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Myself would on the rearward of reproaches

Strike at thy life. Griev'd I, I had but one?

Child 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 observation,

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.

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 accus'd 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 convers'd

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 in the princes.

Bene. Two of them have the very bent of honour;

And if their wisdoms be misled in this,

The practice of it lives in John the bastard,

Whose spirits toil in frame of villanies.

Leon. I know not. If they speak but truth of her,

These hands shall tear her. If they wrong her honour,

The proudest of them shall well hear of it.

Time hath not yet so dried this blood of mine,

Nor age so eat up my invention,

Nor fortune made such havoc of my means,

Nor my bad life reft me so much of friends,

But they shall find awak'd in such a kind

Both strength of limb and policy of mind,

Ability in means, and choice of friends,

To quit me of them throughly.

Friar. Pause awhile

And let my counsel sway you in this case.

Your daughter here the princes left for dead,

Let her awhile be secretly kept in,

And publish it that she is dead indeed;

Maintain a mourning ostentation,

And on your family's old monument

Hang mournful epitaphs, and do all rites

That appertain unto a burial.

Leon. What shall become of this? What will this do?

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 maintain'd,

Upon the instant that she was accus'd,

Shall be lamented, pitied, and excus'd

Of every hearer; for it so falls out

That what we have we prize not to the worth