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 will 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 a these men.
VERG. And we must do it wisely.

DOGB. We will spare for no wit, I warrant you; here's that [touching his forehead] 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.

Examination, in the quarto. In the folio, examine.

[Exeunt.

Enter DON PEDRO, DON JOHN, LEONATO, Friar, CLAUDIO, BENEDICK, HERO,

and BEATRICE, &c.

LEON. Come, friar Francis, be brief; only to the plain form of marriage, and

you shall recount their particular duties afterwards.

FRIAR. You come hither, my lord, to marry this lady?

CLAUD. NO.

LEON. To be married to her: friar, you come to marry her a.

We follow the punctuation of the original. The meaning is destroyed by the modern mode of pointing the passage,

"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.

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 a!]

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,
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;

The words in brackets are not in the folio, but in the quarto.
Shakspere had not forgotten his Accidence.

But, as a brother to his sister, show'd

Bashful sincerity, and comely love.

HERO. And seem'd I ever otherwise to you?

CLAUD. Out on the seeminga! 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 b?

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?
D. 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, 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 talk'd with you yesternight

Out at your window, betwixt twelve and one?

In the originals, both the quarto and folio, we have "Out on thee seeming." Pope changed this phrase into "Out on thy seeming." We believe that the poet used "Out on the seeming"the specious resemblance—“ I will write against it”—that is, against this false representation, along with this deceiving portrait,

"You seem to me as Dian in her orb," &c.

The commentators separate "I will write against it" from what follows, as if Claudio were about to compose a treatise upon the subject of woman's deceitfulness.

Tieck proposes to give this line to Claudio, who thus calls upon the prince to confirm his declaration.

So the folio; in the quarto, do so. The pause which is required after the do, by the omission of so, gives force to the command.

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 a villain,
Confess'd the vile encounters they have had
A thousand times in secret.

Not to be nam'd, my lord, not to be spoken of;
There is not chastity enough in language,
Without offence, to utter them: Thus, 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 plac'd
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 eyelids 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?

BEAT. Why, how now, cousin? wherefore sink you down?

D. JOHN. Come, let us go: these things, come thus to light,

Smother her spirits up.

BENE. How doth the lady?

BEAT.

[HERO Swoons.

[Exeunt DON PEDRO, DON JOHN, and CLAUDIO.

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.

LEON. Dost thou look up?

How now, cousin Hero?

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,

• Liberal-licentiously free. So in Othello:'-" Is he not a most profane and liberal counsellor ?"