Hæmon: Antonio, speak! Where's innocence and where
Begins deceit?
Fulvia (to Hæmon aside): Ask it not, or you step
On waiting hazard and calamity.
Charles: New fret? and new confusion? In the blind
Power and passing of this night is there
Conspiracy?—plot of some here? or of
That One whose necromancy wields the world?
I care not!—I care not! We must have mirth!
Have mirth! though it be laughter at damned souls.
Hæmon: And I must wake it? I with laugh and lay,
Doting upon dishonor?
Charles: What means he?
Hæmon: Give me again my sister from these walls,
Since might is yours, strip from me wealth and life
And more, and all—but let her not, no, no,
Meet here the touch and leprosy of shame!
Charles (laughing): Said I not, said I, friends, we should have mirth?
You shall laugh with me laughter bright as wine.
Antonio: But, sir, this is not good for laughter! Sir!
Hæmon (to Antonio): Ah, put the lamb on—bleat mock sympathy!
Charles (still laughing): Fulvia, O, he foots it in the tracks
Of your own fear! and wanders to delusion!