Hieronimo.
['Tis[206] neither as you think, nor as you think,
Nor as you think: you are wide all:
These slippers are not mine, they were my son Horatio's.
My son! and what's a son?
A thing begot within a pair of minutes—thereabout:
A lump bred up in darkness, and doth serve
To balance those light creatures we call women:
And, at nine months' end, creeps forth to light.
What is there yet in a son,
To make a father doat, rave, or run mad?
Being born, it pouts, cries, and breeds teeth.
What is there yet in a son?
He must be fed, be taught to go, and speak:
Ay, or yet; why might not a man love a calf as well?
Or melt in passion o'er a striking kid, as for a son?
Methinks, a young bacon,
Or a fine little smooth horse colt,
Should move a man as much as doth a son;
For one of these, in very little time,
Will grow to some good use; whereas a son,
The more he grows in stature and in years,
The more unsquar'd, unbevelled[207] he appears,
Reckons his parents among the rank of fools,
Strikes care[208] upon their heads with his mad riots:
Makes them look old, before they meet with age.
This is a son; and what a loss were this, consider'd truly?
O, but my Horatio grew out of reach of those
Insatiate humours: he lov'd his loving parents;
He was my comfort and his mother's joy—
The very arm that did hold up our house:
Our hopes were stored up in him.
None but a damned murderer could hate him:
He had not seen the back of nineteen years,
When his strong arm unhors'd the proud Prince Balthazar;
And his great mind, too full of honour, took him to
Mercy that valiant but ignoble Portingal.[209]
Well, heaven is heaven still!
And there is Nemesis and furies,
And things call'd whips;
And they sometimes do meet with murderers:
They do not always escape, that's some comfort.
Ay, ay, ay, and then time steals on, and steals, and steals,
Till violence leaps forth, like thunder, wrapp'd
In a ball of fire,
And so doth bring confusion to them all.]
Good leave have you: I pray you go,
For I'll leave you, if you can leave me so.
2 Portingal.
Pray you, which is the next[210] way to my lord the duke's?
Hieronimo.
The next way from me.
2 Portingal.
To his house, we mean.
Hieronimo.