Sivut kuvina
PDF
ePub

Leon. Indeed, neighbour, he comes too short of you.
Dogb. Gifts, that God gives.

Leon. I must leave you.

Dogb. One word, sir. Our watch, sir, have, indeed, comprehended two aspicious persons, and we would have them this morning examined before your worship.

Leon. Take their examination yourself, and bring it me: I am now in great haste, as it may appear unto you.

Dogb. It shall be suffigance.

Leon. Drink some wine ere you go. Fare you well.

Enter a Messenger.

Mess. My lord, they stay for you to give your daughter to her husband.

Leon. I'll wait upon them: I am ready.

[Exeunt LEONATO and Messenger. Dogb. Go, good partner, go; get you to Francis Seacoal; bid him bring his pen and inkhorn to the gaol: we are now to examination these men'.

Verg. And we must do it wisely.

Dogb. We will spare for no wit, I warrant you; here's that shall drive some of them to a non com: only get the learned writer to set down our excommunication, and meet me at the gaol. [Exeunt.

ACT IV. SCENE I.

The Inside of a Church.

Enter Don PEDRO, JOHN, LEONATO, Friar, CLAUDIO, BENEDICK, HERO, BEATRICE, &c.

Leon. Come, friar Francis, be brief: only to the plain form of marriage, and you shall recount their particular duties afterwards.

9

Friar. You come hither, my lord, to marry this lady?
Claud. No.

Leon. To be married to her; friar, you come to marry her.
Friar. Lady, you come hither to be married to this count?
Hero. I do.

to EXAMINATION THESE men.
n.] Folio, 1623, "to examine those men."

Friar. If either of you know any inward impediment, why you should not be conjoined, I charge you on your souls to utter it.

Claud. Know you any, Hero?

Hero. None, my lord.

Friar. Know you any, count?

Leon. I dare make his answer; none.

Claud. O, what men dare do! what men may do! what men daily do, not knowing what they do '!

Bene. How now! Interjections? Why then, some be of laughing, as, ha! ha! he!

Claud. Stand thee by, friar.-Father, by your leave: Will you with free and unconstrained soul

Give me this maid, your daughter?

Leon. As freely, son, as God did give her me.

Claud. And what have I to give you back, whose worth 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 honour.—
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,
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,

1 not knowing what they do!] These words, from the 4to, 1600, are omitted in the folios. These lapses in the folio, 1623, are strange, when it is quite clear that it was printed from the 4to, 1600.

2 Interjections? Why then, some be of laughing, as, ha ha! he!] Benedick quotes from the Accidence.

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, showed
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 pamper'd 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 dishonour'd, that have gone about
To link
my dear friend to a common stale.

Leon. Are these things spoken, or do I but dream?
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

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.

3 Out on THEE, seeming!] Since Pope's time this has usually been printed "Out on thy seeming!" but there is no reason for the change. Claudio addresses Hero as the personification of "seeming," or hypocrisy. Both the 4to. and the folios support the reading in our text, but the corr. fo. 1632 has "thee " needlessly altered to thy.

True? O God!] This is Hero's exclamation on John's assertion-" these things are true." Hitherto it has been printed as if Hero merely answered, "True, O God!" to Benedick's observation, "This looks not like a nup

tial."

" I charge thee do so,] The folio, 1623, omits "so," to the manifest injury of the metre.

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 honour,
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.

John. Fie, fie! they are not to be nam'd, my lord,
Not to be spoke of';

There is not chastity enough in language,

Without offence to utter them. Thou 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 eye-lids 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?
John. Come, let us go. These things, come thus to light,
Smother her spirits up.

[Exeunt Don PEDRO, JOHN, and CLAUDIO.

Fie, fie! they are not to be nam'd, my lord,

Not to be SPOKE of;] This is the old regulation; whereas the modern editors alter it, under the notion that they can make something like measure out of

"Not to be nam'd, my lord, not to be spoken of."

7 Thou pretty lady,] The old copies read, “Thus, pretty lady," but thou is evidently more proper, with reference both to what follows and what precedes: it is the emendation in the corr. fo. 1632 of an easy and common misprint.

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.

Friar. Have comfort, lady.

How now, cousin Hero?

Yea; wherefore should she not?

Leon. Dost thou look up?
Friar.

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 would'st not quickly die,

Thought I thy spirits were stronger than thy shames,
Myself would, on the reward of reproaches",
Strike at thy life. Griev'd I, I had but one?
Chid I for that at frugal nature's frown'?
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 fallen
Into a pit of ink, that the wide sea

Hath drops too few to wash her clean again,

— on the REWARD of reproaches,] To render this line more intelligible, perhaps, the corr. fo. 1632 substitutes hazard for reward: it is rereward in the 4to, 1600. We see no sufficient reason for here altering the text of the folio, 1623, where the word is "reward," the meaning being, that Leonato was willing to run the risk of being rewarded with reproaches.

› — at frugal nature's frown?] So the corr. fo. 1632, meaning the frown which forbad him to have more children: the old misprinted text is "frame.”

1 Who SMIRCHED thus,] The folio substitutes smeared for "smirched" of the 4to. We have before had "smirched" in this play (see p. 50) in the sense of soiled, and it is a word to which Shakespeare was partial. See "As You Like It," A. i. sc. 3, and "Henry V." A. iii. sc. 3.

« EdellinenJatka »