Enter Fredo 

           and Tessio

      TESSIO  1   'A will come straight. Look you lay home to him: 

  2   Tell him his pranks have been too broad to bear with, 
  3   And that your grace hath screen'd and stood between 
  4   Much heat and him. I'll sconce me even here. 
  5   Pray you, be round with him.

      MICHAEL (Within.) 
  5                                         Fredo, Fredo, Fredo!

      FREDO
  6   I'll
warrant you,Tessio, fear me not: 
  7   Withdraw, I hear him coming.

           [Tessio hides behind the arras.]

           Enter Michael.

      MICHAEL 
  8   Now, brother, what's the matter?

      FREDO 
  9   Michael, thou hast thy father much offended.

      MICHAEL 
 10   Fredo, you have my father much offended.

      FREDO 
 11   Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.

      MICHAEL 
 12   Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.

      FREDO 
 13   Why, how now, Mikey!

      MICHAEL 
 13                                       What's the matter now?
      FREDO 
 14   Have you forgot me?

      MICHAEL 
 14                                    No,
by the rood, not so: 
 15   You are a Corleone, our father’s son; 
 16   And—would it were not so!—you are my brother.

      FREDO 
 17   Nay, then, I'll set those to you that can speak.

      MICHAEL 
 18   Come, come, and sit you down; you shall not budge; 
 19   You go not till I set you up a glass 
 20   Where you may see the inmost part of you.

      FREDO 
 21   What wilt thou do? Thou wilt not murder me? 
 22   Help, ho!

      TESSIO [Behind.] 
 23    What, ho! Help!

      MICHAEL [Drawing his gun.] 

 24    How now! A rat? Dead, for a ducat, dead!

           [Shoots through the arras.]

      TESSIO [Behind.] 
 25   O, I am shot!

           [Falls and dies.]

      FREDO 
 25                              O me, what hast thou done?

      MICHAEL 
 26   Nay, I know not: Is it the caporegime?
      FREDO 
 27   O, what a rash and bloody deed is this!

      MICHAEL 
 28   A bloody deed! Almost as bad, good brother, 
 29   As sleep around, and disrespect own mother.

      FREDO 
 30   As sleep around!

      MICHAEL
 30                               Ay, man, 'twas my word.

           [Lifts up the arras and discovers Tessio.]

 31   Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell! 

 32   I took thee for thy better: take thy fortune; 
 33   Thou find'st to be too busy is some danger. 
 34   Leave wringing of your hands: peace! sit you down, 
 35   And let me wring your heart; for so I shall, 
 36   If it be made of penetrable stuff, 
 37   If damned custom have not braz'd it so 
 38   That it is proof and bulwark against sense.

      FREDO 
 39   What have I done, that thou darest wag thy tongue 
 40   In noise so rude against me?

      MICHAEL 
 40                                            Such
an act 
 41   That blurs the grace and blush of modesty, 
 42   Calls virtue hypocrite, takes off the rose 
 43   From the fair forehead of an innocent love 
 44   And sets a blister there, makes marriage-vows 
 45   As false as dicers' oaths: O, such a deed 
 46   As from the body of contraction plucks 
 47   The very soul, and sweet religion makes 
 48   A rhapsody of words. Heaven's face doth glow 
 49   O'er this solidity and compound mass, 
 50   With tristful visage, as against the doom, 
 51   Is thought-sick at the act.
      FREDO 
 51                                 Ay
me, what act, 
 52   That roars so loud, and thunders in the index?

