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 +?
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.

* Lacivious.

+ 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 throughly.

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 rack† 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 lonely 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.

* While. + Over-rate.

+ By. § Ceremony.

ACT V.

COUNSEL OF NO WEIGHT IN MISERY.

I PRAY thee, cease thy counsel,

Which falls into mine ears as profitless
As water in a sieve: 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 woe 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 ; Scambling, out-facing, fashion-mong'ring boys, That lie, and cog, and flout, deprave and slander, Go anticly, and show outward hideousness, And speak off half a dozen dangerous words, How they might hurt their enemies, if they durst, And this is all.

VILLAIN TO BE NOTED.

Which is the villain? Let me see his eyes; That when I note another man like him,

I may avoid him.

DAYBREAK.

The wolves have prey'd; and look, the gentle day Before the wheels of Phoebus, round about Dapples the drowsy east with spots of gray.

Taming of the Shrew.

INDUCTION.

HOUNDS.

THY hounds shall make the welkin answer them,

And fetch shrill echoes from the hollow earth.

PAINTING.

Dost thou love pictures? we will fetch thee straight Adonis, painted by a running brook:

And Cytherea all in sedges hid;

Which seem to move and wanton with her breath, Even as the waving sedges play with wind.

H

ACT I.

WOMAN'S Tongue.

THINK you, a little din can daunt mine ears?
Have I not in my time heard lions roar?
Have I not heard the sea, puff'd up with winds,
Rage like an angry boar, chafed with sweat?
Have I not heard great ordnance in the field,
And heaven's artillery thunder in the skies?
Have I not in a pitched battle heard

Loud 'larums, neighing steeds, and trumpets' clang?
And do you tell me of a woman's tongue;
That gives not half so great a blow to the ear,
As will a chesnut in a farmer's fire?

ACT III.

A MAD WEDDING.

WHEN the priest

Should ask-if Katherine should be his wife,
Ay, by gogs-wouns, quoth he; and swore so loud,
That, all amaz'd, the priest let fall the book:
And, as he stoop'd again to take it up,

The mad-brain'd bridegroom took him such a cuff,
That down fell priest and book, and book and priest;
Now take them up, quoth he, if any list.

Tra. What said the wench, when he arose again? Gre. Trembled and shook; for why, he stamp'd As if the vicar meant to cozen him. [and swore, But after many ceremonies done, He calls for wine:-A health, quoth he; as if He had been aboard, carousing to his mates After a storm:-Quaff'd off the muscadel*, And threw the sops all in the sexton's face! Having no other reason,

But that his beard grew thin and hungerly,

It was the custom for the company present to drink wine immediately after the marriage ceremony.