Act 4 Flashcards
(381)
You come hither my lord, to marry this lady?
No.
If either of you know any inward impediment why you should not be conjoined, I charge you on your souls to utter it.
Know you any, Hero?
I dare make his answer none.
Stand thee by Friar. Father by your leave, will you with free and unconstrained soul give me this maid your daughter?
As freely son, as God did give her to me.
And what have I to give you back whose worth may counterpoise this rich and precious gift?
Nothing unless you render her again.
Sweet Prince, you learn me noble thankfulness. There, Leonato, take her back. 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 withal! Comes not that blood as modest evidence to witness simple virtue? Would you not swear, all that you 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.
What do you mean my lord?
Not to be married. Not to knit my soul to an approvéd wanton.
Dear my lord, if you in your own proof have vanquished the resistance of her youth and made defeat of her virginity
No Leonato, I never tempted her with word too large, but as a brother to his sister showed bashful sincerity and comely love.
And seemed I ever otherwise to you?
Out on thy seeming! I will write against it. You seem to me as Dian in her orb, as chasted as is the bud ere it be blown. But you are more intemperate in your blood than venus or those pampered animals that rage in savage sensuality.
True? O God!
Leonato, stand I here? Is this the Prince? Is this the Prince’s brother? Is this Hero’s face? Are our eyes our own?
All this is so. But what of it my lord?
Let me but move one question to your daughter, and by that fatherly and kindly power that you have in her, bid her to answer.
O God defend me! How am I beset! What kind of catechizing call you this?
To make you answer truly to your name.
Is it not Hero? Who can blot that name with any just reproach?
Marry that can Hero. Hero itself can blot out Hero’s virtue. What man was he talked with you yesternight out at your window betwixt twelve and one? Now if you are a maid, answer to this.
Fie fie, they are not to be named my lord, not to be spoke of. There is not chastity enough in language without offence to utter them. Thus, pretty lady, I am sorry for thy much misgovernment.
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 the gates of love, and on my eyelids shall conjecture hang to turn all beauty into thoughts of harm, and never shall it be more gracious.
