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Much Ado About Nothing, Act 4, Scene 1

Hero is shamed at the altar · William Shakespeare
Every note, for your class

SCENE I. The Inside of a Church.

Enter Don Pedro, Don John, Leonato, Friar Francis, Claudio, Benedick, Hero, Beatrice &c.
LEONATO
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?
CLAUDIO
No.
LEONATO
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.
CLAUDIO
Know you any, Hero?
HERO
None, my lord.
FRIAR
Know you any, Count?
LEONATO
I dare make his answer; none.
CLAUDIO
O! what men dare do! what men may do! what men daily do, not knowing what they do!
BENEDICK
How now! Interjections? Why then, some be of laughing, as ah! ha! he!
CLAUDIO
Stand thee by, Friar. Father, by your leave:Will you with free and unconstrained soulGive me this maid, your daughter?
LEONATO
As freely, son, as God did give her me.
CLAUDIO
And what have I to give you back whose worthMay counterpoise this rich and precious gift?
DON PEDRO
Nothing, unless you render her again.
CLAUDIO
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 truthCan cunning sin cover itself withal.Comes not that blood as modest evidenceTo 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.
LEONATO
What do you mean, my lord?
CLAUDIO
Not to be married,Not to knit my soul to an approved wanton.
LEONATO
Dear my lord, if you, in your own proof,Have vanquish’d the resistance of her youth,And made defeat of her virginity,—
CLAUDIO
I know what you would say: if I have known her,You will 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 show’dBashful sincerity and comely love.
HERO
And seem’d I ever otherwise to you?
CLAUDIO
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 bloodThan Venus, or those pamper’d animalsThat rage in savage sensuality.
HERO
Is my lord well, that he doth speak so wide?
LEONATO
Sweet Prince, why speak not you?
DON PEDRO
What should I speak?I stand dishonour’d, that have gone aboutTo link my dear friend to a common stalea decoy used to lure or entrap someone..
LEONATO
Are these things spoken, or do I but dream?
DON JOHN
Sir, they are spoken, and these things are true.
BENEDICK
This looks not like a nuptial.
HERO
True! O God!
CLAUDIO
Leonato, stand I here?Is this the Prince? Is this the Prince’s brother?Is this face Hero’s? Are our eyes our own?
LEONATO
All this is so; but what of this, my lord?
CLAUDIO
Let me but move one question to your daughter,And by that fatherly and kindly powerThat you have in her, bid her answer truly.
LEONATO
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?
CLAUDIO
To make you answer truly to your name.
HERO
Is it not Hero? Who can blot that nameWith any just reproach?
CLAUDIO
Marry, that can Hero:Hero itself can blot out Hero’s virtue.What man was he talk’d with you yesternightOut 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.
DON PEDRO
Why, then are you no maiden.Leonato, I am sorry you must hear: upon my 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 hadA thousand times in secret.
DON JOHN
Fie, fie! they are not to be nam’d, my lord,Not to be spoke of;There is not chastity enough in languageWithout offence to utter them. Thus, pretty lady,I am sorry for thy much misgovernment.
CLAUDIO
O Hero! what a Hero hadst thou been,If half thy outward graces had been plac’dAbout 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.
LEONATO
Hath no man’s dagger here a point for me?
Hero swoons.
BEATRICE
Why, how now, cousin! wherefore sink you down?
DON JOHN
Come, let us go. These things, come thus to light,Smother her spirits up.
Exeunt Don Pedro, Don John and Claudio.
BENEDICK
How doth the lady?
BEATRICE
Dead, I think! Help, uncle! Hero! why, Hero! Uncle! Signior Benedick! Friar!
LEONATO
O Fate! take not away thy heavy hand:Death is the fairest cover for her shameThat may be wish’d for.
BEATRICE
How now, cousin Hero?
FRIAR
Have comfort, lady.
LEONATO
Dost thou look up?
FRIAR
Yea; wherefore should she not?
LEONATO
Wherefore! Why, doth not every earthly thingCry shame upon her? Could she here denyThe 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 handTook 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 muchThat I myself was to myself not mine,Valuing of her; why, she—O! she is fallenInto a pit of ink, that the wide seaHath drops too few to wash her clean again,And salt too little which may season giveTo her foul tainted flesh.
BENEDICK
Sir, sir, be patient.For my part, I am so attir’d in wonder,I know not what to say.
BEATRICE
O! on my soul, my cousin is belied!
BENEDICK
Lady, were you her bedfellow last night?
BEATRICE
No, truly, not; although, until last night,I have this twelvemonth been her bedfellow.
LEONATO
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’dA thousand blushing apparitionsTo start into her face; a thousand innocent shamesIn angel whiteness bear away those blushes;And in her eye there hath appear’d a fire,To burn the errors that these princes holdAgainst her maiden truth. Call me a fool;Trust not my reading nor my observations,Which with experimental seal doth warrantThe tenure of my book; trust not my age,My reverence, calling, nor divinity,If this sweet lady lie not guiltless hereUnder some biting error.
LEONATO
Friar, it cannot be.Thou seest that all the grace that she hath leftIs that she will not add to her damnationA sin of perjury: she not denies it.Why seek’st thou then to cover with excuseThat 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 aliveThan that which maiden modesty doth warrant,Let all my sins lack mercy! O, my father!Prove you that any man with me convers’dAt hours unmeet, or that I yesternightMaintain’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.
