ACT I.

Scene I.

An orchard before Leonato’s house.

Enter Leonato (Governor of Messina), Hero (his Daughter), and Beatrice (his Niece), with a Messenger.

LEONATO

I learn in this letter that Don Pedro of Arragon comes this night to Messina.

MESSENGER

He is very near by this. He was not three leagues off when I left him.

LEONATO

How many gentlemen have you lost in this action?

MESSENGER

But few of any sort, and none of name.

LEONATO

I find here that Don Pedro hath bestowed honour on a young Florentine called Claudio.

MESSENGER

Much deserv’d on his part, and equally rememb’red by Don Pedro. He hath borne himself beyond the promise of his age, doing in the figure of a lamb the feats of a lion. He hath indeed better bett’red expectation than you must expect of me to tell you how.

LEONATO

He hath an uncle here in Messina will be very much glad of it.

MESSENGER

I have already delivered him letters, and there appears much joy in him; even so much that joy could not show itself modest enough without a badge of bitterness.

LEONATO

Did he break out into tears?

MESSENGER

In great measure.

LEONATO

A kind overflow of kindness. There are no faces truer than those that are so wash’d. How much better is it to weep at joy than to joy at weeping!

BEATRICE

I pray you, is Signior Mountanto return’d from the wars or no?

MESSENGER

I know none of that name, lady. There was none such in the army of any sort.

LEONATO

What is he that you ask for, niece?

HERO

My cousin means Signior Benedick of Padua.

MESSENGER

O, he’s return’d, and as pleasant as ever he was.

BEATRICE

He set up his bills here in Messina and challeng’d Cupid at the flight, and my uncle’s fool, reading the challenge, subscrib’d for Cupid and challeng’d him at the burbolt. I pray you, how many hath he kill’d and eaten in these wars? But how many hath he kill’d? For indeed I promised to eat all of his killing.

LEONATO

Faith, niece, you tax Signior Benedick too much; but he’ll be meet with you, I doubt it not.

MESSENGER

He hath done good service, lady, in these wars.

BEATRICE

You had musty victual, and he hath holp to eat it. He is a very valiant trencherman; he hath an excellent stomach.

MESSENGER

And a good soldier too, lady.

BEATRICE

And a good soldier to a lady; but what is he to a lord?

MESSENGER

A lord to a lord, a man to a man; stuff’d with all honourable virtues.

BEATRICE

It is so indeed. He is no less than a stuff’d man; but for the stuffing--well, we are all mortal.

LEONATO

You must not, sir, mistake my niece. There is a kind of merry war betwixt Signior Benedick and her. They never meet but there’s a skirmish of wit between them.

BEATRICE

Alas, he gets nothing by that! In our last conflict four of his five wits went halting off, and now is the whole man govern’d with one; so that if he have wit enough to keep himself warm, let him bear it for a difference between himself and his horse; for it is all the wealth that he hath left to be known a reasonable creature. Who is his companion now? He hath every month a new sworn brother.

MESSENGER

Is’t possible?

BEATRICE

Very easily possible. He wears his faith but as the fashion of his hat; it ever changes with the next block.

MESSENGER

I see, lady, the gentleman is not in your books.

BEATRICE

No. An he were, I would burn my study. But I pray you, who is his companion? Is there no young squarer now that will make a voyage with him to the devil?

MESSENGER

He is most in the company of the right noble Claudio.

BEATRICE

O Lord, he will hang upon him like a disease! He is sooner caught than the pestilence, and the taker runs presently mad. God help the noble Claudio! If he have caught the Benedick, it will cost him a thousand pound ere ‘a be cured.

MESSENGER

I will hold friends with you, lady.

BEATRICE

Do, good friend.

LEONATO

You will never run mad, niece.

BEATRICE

No, not till a hot January.

MESSENGER

Don Pedro is approach’d.

Enter Don Pedro, Claudio, Benedick, Balthasar, and John the Bastard.

DON PEDRO

Good Signior Leonato, are you come to meet your trouble? The fashion of the world is to avoid cost, and you encounter it.

