Page 1155 - Shakespeare - Vol. 3

DUKE

He shall know you better, sir, if I may live to report you.

LUCIO
I fear you not.

DUKE
O, you hope the Duke will return no more; or you imagine me too unhurtful
an opposite. But indeed, I can [155] do you little harm. You’ll forswear this

again?

LUCIO

I’ll be hanged first. Thou art deceived in me, friar. But no more of this. −
Canst thou tell if Claudio die tomorrow, or no?

DUKE
Why should he die, sir? [160]

LUCIO
Why? For filling a bottle with a tun-dish. I would the Duke we talk of were
returned again: this ungenitured agent will unpeople the province with

continency. Sparrows must not build is his house-eaves, because they are
lecherous. − The Duke yet would have dark deeds [165] darkly answered: he
would never bring them to light: would he were returned! Marry, this Claudio
is condemned for untrussing. − Farewell, good friar, I prithee pray for me.

The Duke, I say to thee again, would eat mutton on Fridays. He’s now past it;
yet, and I say to thee, he [170] would mouth with a beggar though she smelt
brown bread and garlic, say that I said so. Farewell.
Exit.

DUKE
No might nor greatness in mortality

Can censure ’scape. Back-wounding calumny
The whitest virtue strikes. What king so strong [175]
Can tie the gall up in the slanderous tongue?

But who comes here?

Enter [severally] Escalus; Provost, and [Officers with] Mistress Overdone.