LEONATO.
Tush, tush, man! never fleer and jest at me:
I speak not like a dotard nor a fool,
As, under privilege of age, to brag
What I have done being young, or what would do,
Were I not old. Know, Claudio, to thy head,
Thou hast so wrong’d mine innocent child and me
That I am forc’d to lay my reverence by,
And, with grey hairs and bruise of many days,
Do challenge thee to trial of a man.
I say thou hast belied mine innocent child:
Thy slander hath gone through and through her heart,
And she lies buried with her ancestors;
O! in a tomb where never scandal slept,
Save this of hers, fram’d by thy villainy!
CLAUDIO.
My villainy?
LEONATO.
Thine, Claudio; thine, I say.
DON PEDRO.
You say not right, old man.
LEONATO.
My lord, my lord,
I’ll prove it on his body, if he dare,
Despite his nice fence and his active practice,
His May of youth and bloom of lustihood.
CLAUDIO.
Away! I will not have to do with you.
LEONATO.
Canst thou so daff me? Thou hast kill’d my child;
If thou kill’st me, boy, thou shalt kill a man.
ANTONIO.
He shall kill two of us, and men indeed:
But that’s no matter; let him kill one first:
Win me and wear me; let him answer me.
Come, follow me, boy; come, sir boy, come, follow me.
Sir boy, I’ll whip you from your foining fence;
Nay, as I am a gentleman, I will.
LEONATO.
Brother,—
ANTONIO.
Content yourself. God knows I lov’d my niece;
And she is dead, slander’d to death by villains,
That dare as well answer a man indeed
As I dare take a serpent by the tongue.
Boys, apes, braggarts, Jacks, milksops!