LEONATO

Never came trouble to my house in the likeness of your Grace; for trouble being gone, comfort should remain; but when you depart from me, sorrow abides and happiness takes his leave.

DON PEDRO

You embrace your charge too willingly. I think this is your daughter.

LEONATO

Her mother hath many times told me so.

BENEDICK

Were you in doubt, sir, that you ask’d her?

LEONATO

Signior Benedick, no; for then were you a child.

DON PEDRO

You have it full, Benedick. We may guess by this what you are, being a man. Truly the lady fathers herself. Be happy, lady; for you are like an honourable father.

BENEDICK

If Signior Leonato be her father, she would not have his head on her shoulders for all Messina, as like him as she is.

BEATRICE

I wonder that you will still be talking, Signior Benedick. Nobody marks you.

BENEDICK

What, my dear Lady Disdain! are you yet living?

BEATRICE

Is it possible Disdain should die while she hath such meet food to feed it as Signior Benedick? Courtesy itself must convert to disdain if you come in her presence.

BENEDICK

Then is courtesy a turncoat. But it is certain I am loved of all ladies, only you excepted; and I would I could find in my heart that I had not a hard heart, for truly I love none.

BEATRICE

A dear happiness to women! They would else have been troubled with a pernicious suitor. I thank God and my cold blood, I am of your humour for that. I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me.

BENEDICK

God keep your ladyship still in that mind! So some gentleman or other shall scape a predestinate scratch’d face.

BEATRICE

Scratching could not make it worse an ‘twere such a face as yours were.

BENEDICK

Well, you are a rare parrot-teacher.

BEATRICE

A bird of my tongue is better than a beast of yours.

BENEDICK

I would my horse had the speed of your tongue, and so good a continuer. But keep your way, a God’s name! I have done.

BEATRICE

You always end with a jade’s trick. I know you of old.

DON PEDRO

That is the sum of all, Leonato. Signior Claudio and Signior Benedick, my dear friend Leonato hath invited you all. I tell him we shall stay here at the least a month, and he heartly prays some occasion may detain us longer. I dare swear he is no hypocrite, but prays from his heart.

LEONATO

If you swear, my lord, you shall not be forsworn. [To Don John] Let me bid you welcome, my lord. Being reconciled to the Prince your brother, I owe you all duty.

DON JOHN

I thank you. I am not of many words, but I thank you.

LEONATO

Please it your Grace lead on?

DON PEDRO

Your hand, Leonato. We will go together.

Exeunt. Manent Benedick and Claudio.

CLAUDIO

Benedick, didst thou note the daughter of Signior Leonato?

BENEDICK

I noted her not, but I look’d on her.

CLAUDIO

Is she not a modest young lady?

BENEDICK

Do you question me, as an honest man should do, for my simple true judgment? or would you have me speak after my custom, as being a professed tyrant to their sex?

CLAUDIO

NoI pray thee speak in sober judgment.

BENEDICK

Why, i’ faith, methinks she’s too low for a high praise, too brown for a fair praise, and too little for a great praise. Only this commendation I can afford her, that were she other than she is, she were unhandsome, and being no other but as she is, I do not like her.

CLAUDIO

Thou thinkest I am in sport. I pray thee tell me truly how thou lik’st her.

BENEDICK

Would you buy her, that you enquire after her?

CLAUDIO

Can the world buy such a jewel?

BENEDICK

Yea, and a case to put it into. But speak you this with a sad brow? or do you play the flouting Jack, to tell us Cupid is a good hare-finder and Vulcan a rare carpenter? Come, in what key shall a man take you to go in the song?

CLAUDIO

In mine eye she is the sweetest lady that ever I look’d on.

BENEDICK

I can see yet without spectacles, and I see no such matter. There’s her cousin, an she were not possess’d with a fury,exceeds her as much in beauty as the first of May doth the last of December. But I hope you have no intent to turn husband, have you?

CLAUDIO

I would scarce trust myself, though I had sworn the contrary, if Hero would be my wife.

BENEDICK

Is’t come to this? In faith, hath not the world one man but he will wear his cap with suspicion? Shall I never see a bachelor of threescore again? Go to, i’ faith! An thou wilt needs thrust thy neck into a yoke, wear the print of it and sigh away Sundays.

