Page 1418 - Shakespeare - Vol. 2

ACT V IT

Scene I IT

Enter Leonato and his brother Antonio.

ANTONIO
If you go on thus, you will kill yourself;
And ’tis not wisdom thus to second grief
Against yourself.

LEONATO
I pray thee, cease thy counsel,

Which falls into mine ears as profitless
As water in a sieve. Give not me counsel, [5]
Nor let no comforter delight mine ear
But such a one whose wrongs do suit with mine.

Bring me a father that so loved his child,
Whose joy of her is overwhelmed like mine,
And bid him speak of patience; [10]
Measure his woe the length and breadth of mine,

And let it answer every strain for strain,
And 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, [15]

And, sorry wag, cry ‘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 [20]
Can counsel and speak comfort to that grief
Which they themselves not feel; but, tasting it,
Their counsel turns to passion, which before