May counterpoise this rich and precious gift?

D. Pedro. Nothing, unless you render her again.

Claud. Sweet prince, you learn me noble thankfulness.

There, Leonato, take her back again;
Give not this rotten orange to your friend;
She's but the sign and semblance of her honor.
Behold, how like a maid she blushes here:
O, what authority and show of truth
Can cunning sin cover itself withal !

Comes not that blood as modest evidence

To witness simple virtue? Would you not swear, that see her, that she were a maid,

All

you

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 approvéd wanton.
Leon. Dear my lord, if you, in your own proof,
Have vanquished the resistance of her youth,
And made defeat of her virginity,-

Claud. I know what you would say: If I have
known her,

You'll 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, shewed
Bashful sincerity and comely love.

Hero. And seemed I ever otherwise to you? Claud. Out on thy 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 pampered animals.
That rage in savage sensuality.

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 catechising 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 mine honor,
Myself, my brother, and this grievéd 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,
Confessed the vile encounters they have had
A thousand times in secret.

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?
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 smirchéd 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,

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
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 seal 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.

Princes.

Shall come appareled in more precious habit,

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.

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),

her,

No, though he thought his accusation true.

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 maintained,
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 lacked and lost,
Why, then we rack the value, then we find
The virtue that possession would not shew us

Come, lady, die to live: this wedding day Perhaps is but prolonged; have patience, and endure.

[Exeunt Friar, HERO, and LEONATO. Bene. Lady Beatrice, have you wept all this while?

Beat. Yea, and I will weep awhile 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 wronged.

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

testimony, a goodly count-confect; 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 courtesies, valor into compliment, and men are only turned 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 wronged Hero?

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

Bene. Enough, I am engaged, I will challenge