[Enter Don Pedro]

Look! Don Pedro is returned to seek you.

DON PEDRO

What secret hath held you here, that you followed not to Leonato’s?

BENEDICK

I would your Grace would constrain me to tell.

DON PEDRO

I charge thee on thy allegiance.

BENEDICK

You hear, Count Claudio. I can be secret as a dumb man, I would have you think so; but, on my allegiance--mark you this-on my allegiance! he is in love. With who? Now that is your Grace’s part. Mark how short his answer is: With Hero, Leonato’s short daughter.

CLAUDIO

If this were so, so were it utt’red.

BENEDICK

Like the old tale, my lord: ‘It is not so, nor ‘twas not so; but indeed, God forbid it should be so!’

CLAUDIO

If my passion change not shortly, God forbid it should be otherwise.

DON PEDRO

Amen, if you love her; for the lady is very well worthy.

CLAUDIO

You speak this to fetch me in, my lord.

DON PEDRO

By my troth, I speak my thought.

CLAUDIO

And, in faith, my lord, I spoke mine.

BENEDICK

And, by my two faiths and troths, my lord, I spoke mine.

CLAUDIO

That I love her, I feel.

DON PEDRO

That she is worthy, I know.

BENEDICK

That I neither feel how she should be loved, nor know how she should be worthy, is the opinion that fire cannot melt out of me. I will die in it at the stake.

DON PEDRO

Thou wast ever an obstinate heretic in the despite of beauty.

CLAUDIO

And never could maintain his part but in the force of his will.

BENEDICK

That a woman conceived me, I thank her; that she brought me up, I likewise give her most humble thanks; but that I will have a rechate winded in my forehead, or hang my bugle in an invisible baldrick, all women shall pardon me. Because I will not do them the wrong to mistrust any, I will do myself the right to trust none; and the fine is (for the which I may go the finer), I will live a bachelor.

DON PEDRO

I shall see thee, ere I die, look pale with love.

BENEDICK

With anger, with sickness, or with hunger, my lord; not with love. Prove that ever I lose more blood with love than I will get again with drinking, pick out mine eyes with a ballad-maker’s pen and hang me up at the door of a brothel house for the sign of blind Cupid.

DON PEDRO

Well, if ever thou dost fall from this faith, thou wilt prove a notable argument.

BENEDICK

If I do, hang me in a bottle like a cat and shoot at me; and he that hits me, let him be clapp’d on the shoulder and call’d Adam.

DON PEDRO

Well, as time shall try. ‘In time the savage bull doth bear the yoke.’

BENEDICK

The savage bull may; but if ever the sensible Benedick bear it, pluck off the bull’s horns and set them in my forehead, and let me be vilely painted, and in such great letters as they write

‘Here is good horse to hire,’ let them signify under my sign

‘Here you may see Benedick the married man.’

CLAUDIO

If this should ever happen, thou wouldst be horn-mad.

DON PEDRO

Nay, if Cupid have not spent all his quiver in Venice, thou wilt quake for this shortly.

BENEDICK

I look for an earthquake too then.

DON PEDRO

Well, you will temporize with the hours. In the meantime, good Signior Benedick, repair to Leonato’s, commend me to him and tell him I will not fail him at supper; for indeed he hath made great preparation.

BENEDICK

I have almost matter enough in me for such an embassage; and so I commit you--

CLAUDIO

To the tuition of God. From my house--if I had it--

DON PEDRO

The sixth of July. Your loving friend, Benedick.

BENEDICK

Nay, mock not, mock not. The body of your discourse is sometime guarded with fragments, and the guards are but slightly basted on neither. Ere you flout old ends any further, examine your conscience. And so I leave you.

Exit.

CLAUDIO

My liege, your Highness now may do me good.

DON PEDRO

My love is thine to teach. Teach it but how,

And thou shalt see how apt it is to learn

Any hard lesson that may do thee good.

CLAUDIO

Hath Leonato any son, my lord?

