SCENE III.
A Church.
Enter Don Pedro, Claudio, and Attendants with music and tapers.
Claud.
Is this the monument of Leonato?
Atten.
It is my lord.
Claudio reads.
Done to death 9Q0247 by slanderous tongues
Was the Hero, that here lies:
Death, in guerdon of her wrongs,
Gives her fame which never dies:
So the life, that dy'd with shame,
Lives in death with glorious fame.
Hang thou there upon the tomb,
Praising her when I am dumb.—
Now musick sound, and sing your solemn hymn.
SONG.
Pardon, Goddess of the night,
Those that slew thy virgin knight7 note
;
-- 368 --
For the which, with songs of woe,
Round about her tomb they go.
Midnight, assist our moan;
Help us to sigh and groan,
Heavily, heavily:
Graves, yawn and yield your dead,
Till death be uttered,
Heavily, heavily.
Claud.
Now, unto thy bones good night!
Yearly will I do this rite.
Pedro.
Good morrow, masters; put your torches out:
The wolves have prey'd; and look, the gentle day,
Before the wheels of Phœbus, round about
Dapples the drowsy east with spots of grey:
Thanks to you all, and leave us; fare you well.
Claud.
Good morrow, masters; each his several way.
Pedro.
Come, let us hence, and put on other weeds;
And then to Leonato's we will go.
Claud.
And Hymen now with luckier issue speed's6 note
,
Than this, for whom we render'd up this woe!
[Exeunt.
-- 369 --
Samuel Johnson [1778], The plays of William Shakspeare. In ten volumes. With the corrections and illustrations of various commentators; to which are added notes by Samuel Johnson and George Steevens. The second edition, Revised and Augmented (Printed for C. Bathurst [and] W. Strahan [etc.], London) [word count] [S10901].
