Beatrice Character Analysis

BEATRICE: Be better advised, sir:
Our eyes are sentinels unto our judgments
And should give certain judgment what they see;
But they are rash sometimes, and tell us wonders
Of common things, which when our judgments find,
They can then check the eyes, and call them blind.

LOLLIO: Yes, sir, for every part has his hour: we wake at six and look about us, that’s eye-hour; at seven we should pray, that's knee-hour; at eight walk, that's leg-hour; at nine gather flowers and pluck a rose, that's nose-hour; at ten we drink, that’s mouth-hour; at eleven lay about us for victuals, that’s hand-hour; at twelve go to dinner, that’s belly-hour.

BEATRICE: Methinks I love now with the eyes of judgment
And see the way to merit, clearly see it.
A true deserver like a diamond sparkles,
In darkness you may see him, that’s in absence,
Which is the greatest darkness falls on love;
Ye he is best discern’d then
With intellectual eyesight.

ALONZO: I should depart
An enemy, a dangerous, deadly one
To any but thyself, that should but think
She knew the meaning of inconstancy,
Much less the use practice; yet w’are friends.
Pray let no more be urg’d; I can endure
Much, till I meet an injury to her,
Then I am not myself. Farewell, sweet brother.
How much we are bound to heaven to depart lovingly.
Exit.

TOMAZO: Why, here is love's tame madness; thus a man
Quickly steals into his vexation.

LOLLIO: This is easy, sir, I’ll warrant you: you have about you fools and madmen that can dance very well; and ‘tis no wonder, your best dancers are not the wisest men; the reason is, with often jumping they jolt their brains down into their feet, that their wits lie more in their heels than their heads […]

ISABELLA: Y’have a fine trade on’t,
Madmen and fools are a staple commodity.

ALIBIUS: O wife, we must eat, wear clothes, and live;
Just at the lawyer’s haven we arrive,
By madmen and fools we both do thrive.

BEATRICE: Look you, sir, here’s three thousand golden florins:
I have not meanly thought upon thy merit.

DEFLORES: What, salary? Now you move me […]
Do you place me in the rank of verminous fellows,
To destroy things for wages? Offer gold?
The life blood of man! Is anything
Valued too precious for my recompense?

BEATRICE: I understand thee not.

DEFLORES: I could ha’ hir’d
A journeyman murder in this rate,
And mine own conscience might have slept at ease
And have had the work brought home.

BEATRICE [Aside]: I’m in a labyrinth;
What will content him? I would be rid of him.—
I’ll double the sum, sir.

DEFLORES: Look but into your conscience, read me there,
‘Tis a true book, you'll find me there your equal.
Push! Fly not to your birth, but settle you
In what the act has made you, y’are no more now;
You must forget your parentage to me:
Y’are the deed’s creature; by that name
You lost your first condition, and I challenge you,
As peace and innocency has turn’d you out, and made you one with me […]
Though thou writ’st made, thou whore in thy affection!
‘Twas changed from thy first love, and that's a kind
Of whoredom in thy heart.

BEATRICE: Vengeance begins;
Murder I see is followed by more sins.
Was my creation in the womb so curs’d,
It must engender with a viper first?

DIAPHANTA: Are you serious still? Would you resign
Your first night’s pleasure, and give money too?

BEATRICE: As willingly as live. [Aside.] Alas, the gold
Is but a by-bet to wedge in the honor […]
Y’are too quick, I fear, to be a maid.

DIAPHANTA: How? Not a maid? Nay, then you urge me, madam;
Your honorable self is not a truer
With all your fears upon you—

BEATRICE [Aside.]: Bad enough then.

DIAPHANTA: Than I with all my lightsome joys about me.

ALSEMERO [Aside.]: Push, modesty’s shrine is set in yonder forehead.
I cannot be too sure though.—My Joanna!

[VOICE] (within): Fire, fire, fire!

BEATRICE: Already? How rare is that man’s speed!
How heartily he serves me! His face loathes one,
But look upon his care, who would not love him?
The east is not more beauteous than his service.

[VOICE] (within): Fire, fire, fire!

BEATRICE: ‘Tis innocence that smiles, and no rough brow
Can take away the dimple in her cheek.
Say I should strain a tear to fill the vault,
Which would you give the better faith to?

