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 honor,
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.
D. John.
Fie, fie, they are not to be named, my lord,
Not to be spoke of;
There is not chastity enough in language
Without offense 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 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 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?
[Hero swoons.]
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.
[Exeunt Don Pedro, Don John, and Claudio.]
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.
How now, cousin Hero?
Friar.
Have comfort, lady.
Leon.
Dost thou look up?
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. Griev’d 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 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 fall’n
Into a pit of ink, that the wide sea
Hath drops too few to wash her clean again,
And salt too little which may season give
To her foul tainted flesh!
Bene.
Sir, sir, be patient.
For my part I am so attir’d in wonder,
I know not what to say.
Beat.
O, on my soul, my cousin is belied!
Bene.
Lady, were you her bedfellow last night?
Beat.
No, truly, not, although until last night,
I have this twelvemonth been her bedfellow.
Leon.
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 lov’d 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
To start into her face, a thousand innocent shames
In angel whiteness beat 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 seal doth warrant
The tenure of my book; trust not my age,
My reverence, calling, nor divinity,
If this sweet lady lie not guiltless here
Under some biting error.