Act 3 — [Scene XIIa.][837]

Jaq. I wonder, Pedro, why our master thus At midnight sends us with our torches light, When man, and bird, and beast, are all at rest, Save those that watch for rape and bloody murder. Ped. O Jaques, know thou that our matter’s mind5 Is much distraught, since his Horatio died, And—now his aged years should sleep in rest, His heart in quiet—like a desperate man, Grows lunatic and childish for his son. Sometimes, as he doth at his table sit,10 He speaks as if Horatio stood by him; Then starting in a rage, falls on the earth, Cries out, “Horatio, where is my Horatio?” So that with extreme grief and cutting sorrow There is not left in him one inch of man:15 See, where he comes.

Hier. I pry through every crevice of each wall, Look on each tree, and search through every brake, Beat at the bushes, stamp our grandam earth, Dive in the water, and stare up to heaven,20 Yet cannot I behold my son Horatio— How now, who’s there? Spirits, spirits? Ped. We are your servants that attend you, sir. Hier. What make you with your torches in the dark? Ped. You bid us light them, and attend you here. Hier. No, no, you are deceiv’d! not I;—you are deceiv’d!25 Was I so mad to bid you light your torches now? Light me your torches at the mid of noon, When-as the sun-god rides in all his glory; Light me your torches then. Ped. Then we burn[839] daylight. Hier. Let it be burnt; Night is a murderous slut,31 That would not have her treasons to be seen; And yonder pale-fac’d Hecate there, the moon, Doth give consent to that is done in darkness; And all those stars that gaze upon her face,35 Are aglets[840] on her sleeve, pins on her train; And those that should be powerful and divine, Do sleep in darkness when they most should shine. Ped. Provoke them not, fair sir, with tempting words: The heav’ns are gracious, and your miseries40 And sorrow makes you speak you know not what. Hier. Villain, thou liest! and thou dost nought But tell me I am mad. Thou liest, I am not mad! I know thee to be Pedro, and he Jaques.44 I’ll prove it to thee: and were I mad, how could I? Where was she that same night when my Horatio Was murd’red? She should have shone: search thou the book. Had the moon shone, in my boy’s face there was a kind of grace, That I know—nay, I do know—had the murderer seen him,49 His weapon would have fall’n and cut the earth, Had he been fram’d of naught but blood and death. Alack! when mischief doth it knows not what, What shall we say to mischief?

Isab. Dear Hieronimo, come in a-doors; O, seek not means so to increase thy sorrow.55 Hier. Indeed, Isabella, we do nothing here; I do not cry: ask Pedro, and ask Jaques; Not I indeed; we are very merry, very merry. Isab. How? be merry here, be merry here? Is not this the place, and this the very tree,60 Where my Horatio died, where he was murdered? Hier. Was—do not say what: let her weep it out. This was the tree: I set it of a kernel: And when our hot Spain could not let it grow, But that the infant and the human sap65 Began to wither, duly twice a morning Would I be sprinkling it with fountain-water. At last it grew and grew, and bore and bore, Till at the length It grew a gallows, and did bear our son;70 It bore thy fruit and mine—O wicked, wicked plant! One knocks within at the door. See, who knocks there. Ped. It is a painter, sir. Hier. Bid him come in, and paint some comfort, For surely there’s none lives but painted comfort. Let him come in!—One knows not what may chance:75 God’s will that I should set this tree!—but even so Masters ungrateful servants rear from nought, And then they hate them that did bring them up.

Paint. God bless you, sir.79 Hier. Wherefore? Why, thou scornful villain? How, where, or by what means should I be bless’d? Isab. What wouldst thou have, good fellow? Paint. Justice, madam. Hier. O ambitious beggar! Wouldst thou have that that lives not in the world? Why, all the undelved mines cannot buy85 An ounce of justice! ’T is a jewel so inestimable. I tell thee, God hath engross’d all justice in his hands, And there is none but what comes from him. Paint. O, then I see That God must right me for my murd’red son.90 Hier. How, was thy son murdered? Paint. Ay, sir; no man did hold a son so dear. Hier. What, not as thine? That’s a lie, As massy as the earth. I had a son Whose least unvalued hair did weigh95 A thousand of thy sons: and he was murdered. Paint. Alas, sir. I had no more but he. Hier. Nor I, nor I: but this same one of mine Was worth a legion. But all is one. Pedro, Jaques, go in a-doors; Isabella, go,100 And this good fellow here and I Will range this hideous orchard up and down, Like to two lions reaved of their young. Go in a-doors, I say. [Exeunt. The painter and he sits down. Come, let’s talk wisely now. Was thy son murdered? Paint. Ay, sir. Hier. So was mine,105 How dost take it? Art thou not sometimes mad? Is there no tricks[841] that comes before thine eyes?