      MICHAEL
 53   Look here, upon this picture, and on this, 
 54   The counterfeit presentment of two brothers. 
 55   See, what a grace was seated on this brow; 
 56   Hyperion's curls; the front of Jove himself; 
 57   An eye like Mars, to threaten and command; 
 58   A station like the herald Mercury 
 59   New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill; 
 60   A combination and a form indeed, 
 61   Where every god did seem to set his seal, 
 62   To give the world assurance of a man: 
 63   This was your brother. Look you now, what follows: 
 64   Here is yourself; like a mildew'd ear, 
 65   Blasting his wholesome brother. Have you eyes? 
 66   Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed, 
 67   And batten on this moor? Ha! have you eyes? 
 68   You cannot call it love; for at your age 
 69   The heyday in the blood is tame, it's humble, 
 70   And waits upon the judgment: and what judgment 
 71   Would step from this to this? Sense, sure, you have, 
 72   Else could you not have motion; but sure, that sense 
 73   Is apoplex'd; for madness would not err, 
 74   Nor sense to ecstasy was ne'er so thrall'd 
 75   But it reserved some quantity of choice, 
 76   To serve in such a difference. What devil was't 
 77   That thus hath cozen'd you at hoodman-blind? 
 78   Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight, 
 79   Ears without hands or eyes, smelling sans all, 
 80   Or but a sickly part of one true sense 
 81   Could not so mope. 
 82   O shame! where is thy blush? Rebellious hell, 
 83   If thou canst mutine in a matron's bones, 
 84   To flaming youth let virtue be as wax, 
 85   And melt in her own fire: proclaim no shame 
 86   When the compulsive ardor gives the charge, 
 87   Since frost itself as actively doth burn 
 88   And reason panders will.
      FREDO 
 88                                     O
Michael, speak no more: 
 89   Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul; 
 90   And there I see such black and grained spots 
 91   As will not leave their tinct.

      MICHAEL
 91                                            Nay,
but to live 
 92   In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed, 
 93   Stew'd in corruption, honeying and making love 
 94   Over the nasty sty—

      FREDO
 94                               O,
speak to me no more; 
 95   These words, like daggers, enter in mine ears; 
 96   No more, sweet Mikey!

      MICHAEL 
 96                                   A
murderer and a villain; 
 97   A slave that is not twentieth part the tithe 
 98   Of your precedent father, a vice of Dons, 
 99   A cutpurse of the empire and the rule, 
100   That from a shelf the precious diadem stole, 
101   And put it in his pocket!

      FREDO 
101                                       No more!

      MICHAEL 
102   A king of shreds and patches—

           Enter DON VITO GHOST.

103   Saveme, and hover o'er me with your wings, 

104   You heavenly guards! What would your gracious figure?

      FREDO
105   Alas, he's mad!

      MICHAEL 
106   Do you not come your tardy son to chide, 
107   That, lapsed in time and passion, lets go by 
108   The important acting of your dread command? 
109   O, say!

      DON VITO 
110   Do not forget: this visitation 
111   Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose. 
112   But, look, amazement on thy brother sits: 
113   O, step between him and his fighting soul: 
114   Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works: 
115   Speak to him, Michael.

      MICHAEL 
115                                   How is it with you, man?

      FREDO 
116   Alas, how is't with you, 
117   That you do bend your eye on vacancy 
118   And with the incorporal air do hold discourse? 
119   Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep; 
120   And, as the sleeping soldiers in the alarm, 
121   Your bedded hair, like life in excrements, 
122   Starts up, and stands on end. O gentle brother, 
123   Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper 
124   Sprinkle cool patience. Whereon do you look?

      MICHAEL 
125   On him, on him! Look you, how pale he glares! 
126   His form and cause conjoin'd, preaching to stones, 
127   Would make them capable. —Do not look upon me; 
128   Lest with this piteous action you convert 
129   My stern effects: then what I have to do 
130   Will want true color; tears perchance for blood.

      FREDO 
131   To whom do you speak this?

      MICHAEL 
131                                        Do you see nothing there?

      FREDO 
132   Nothing at all; yet all that is I see.
      MICHAEL 
133   Nor did you nothing hear?

      FREDO 
133                                         No, nothing but ourselves.

      MICHAEL 
134   Why, look you there! look, how it steals away! 
135   My father, in his habit as he lived! 
136   Look, where he goes, even now, out at the portal!

           Exit Don Vito Ghost.

