Out of this silence, yet, I pick'd a welcome;
And in the modesty of fearful duty
I read as much, as from the rattling tongue
Of saucy and audacious eloquence.

TIME.

The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve,

NIGHT.

Now the hungry lion roars,

And the wolf behowls the moon;
Whilst the heavy ploughman snores,
All with weary task fordone.*
Now the wasted brands do glow,
Whilst the scritch-owl, scritching loud,
Puts the wretch that lies in wo,
In remembrance of a shroud.

Now it is the time of night,
That the graves, all gaping wide,
Every one lets forth his sprite,
In the church-way paths to glide.

(

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.

ACT I.

PEACE INSPIRES LOVE.

BUT now I am return'd, and that war-thoughts Have left their places vacant, in their rooms Come thronging soft and delicate desires, All prompting me how fair young Hero is.

D. Pedro. Thou wilt be like a lover presently, And tire the hearer with a book of words: If thou dost love fair Hero, cherish it; And I will break with her, and with her father, And thou shalt have her: Was't not to this end, That thou began'st to twist so fine a story?

Claud. How sweetly do you minister to love, * Overcome.

That know love's grief by his complexion!
But lest my liking might too sudden seem,
I would have salv'd it with a longer treatise.

D. Pedro. What need the bridge much broader than the flood?

The fairest grant is the necessity:

Look, what will serve, is fit: 'tis once,* thou lov'st;
And I will fit thee with the remedy.
I know we shall have revelling to-night;
I will assume thy part in some disguise,
And tell fair Hero I am Claudio;

And in her bosom I'll unclasp my heart.

ACT II.

FRIENDSHIP IN LOVE.

Friendship is constant in all other things,

Save in the office and affairs of love:
Therefore, all hearts in love use their own tongues;
Let every eye negotiate for itself,
And trust no agent: for beauty is a witch,
Against whose charms faith melteth into blood.†

MERIT ALWAYS MODEST.

It is the witness still of excellency,

To put a strange face on his own perfection.

BENEDICT THE BACHELOR'S RECANTATION. This can be no trick: The conference was sadly borne. They have the truth of this from Hero. They seem to pity the lady; it seems, her affections have their full bent. Love me! why it must be requited. I hear how I am censured: they say, I will bear myself proudly, if I perceive the love come from her; they say too, that she will rather die than give any sign of affection. I did never think to marry:-I must not seem proud:-Happy are they that hear their detractions, and can put them to mending. They say, the lady is fair; 'tis a truth, I can bear them witness: and virtuous;-'tis so, I

cannot reprove it; and wise, but for loving me:-By my troth, it is no addition to her wit;-nor no great argument of her folly, for I will be horribly in love with her. I may chance have some odd quirks and remnants of wit broken on me, because I have railed so long against marriage:-But doth not the appetite alter? A man loves the meat in his youth, that he cannot endure in his age: Shall quips, and sentences, and these paper bullets of the brain, awe a man from the career of his humour? No: the world must be peopled. When I said, I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married.Here comes Beatrice: by this day, she's a fair lady: I do spy some marks of love in her..

ACT III.

FAVOURITES COMPARED TO HONEYSUCKLES.

Bid her steal into the pleached bower, Where honeysuckles, ripen'd by the sun, Forbid the sun to enter;-like favourites, Made proud by princes, that advance their pride, Against that power that bred it.

A SCORNFUL AND SATIRICAL BEAUTY.

Disdain and scorn ride sparkling in her eyes,
Misprising what they look on; and her wit
Values itself so highly, that to her

All matter else seems weak: she cannot love,
Nor take no shape nor project of affection,
She is so self-endeared.

I never yet saw man,

How wise, how noble, young, how rarely featur'd,
But she would spell him backward: if fair-faced,
She'd swear the gentleman should be her sister:
If black, why, nature, drawing of an antic,
Made a foul blot: if tall, a lance ill-headed:
If low, an agate very vilely cut:

If speaking, why, a vane blown with all wind:
If silent, why a block moved with none.
So turns she every man the wrong side out;

* Undervaluing

And never gives to truth and virtue, that
Which simpleness and merit purchaseth.

ACT IV.

DISSIMULATION.

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.

A FATHER LAMENTING HIS DAUGHTER'S INFAMY.
Griev'd I, I had but one?

Chid I for that at frugal nature's frame?f
0, 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 mired 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 fallen
Into a pit of ink! that the wide sea

Hath drops tod few to wash her clean again.

INNOCENCE DISCOVERED BY THE COUNTENANCE.
I have mark'd

A thousand blushing apparitions start
Into her face; a thousand innocent shames
In angel whiteness bear 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.

* Lascivious. † Disposition of things. Sullied.

!

RESOLUTION.

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 thoroughly.

THE DESIRE OF BELOVED OBJECTS HEIGHTENED BY

For it so falls out,

THEIR LOSS.

That what we have we prize not to the worth,
Whiles* we enjoy it; but being lack'd and lost,
Why, then we rackt the value; then we find
The virtue, that possession would not show us
Whiles 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 creep
Into his study of imagination;
And every lovely organ of her life
Shall come appareil'd in more precious habit,
More moving-delicate, and full of life,
Into the eye and prospect of his soul,
Than when she liv'd indeed.

TALKING BRAGGARTS.

But manhood is melted into courtesies, § 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.

ACT V.

COUNSEL OF NO WEIGHT IN MISERY.

I pray thee, cease thy counsel, Which falls into mine ears as profitless † Over-rate. ‡ By.

§ Ceremony