BENEDICK
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 villainies.
LEONATO
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 monumentHang mournful epitaphs and do all ritesThat appertain unto a burial.
LEONATO
What shall become of this? What will this do?
FRIAR
Marry, this well carried shall on her behalfChange 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’dOf every hearer; for it so falls outThat what we have we prize not to the worthWhiles we enjoy it, but being lack’d and lost,Why, then we rack the value, then we findThe virtue that possession would not show usWhiles it was ours. So will it fare with Claudio:When he shall hear she died upon his words,The idea of her life shall sweetly creepInto his study of imagination,And every lovely organ of her lifeShall come apparell’d in more precious habit,More moving, delicate, and full of lifeInto the eye and prospect of his soul,Than when she liv’d indeed: then shall he mourn,—If ever love had interest in his liver,—And wish he had not so accused her,No, though he thought his accusation true.Let this be so, and doubt not but successWill fashion the event in better shapeThan I can lay it down in likelihood.But if all aim but this be levell’d false,The supposition of the lady’s deathWill quench the wonder of her infamy:And if it sort not well, you may conceal her,—As best befits her wounded reputation,—In some reclusive and religious life,Out of all eyes, tongues, minds, and injuries.
BENEDICK
Signior Leonato, let the friar advise you:And though you know my inwardness and loveIs very much unto the Prince and Claudio,Yet, by mine honour, I will deal in thisAs secretly and justly as your soulShould with your body.
LEONATO
Being that I flow in grief,The smallest twine may lead me.
FRIAR
’Tis well consented: presently away;For to strange sores strangely they strain the cure.Come, lady, die to live: this wedding dayPerhaps is but prolong’d: have patience and endure.
Exeunt Friar, Hero and Leonato.
BENEDICK
Lady Beatrice, have you wept all this while?
BEATRICE
Yea, and I will weep a while longer.
BENEDICK
I will not desire that.
BEATRICE
You have no reason; I do it freely.
BENEDICK
Surely I do believe your fair cousin is wronged.
BEATRICE
Ah! how much might the man deserve of me that would right her.
BENEDICK
Is there any way to show such friendship?
BEATRICE
A very even way, but no such friend.
BENEDICK
May a man do it?
BEATRICE
It is a man’s office, but not yours.
BENEDICK
I do love nothing in the world so well as you: is not that strange?
BEATRICE
As strange as the thing I know not. It were as possible for me to say I loved nothing so well as you; but believe me not, and yet I lie not; I confess nothing, nor I deny nothing. I am sorry for my cousin.
BENEDICK
By my sword, Beatrice, thou lovest me.
BEATRICE
Do not swear by it, and eat it.
BENEDICK
I will swear by it that you love me; and I will make him eat it that says I love not you.
BEATRICE
Will you not eat your word?
BENEDICK
With no sauce that can be devised to it. I protest I love thee.
BEATRICE
Why then, God forgive me!
BENEDICK
What offence, sweet Beatrice?
BEATRICE
You have stayed me in a happy hour: I was about to protest I loved you.
BENEDICK
And do it with all thy heart.
BEATRICE
I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest.
BENEDICK
Come, bid me do anything for thee.
BEATRICE
Kill Claudio.
BENEDICK
Ha! not for the wide world.
BEATRICE
You kill me to deny it. Farewell.
BENEDICK
Tarry, sweet Beatrice.
BEATRICE
I am gone, though I am here: there is no love in you: nay, I pray you, let me go.
BENEDICK
Beatrice,—
BEATRICE
In faith, I will go.
BENEDICK
We’ll be friends first.
BEATRICE
You dare easier be friends with me than fight with mine enemy.
BENEDICK
Is Claudio thine enemy?
BEATRICE
Is he not approved in the height a villain, that hath slandered, scorned, dishonoured my kinswoman? O! that I were a man. What! bear her in hand until they come to take hands, and then, with public accusation, uncovered slander, unmitigated rancour,—O God, that I were a man! I would eat his heart in the market-place.
BENEDICK
Hear me, Beatrice,—
BEATRICE
Talk with a man out at a window! a proper saying!
BENEDICK
Nay, but Beatrice,—
BEATRICE
Sweet Hero! she is wronged, she is slandered, she is undone.
BENEDICK
Beat—
BEATRICE
Princes and Counties! Surely, a princely testimony, a goodly Count Comfect; a sweet gallant, surely! O! that I were a man for his sake, or that I had any friend would be a man for my sake! But manhood is melted into curtsies, valour into compliment, and men are only turned into tongue, and trim ones too: he is now as valiant as Hercules, that only tells a lie and swears it. I cannot be a man with wishing, therefore I will die a woman with grieving.
BENEDICK
Tarry, good Beatrice. By this hand, I love thee.
BEATRICE
Use it for my love some other way than swearing by it.
BENEDICK
Think you in your soul the Count Claudio hath wronged Hero?
BEATRICE
Yea, as sure is I have a thought or a soul.
BENEDICK
Enough! I am engaged, I will challenge him. I will kiss your hand, and so leave you. By this hand, Claudio shall render me a dear account. As you hear of me, so think of me. Go, comfort your cousin: I must say she is dead; and so, farewell.
Exeunt.