      FREDO 
137   This the very coinage of your brain: 
138   This bodiless creation ecstasy 
139   Is very cunning in.

      MICHAEL 
139                               Ecstasy! 
140   My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time, 
141   And makes as healthful music: it is not madness 
142   That I have utter'd: bring me to the test, 
143   And I the matter will re-word; which madness 
144   Would gambol from. Brother, for love of grace, 
145   Lay not that flattering unction to your soul, 
146   That not your trespass, but my madness speaks: 
147   It will but skin and film the ulcerous place, 
148   Whilst rank corruption, mining all within, 
149   Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven; 
150   Repent what's past; avoid what is to come; 
151   And do not spread the compost on the weeds, 
152   To make them ranker. Forgive me this my virtue; 
153   For in the fatness of these pursy times 
154   Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg, 
155   Yea, curb and woo for leave to do us good.

      FREDO 
156   O Mikey, thou hast cleft my heart in twain.

      MICHAEL 
157   O, throw away the worser part of it, 
158   And live the purer with the other half. 
159   Good night: but go not to Moe Greene’s office; 
160   Assume a virtue, if you have it not. 
161   That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat, 
162   Of habits devil, is angel yet in this, 
163   That to the use of actions fair and good 
164   He likewise gives a frock or livery, 
165   That aptly is put on. Refrain tonight, 
166   And that shall lend a kind of easiness 
167   To the next abstinence: the next more easy; 
168   For use almost can change the stamp of nature, 
169   And either master the devil, or throw him out 
170   With wondrous potency. Once more, good night: 
171   And when you are desirous to be bless'd, 
172   I'll blessing beg of you. For this same caporegime,

           [Pointing to Tessio.]

173   I do repent: but heaven hath pleased it so, 

174   To punish me with this and this with me, 
175   That I must be their scourge and minister. 
176   I will bestow him, and will answer well 
177   The death I gave him. So, again, good night. 
178   I must be cruel, only to be kind: 
179   Thus bad begins and worse remains behind. 
180   One word more, good man.

      FREDO 
180                                       What shall I do?

      MICHAEL 
181   Not this, by no means, that I bid you do: 
182   Let the bloat women tempt you again to bed; 
183   Pinch wanton on your cheek; call you their mouse; 
184   And let them, for a pair of reechy kisses, 
185   Or paddling in your neck with their damn'd fingers, 
186   Make you to ravel all this matter out, 
187   That I essentially am not in madness, 
188   But mad in craft. 'Twere good you let them know; 
189   For who, that's but a Corleone, fair, sober, wise, 
190   Would from a paddock, from a bat, a gib, 
191   Such dear concernings hide? who would do so? 
192   No, in despite of sense and secrecy, 
193   Unpeg the basket on the house's top. 
194   Let the birds fly, and, like the famous ape, 
195   To try conclusions, in the basket creep, 
196   And break your own neck down.

      FREDO 
197   Bethou assured, if words be made of breath, 
198   And breath of life, I have no life to breathe 
199   What thou hast said to me.

      MICHAEL 
200   I must to Vegas; you know that?

      FREDO 
200                                                       Alack, 
201   I had forgot: 'tis so concluded on.

      MICHAEL 
202   There's letters seal'd: and my two fellows, 
203   Whom I will trust as I will adders fang'd, 
204   They bear the mandate; they must sweep my way, 
205   And marshal me to knavery. Let it work; 
206   For 'tis the sport to have the engineer 
207   Hoist with his own petard: and 't shall go hard 
208   But I will delve one yard below their mines, 
209   And blow them at the moon: O, 'tis most sweet, 
210   When in one line two crafts directly meet. 
211   This man shall set me packing: 
212   I'll lug the guts into the neighbour room. 
213   Brother, good night. Indeed this counsellor 
214   Is now most still, most secret and most grave, 
215   Who was in life a foolish prating knave. 
216   Come, sir, to draw toward an end with you. 
217   Good night, Fredo.

           Exeunt [severally; Michael dragging in Tessio].