ALSEMERO: ‘Twere but hypocrisy of a sadder colour,
But the same stuff; neither your smiles nor tears
Shall move or flatter me from my belief:
You are a whore!

BEATRICE: What a horrid sound it hath!
It blasts a beauty to deformity;
Upon what face soever that breath falls,
It strikes it ugly. O you have ruin’d
What you can ne’er repair again.

ALSEMERO: I’ll all demolish, and seek out truth within you,
If there be any left.

ALSEMERO: I ask you, sir;
My wife’s behindhand with you, she tells me,
For a brave bloody blow you gave for her sake
Upon Piracquo.

DEFLORES: Upon? ‘Twas quite through him, sure;
Has she confess’d it?

ALSEMERO: As sure as death to both of you,
And much more than that.

DEFLORES: It could not be much more;
‘Twas but one thing, and that—she’s a whore.

ALSEMERO: It could not choose but follow. O cunning devils!
How should blind men know you from fair-fac’d saints?

VERMANDERO: A host of enemies enter’d my citadel
Could not amaze like this: Joanna! Beatrice-Joanna!

BEATRICE: O come not near me, sir, I shall defile you:
I am that of your blood was taken from you
For your better health; look no more upon’t,
But cast it to the ground regardlessly,
Let the common sewer take it from distinction.
Beneath the stars, upon yon meteor,
Ever hung my fate, ‘mongst things corruptible;
I ne’er could pluck it from him.

ALSEMERO: Here’s beauty chang’d
To ugly whoredom; here, servant obedience
Changed to a master sin, imperious murder;
I, a suppos’d husband, chang’d embraces
With wantonness, but that was paid before;
Your change is come too, from an ignorant wrath
To a knowing friendship. Are there any more on’s?

ANTONIO: Yes, sir; I was chang’d too, from a little ass as I was to a great fool as I am […]

FRANCISCUS: I was chang’d from a little wit to be stark mad,
Always for the same purpose.

ALSEMERO: All we can do to comfort one another,
To stay a brother’s sorrow for a brother,
To dry a child from a kind father’s eyes,
Is to no purpose, it rather multiplies:
Your only smiles have power to cause relive
The dead again, or in their rooms to give
Brother a new brother, father a child;
If these appear, all griefs are reconcil’d.

BEATRICE: Be better advised, sir:
Our eyes are sentinels unto our judgments
And should give certain judgment what they see;
But they are rash sometimes, and tell us wonders
Of common things, which when our judgments find,
They can then check the eyes, and call them blind.

LOLLIO: Yes, sir, for every part has his hour: we wake at six and look about us, that’s eye-hour; at seven we should pray, that's knee-hour; at eight walk, that's leg-hour; at nine gather flowers and pluck a rose, that's nose-hour; at ten we drink, that’s mouth-hour; at eleven lay about us for victuals, that’s hand-hour; at twelve go to dinner, that’s belly-hour.

BEATRICE: Methinks I love now with the eyes of judgment
And see the way to merit, clearly see it.
A true deserver like a diamond sparkles,
In darkness you may see him, that’s in absence,
Which is the greatest darkness falls on love;
Ye he is best discern’d then
With intellectual eyesight.

ALONZO: I should depart
An enemy, a dangerous, deadly one
To any but thyself, that should but think
She knew the meaning of inconstancy,
Much less the use practice; yet w’are friends.
Pray let no more be urg’d; I can endure
Much, till I meet an injury to her,
Then I am not myself. Farewell, sweet brother.
How much we are bound to heaven to depart lovingly.
Exit.

TOMAZO: Why, here is love's tame madness; thus a man
Quickly steals into his vexation.

LOLLIO: This is easy, sir, I’ll warrant you: you have about you fools and madmen that can dance very well; and ‘tis no wonder, your best dancers are not the wisest men; the reason is, with often jumping they jolt their brains down into their feet, that their wits lie more in their heels than their heads […]

ISABELLA: Y’have a fine trade on’t,
Madmen and fools are a staple commodity.

ALIBIUS: O wife, we must eat, wear clothes, and live;
Just at the lawyer’s haven we arrive,
By madmen and fools we both do thrive.

BEATRICE: Look you, sir, here’s three thousand golden florins:
I have not meanly thought upon thy merit.

DEFLORES: What, salary? Now you move me […]
Do you place me in the rank of verminous fellows,
To destroy things for wages? Offer gold?
The life blood of man! Is anything
Valued too precious for my recompense?

