but, by this good day, I yield upon great persuasion; and, partly, to save your life, for I was told you were in a consump tion. BENE. Peace, I will stop your mouth a. [Kissing her. D. PEDRO. How dost thou, Benedick the married man? BENE. I'll tell thee what, prince; a college of wit-crackers cannot flout me out of my humour: Dost thou think I care for a satire, or an epigram? No: if a man will be beaten with brains, a shall wear nothing handsome about him: In brief, since I do purpose to marry, I will think nothing to any pur pose that the world can say against it; and therefore never flout at me for what I have said against it; for man is a giddy thing, and this is my conclusion. For thy part, Claudio, I did think to have beaten thee; but in that thou art like to be my kinsman, live unbruised, and love my cousin. CLAUD. I had well hoped thou wouldst have denied Beatrice, that I might have cudgelled thee out of thy single life, to make thee a double dealer; which, out of question, thou wilt be, if my cousin do not look exceeding narrowly to thee. C BENE. Come, come, we are friends :-let 's have a dance ere we are married, that we may lighten our own hearts, and our wives' heels. Steevens cuts out the troth; the metre, says he, is overloaded. It would matter little what Steevens did with his own edition, but he has furnished the text of every popular edition of Shakspere extant; and for this reason we feel it a duty perpetually to protest against his corruptions of the real text. The old copies give the line to Leonato. What is omitted in the folio. • In that-because. LEON. We'll have dancing afterwards. BENE. First, o' my word; therefore, play music. Prince, thou art sad; get thee a wife, get thee a wife; there is no staff more reverend than one tipped with horn 23. Enter a Messenger. MESS. My lord, your brother John is ta'en in flight, And brought with armed men back to Messina. BENE. Think not on him till to-morrow; I'll devise thee brave punishments for him.-Strike up, pipers. [Dance. Exeunt. |