SCENE II.

BEATRICE'S _chamber_.

_Enter_ BEATRICE _and_ CRISPINELLA.

_Bea._ Sister, cannot a woman kill herself? is it not lawful to die when we should not live?

_Cri._ O sister, 'tis a question not for us; we must do what God will.

_Bea._ What God will? Alas, can torment be His glory, or our grief His pleasure! Does not the nurse's nipple, juiced over with wormwood, bid the child it should not suck? And does not Heaven, when it hath made our breath bitter unto us, say we should not live? O my best sister, 10 To suffer wounds when one may 'scape this rod Is against nature, that is against God!

_Cri._ Good sister, Do not make me weep; sure Freevill was not false. I'll gage my life that strumpet, out of craft And some close second end, hath maliced[98] him.

_Bea._ O sister! if he were not false, whom have I lost? If he were, what grief to such unkindness! From head to foot I am all misery; Only in this, some justice I have found-- 20 My grief is like my love, beyond all bound.

_Enter_ NURSE.

_Nur._ My servant, Master Caqueteur, desires to visit you.

_Cri._ For grief's sake keep him out; his discourse is like the long word _Honorificabilitudinitatibus_,[99] a great deal of sound and no sense: his company is like a parenthesis to a discourse,--you may admit it, or leave it out, it makes no matter.

_Enter_ FREEVILL _in his disguise_.

_Free._ By your leave, sweet creatures.

_Cri._ Sir, all I can yet say of you is, you are uncivil.

_Free._ You must deny it. By your sorrow's leave, 31 I bring some music to make sweet your grief.

_Bea._ Whate'er you please. O break my heart! Canst thou yet pant? O dost thou yet survive? Thou didst not love him if thou now canst live!

FREEVILL _sings_.[100]

_O Love, how strangely sweet Are thy weak passions! That love and joy should meet In self-same fashions! O who can tell 40 The cause why this should move? But only this,-- No reason ask of Love!_

[BEATRICE _swounds_.[101]

_Cri._ Hold, peace!--the gentlest soul is sownd. O my best sister!

_Free._ Ha, get you gone, close the doors! My Beatrice!

[_Discovers himself._

Cursed be my indiscreet trials! O my immeasurably loving--

_Cri._ She stirs, give air, she breathes!

_Bea._ Where am I? Ha! how have I slipp'd off life? Am I in heaven? O my lord, though not loving, 51 By our eternal being, yet give me leave To rest by thy dear[102] side! Am I not in heaven?

_Free._ O eternally much loved,[103] recollect your spirits!

_Bea._ Ha, you do speak! I do see you, I do live! I would not die now: let me not burst with wonder.

_Free._ Call up your blood; I live to honour you As the admired glory of your sex. Nor ever hath my love been false to you; Only I presum'd to try your faith too much, 60 For which I most am grieved.

_Cri._ Brother, I must be plain with you, you have wrong'd us.

_Free._ I am not so covetous to deny it; But yet, when my discourse hath stay'd your quaking, You will be smoother lipp'd; and the delight And satisfaction which we all have got, Under these strange disguisings, when you know, You will be mild and quiet, forget at last: It is much joy to think on sorrows past.

_Bea._ Do you then live? and are you not untrue? 70 Let me not die with joy; pleasure's more extreme Than grief; there's nothing sweet to man but mean.

_Free._ Heaven cannot be too gracious to such goodness. I shall discourse to you the several chances; But hark, I must yet rest disguis'd; The sudden close of many drifts now meet: Where pleasure hath some profit, art is sweet.

_Enter_ TYSEFEW.

_Tyse._ News, news, news, news!

_Cri._ Oysters, oysters, oysters, oysters! 79

_Tyse._ Why, is not this well now? Is not this better than louring and pouting and puling, which is hateful to the living and vain to the dead? Come, come, you must live by the quick, when all is done; and for my own part, let my wife laugh at me when I am dead, so she'll smile upon me whilst I live: but to see a woman whine, and yet keep her eyes dry: mourn, and yet keep her cheeks fat: nay, to see a woman claw her husband by the feet when he is dead, that would have scratched him by the face when he was living--this now is somewhat ridiculous. 90

_Cri._ Lord, how you prate.

_Tyse._ And yet I was afraid, i'faith, that I should ha' seen a garland on this beauty's hearse; but time, truth, experience, and variety, are great doers with women.

_Cri._ But what's the news?--the news, I pray you?

_Tyse._ I pray you? ne'er pray me: for by your leave you may command me. This 'tis: The public sessions, which this day is past, Hath doom'd to death ill-fortuned Malheureux.

_Cri._ But, sir, we heard he offer'd to make good, 100 That Freevill lived at Shatewe's the jeweller's----

_Bea._ And that 'twas but a plot betwixt them two.

_Tyse._ O, ay, ay, he gaged his life with it; but know, When all approach'd the test, Shatewe[104] denied He saw or heard of any such complot, Or of Freevill; so that his own defence Appeared so false, that, like a madman's sword, He stroke his own heart; he hath the course of law, And instantly must suffer. But the jest (If hanging be a jest, as many make it) 110 Is to take notice of one Mulligrub, A sharking vintner.

_Free._ What of him, sir?

_Tyse._ Nothing but hanging: the whoreson slave is mad before he hath lost his senses.

_Free._ Was his fact[105] clear and made apparent, sir?

_Tyse._ No, faith, suspicious; for 'twas thus protested: A cloak was stol'n; that cloak he had; he had it, Himself confess'd, by force; the rest of his defence The choler of a justice wronged in wine, 120 Join'd with malignance of some hasty jurors, Whose wit was lighted by the justice' nose; The knave was cast. But, Lord, to hear his moan, his prayers, his wishes, His zeal ill-timèd, and his words unpitied, Would make a dead man rise and smile, Whilst he observed how fear can make men vile.

_Cri._ Shall we go meet the execution?

_Bea._ I shall be ruled by you.

_Tyse._ By my troth, a rare motion;[106] you must haste, For malefactors goes like the world, upon wheels. 130

_Bea._ Will you man us? You shall be our guide.

[_To_[107] FREEVILL.

_Free._ I am your servant.

_Tyse._ Ha, servant? Zounds, I am no companion for panders! you're best make him your love.

_Bea._ So will I, sir; we must live by the quick, you say.

_Tyse._ 'Sdeath o' virtue! what a damn'd thing's this! Who'll trust fair faces, tears, and vows? 'Sdeath! not I. She is a woman,--that is,--she can lie.

_Cri._ Come, come, turn not a man of time,[108] to make all ill Whose goodness you conceive not, since the worst of chance 140 Is to crave grace for heedless ignorance.

[_Exeunt._

[98] See note 1, p. 40. [Transcriber's Note: Footnote [44]]

[99] This word, which occurs in _Love's Labour Lost_ (and in several old plays), was invented long before Shakespeare's time. See Dyce's _Shakesp. Glossary_.

[100] So ed. 2.--Ed. 1. "_He sings, she sounds._"

[101] Swoons. (The stage direction is from ed. 2.)

[102] So ed. 1.--Ed. 2. "dead."

[103] Ed. 1. "laved."

[104] Ed. 1. "Shatews."

[105] Guilt.

[106] Proposal.

[107] The stage direction is printed as part of the text in old eds.

[108] The text seems to be corrupt.