University of Virginia Library

Scene V.

A hall in the same.
Lord Ernest, Orlando, Claudio, Olivia.
L. Ern.
Saw ye my son?

Oliv.
Some hours ago we parted,
And he was strange, though gentle, in his talk.

Orl.
I passed him in the garden, just at twilight;
He stood with eyes wide open, but their sense
Dreamed, in dumb parley with some fancied thing;
For his lips moved, and he did walk and gaze,
Now frown most mournfully, now smile most madly,
And weep, and laugh, groan deep and gnash his teeth,
And now stand still with such a countenance,
As does the marble sorrow o'er a tomb.
At last he tore his feet, as they were roots,
Up from the earth, and sighed like one o'ercome;
Then, with his fingers thrust upon his eyes
And dashed unclosed away, he seemed to snatch
Some loathly object out of them, and leapt
Into the thicket's gloom.

L. Ern.
Who saw him since?

Clau.
In most distempered wildness he hath left
His chamber now.

L. Ern.
Go seek him, every one,
I do beseech you; 'tis a fearful period,
I know too truly. On his nurse's breast,
Some twenty years ago, he lay and mused
Upon her singing and bright merry lips;
A viewless bolt dropped on her, and she died
Most hideously; close in the infant's face
Looked all the horrors of her bursting eyes;
And, as the months bring round that black remembrance,
His brain unsettles, bloody thoughts oppress
And call him from his bed. Search all the darkness,
Each one a several way; dear daughter, in.

[Exeunt.