Death is the fairest cover for her shame,

That may be wish'd for.

Bea.

How now, cousin Hero?

Friar. Have comfort, lady.

Leo. Dost thou look up?

Friar.

Yea; wherefore should she not?

Leo. 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 1 hy 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 fi gal 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 2 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

1 Disposition of things.

SMAK.

Sullied.

JV

Hath drops too few to wash her clean again;
And salt too little, which may season give

To her foul tainted flesh!

Ben.

Sir, sir, be patient:

For my part, I am so attired in wonder,
I know not what to say.

Bea. O, on my soul, my cousin is belied!

Ben. Lady, were you her bedfellow last night? Bea. No, truly, not; although, until last night, I have this twelvemonth been her bedfellow.

Leo. 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;

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 start
Into her face; a thousand innocent shames
In angel whiteness bear 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 scal doth warrant
The tenor of my book; trust not my age,

* What I have read.

My reverence, calling, nor divinity,

If this sweet lady lie not guiltless here
Under some biting error.

Leo.

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
Maintain❜d the change of words with any creature,
Refuse me, hate me, torture me to death.

Friar. There is some strange misprision 1 in the princes.

Ben. 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.

Leo. I know not: if they speak but truth of her. These hands shall tear her; if they wrong her honor,

Misconception.

2 The utmost degre