Duke. He shall know you better, sir, if I may live to report you.
Lucio. I fear you not.
155 Duke. O, you hope the Duke will return no more; or you imagine me too unhurtful an opposite. But, indeed, I can do you [little] harm; you’ll forswear this [again].
Lucio. I’ll be hanged first: thou art deceived in me, friar. But no more of this. Canst thou tell if Claudio die 160 to-morrow or no?
Duke. Why should he die, sir?
Lucio. Why? For filling a bottle with a tun-dish. I would the Duke we talk of were returned again: this ungenitured agent will unpeople the province with continency; 165 sparrows must not build in his house-eaves, because they are lecherous. The Duke yet would have dark deeds darkly answered; he would never bring them to light: would he were returned! Marry, [this Claudio] is condemned for untrussing. Farewell, good friar: I prithee, pray for 170 me. The Duke, I say to thee again, would eat mutton on Fridays. [He’s not past it yet], and I say to thee, he would mouth with a beggar, though she [smelt] brown bread and garlic: say that I [said] so. Farewell. Exit.
Duke. No might nor greatness in mortality
III. 2
175 Can censure ’scape; back-wounding calumny
The whitest virtue strikes. What king so strong
Can tie the gall up in the slanderous tongue?