Than to drive liking to the name of love;
But now I am return'd, and that war-thoughts
Have left their places vacant; in their rooms
Come thronging soft and delicate desires,
All prompting me how fair young Hero is,
Saying, I lik'd her ere I went to wars."
In the scene at the altar, when Claudio, urged on by the villain Don John, brings the charge of incontinence against her, and as it were divorces her in the very marriagecceremony, her appeals to her own conscious innocence and honour are made with the most affecting simplicity.
"Claudio. No, Leonato,
I never tempted her with word too large,
But, as a brother to his sister, shew'd
Bashful sincerity, and comely love.
Hero. And seem'd I ever otherwise to you?
Claudio. Out on thy seeming, I will write against it:
You seem to me as Dian in her orb,
As chaste as is the bud ere it be blown;
But you are more intemperate in your blood
Than Venus, or those pamper'd animals
That rage in savage sensuality.
Hero. Is my lord well, that he doth speak so wide?
Leonato. Are these things spoken, or do I but dream?
John. Sir, they are spoken, and these things are true.
Benedick. This looks not like a nuptial.
Hero. True! O God!"—
The justification of Hero in the end, and her restoration to the confidence and arms of her
