Act 4 - Scene 4

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_ ACT IV - SCENE IV

[Enter, at several doors, BENVOLIO, FREDERICK, and MARTINO, their heads and faces bloody, and besmeared with mud and dirt; all having horns on their heads.]

[Footnote 193: these: So 4to 1616.--2tos 1624, 1631, "the."]

[Footnote 194: the door: i.e. the stage-door,--the writer here addressing himself to THE ACTOR only, for the scene lies in a wood.]

MARTINO.
What, ho, Benvolio!

BENVOLIO.
Here.--What, Frederick, ho!

FREDERICK.
O, help me, gentle friend!--Where is Martino?

MARTINO.
Dear Frederick, here,
Half smother'd in a lake of mud and dirt,
Through which the Furies dragg'd me by the heels.

FREDERICK.
Martino, see, Benvolio's horns again!

MARTINO.
O, misery!--How now, Benvolio!

BENVOLIO.
Defend me, heaven! shall I be haunted still?

MARTINO.
Nay, fear not, man; we have no power to kill.

BENVOLIO.
My friends transformed thus! O, hellish spite!
Your heads are all set with horns.

FREDERICK.
You hit it right;
It is your own you mean; feel on your head.

BENVOLIO.
Zounds, [195] horns again!

MARTINO.
Nay, chafe not, man; we all are [196] sped.

[Footnote 195: Zounds: So 4tos 1624, 1631.--2to 1616, "Zons."]

[Footnote 196: all are: So 4to 1616.--2tos 1624, 1631, "are all."]

BENVOLIO.
What devil attends this damn'd magician,
That, spite of spite, our wrongs are doubled?

FREDERICK.
What may we do, that we may hide our shames?

BENVOLIO.
If we should follow him to work revenge,
He'd join long asses' ears to these huge horns,
And make us laughing-stocks to all the world.

MARTINO.
What shall we, then, do, dear Benvolio?

BENVOLIO.
I have a castle joining near these woods;
And thither we'll repair, and live obscure,
Till time shall alter these [197] our brutish shapes:
Sith black disgrace hath thus eclips'd our fame,
We'll rather die with grief than live with shame.

[Exeunt.]

[Footnote 197: these: So 4tos 1624, 1631.--2to 1616 "this."] _

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