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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.t

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, ! can bear them witness: and virtuous;-'tis so, I + Passion.

Once for all.
Seriously carried on.

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?t
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 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 too 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
THEIR LOSS.

For it so falls out,

That what we have we prize not to the worth,
Whiles* we enjoy it; but being lack'd and lost,
Why, then we racks 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 upont his words,
The idea of her life shall sweetly creep
Into his study of imagination;

And every lovely organ of her life

Shall come apparell'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

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As water in a seive; give not me counsel;
Nor let no comforter delight mine ear,

But such a one whose wrongs do suit with mine.
Bring me a father, that so lov'd his child,
Whose joy of her is overwhelm'd like mine,
And bid him speak of patience;

Measure his wo the length and breadth of mine,
And let it answer every strain for strain;
As thus for thus, and such a grief for such,
In every lineament, branch, shape and form:
If such a one will smile, and stroke his beard;
Cry-sorrow, wag! and hem, when he should groan
Patch grief with proverbs; make misfortune drunk
With candle-wasters; bring him yet to me,
And I of him will gather patience.

But there is no such man: For, brother, men
Can counsel, and speak comfort to that grief
Which they themselves not feel; but, tasting it,
Their counsel turns to passion, which before
Would give preceptial medicine to rage,
Fetter strong madness in a silken thread,
Charm ach with air, and agony with words:
No, no; 'tis all men's office to speak patience
To those that wring under the load of sorrow
But no man's virtue, nor sufficiency,

To be so moral, when he shall endure
The like himself: therefore give me no counsel,
My griefs cry louder than advertisement.

SATIRE ON THE STOIC PHILOSOPHERS.

I pray thee, peace: I will be flesh and blood;
For there was never yet philosopher,
That could endure the tooth-ach patiently;
However they have writ the style of gods
And made a pish at chance and sufferance.

TALKING BRAGGARTS.

Hold you content: What man! I know them, yea. And what they weigh, even to the utmost scruple Scrambling, out-facing, fashion-mong'ring boys, That lie, and cog, and flout, deprave and slander, Go antickly, and show outward hideousness.

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