BEATRICE: I understand thee not.

DEFLORES: I could ha’ hir’d
A journeyman murder in this rate,
And mine own conscience might have slept at ease
And have had the work brought home.

BEATRICE [Aside]: I’m in a labyrinth;
What will content him? I would be rid of him.—
I’ll double the sum, sir.

DEFLORES: Look but into your conscience, read me there,
‘Tis a true book, you'll find me there your equal.
Push! Fly not to your birth, but settle you
In what the act has made you, y’are no more now;
You must forget your parentage to me:
Y’are the deed’s creature; by that name
You lost your first condition, and I challenge you,
As peace and innocency has turn’d you out, and made you one with me […]
Though thou writ’st made, thou whore in thy affection!
‘Twas changed from thy first love, and that's a kind
Of whoredom in thy heart.

BEATRICE: Vengeance begins;
Murder I see is followed by more sins.
Was my creation in the womb so curs’d,
It must engender with a viper first?

DIAPHANTA: Are you serious still? Would you resign
Your first night’s pleasure, and give money too?

BEATRICE: As willingly as live. [Aside.] Alas, the gold
Is but a by-bet to wedge in the honor […]
Y’are too quick, I fear, to be a maid.

DIAPHANTA: How? Not a maid? Nay, then you urge me, madam;
Your honorable self is not a truer
With all your fears upon you—

BEATRICE [Aside.]: Bad enough then.

DIAPHANTA: Than I with all my lightsome joys about me.

ALSEMERO [Aside.]: Push, modesty’s shrine is set in yonder forehead.
I cannot be too sure though.—My Joanna!

[VOICE] (within): Fire, fire, fire!

BEATRICE: Already? How rare is that man’s speed!
How heartily he serves me! His face loathes one,
But look upon his care, who would not love him?
The east is not more beauteous than his service.

[VOICE] (within): Fire, fire, fire!

BEATRICE: ‘Tis innocence that smiles, and no rough brow
Can take away the dimple in her cheek.
Say I should strain a tear to fill the vault,
Which would you give the better faith to?

ALSEMERO: ‘Twere but hypocrisy of a sadder colour,
But the same stuff; neither your smiles nor tears
Shall move or flatter me from my belief:
You are a whore!

BEATRICE: What a horrid sound it hath!
It blasts a beauty to deformity;
Upon what face soever that breath falls,
It strikes it ugly. O you have ruin’d
What you can ne’er repair again.

ALSEMERO: I’ll all demolish, and seek out truth within you,
If there be any left.

ALSEMERO: I ask you, sir;
My wife’s behindhand with you, she tells me,
For a brave bloody blow you gave for her sake
Upon Piracquo.

DEFLORES: Upon? ‘Twas quite through him, sure;
Has she confess’d it?

ALSEMERO: As sure as death to both of you,
And much more than that.

DEFLORES: It could not be much more;
‘Twas but one thing, and that—she’s a whore.

ALSEMERO: It could not choose but follow. O cunning devils!
How should blind men know you from fair-fac’d saints?

VERMANDERO: A host of enemies enter’d my citadel
Could not amaze like this: Joanna! Beatrice-Joanna!

BEATRICE: O come not near me, sir, I shall defile you:
I am that of your blood was taken from you
For your better health; look no more upon’t,
But cast it to the ground regardlessly,
Let the common sewer take it from distinction.
Beneath the stars, upon yon meteor,
Ever hung my fate, ‘mongst things corruptible;
I ne’er could pluck it from him.

ALSEMERO: Here’s beauty chang’d
To ugly whoredom; here, servant obedience
Changed to a master sin, imperious murder;
I, a suppos’d husband, chang’d embraces
With wantonness, but that was paid before;
Your change is come too, from an ignorant wrath
To a knowing friendship. Are there any more on’s?

ANTONIO: Yes, sir; I was chang’d too, from a little ass as I was to a great fool as I am […]

FRANCISCUS: I was chang’d from a little wit to be stark mad,
Always for the same purpose.

ALSEMERO: All we can do to comfort one another,
To stay a brother’s sorrow for a brother,
To dry a child from a kind father’s eyes,
Is to no purpose, it rather multiplies:
Your only smiles have power to cause relive
The dead again, or in their rooms to give
Brother a new brother, father a child;
If these appear, all griefs are reconcil’d.