DON PEDRO

No child but Hero; she’s his only heir.

Dost thou affect her, Claudio?

Claud

O my lord,

When you went onward on this ended action,

I look’d upon her with a soldier’s eye,

That lik’d, but had a rougher task in hand

Than to drive liking to the name of love;

But now I am return’d and that war-thoughts

Have left their places vacant, in their rooms

Come thronging soft and delicate desires,

All prompting me how fair young Hero is,

Saying I lik’d her ere I went to wars.

DON PEDRO

Thou wilt be like a lover presently

And tire the hearer with a book of words.

If thou dost love fair Hero, cherish it,

And I will break with her and with her father,

And thou shalt have her. Wast not to this end

That thou began’st to twist so fine a story?

CLAUDIO

How sweetly you do minister to love,

That know love’s grief by his complexion!

But lest my liking might too sudden seem,

I would have salv’d it with a longer treatise.

DON PEDRO

What need the bridge much broader than the flood?

The fairest grant is the necessity.

Look, what will serve is fit. ‘Tis once, thou lovest,

And I will fit thee with the remedy.

I know we shall have revelling to-night.

I will assume thy part in some disguise

And tell fair Hero I am Claudio,

And in her bosom I’ll unclasp my heart

And take her hearing prisoner with the force

And strong encounter of my amorous tale.

Then after to her father will I break,

And the conclusion is, she shall be thine.

In practice let us put it presently.

Exeunt.

Scene II.

A room in Leonato’s house.

Enter [at one door] Leonato and [at another door, Antonio] an old man, brother to Leonato.

LEONATO

How now, brother? Where is my cousin your son? Hath he provided this music?

ANTONIO

He is very busy about it. But, brother, I can tell you strange news that you yet dreamt not of.

LEONATO

Are they good?

ANTONIO

As the event stamps them; but they have a good cover, they show well outward. The Prince and Count Claudio, walking in a thick-pleached alley in mine orchard, were thus much overheard by

a man of mine: the Prince discovered to Claudio that he loved my niece your daughter and meant to acknowledge it this night in a dance, and if he found her accordant, he meant to take the present time by the top and instantly break with you of it.

LEONATO

Hath the fellow any wit that told you this?

ANTONIO

A good sharp fellow. I will send for him, and question him yourself.

LEONATO

No, no. We will hold it as a dream till it appear itself; but I will acquaint my daughter withal, that she may be the better prepared for an answer, if peradventure this be true. Go you and tell her of it.

[Exit Antonio.]

[Enter Antonio’s Son with a Musician, and others.]

[To the Son] Cousin, you know what you have to do.

[To the Musician] O, I cry you mercy, friend. Go you with me, and I will use your skill.--Good cousin, have a care this busy time. [Exeunt.]

Scene III.

Another room in Leonato’s house.

Enter Sir John the Bastard and Conrade, his companion.

CONRADE

What the goodyear, my lord! Why are you thus out of measure sad?

DON JOHN

There is no measure in the occasion that breeds; therefore the sadness is without limit.

CONRADE

You should hear reason.

DON JOHN

And when I have heard it, what blessings brings it?

CONRADE

If not a present remedy, at least a patient sufferance.

DON JOHN

I wonder that thou (being, as thou say’st thou art, born under Saturn) goest about to apply a moral medicine to a mortifying mischief. I cannot hide what I am: I must be sad when I have cause, and smile at no man’s jests; eat when I have stomach, and wait for no man’s leisure; sleep when I am drowsy, and tend on no man’s business; laugh when I am merry, and claw no man in his humour.

CONRADE

Yea, but you must not make the full show of this till you may do it without controlment. You have of late stood out against your brother, and he hath ta’en you newly into his grace, where it is impossible you should take true root but by the fair weather that you make yourself. It is needful that you frame the season for your own harvest.

DON JOHN

I had rather be a canker in a hedge than a rose in his grace, and it better fits my blood to be disdain’d of all than to fashion a carriage to rob love from any. In this, though I cannot be said to be a flattering honest man, it must not be denied but I am a plain-dealing villain. I am trusted with a muzzle and enfranchis’d with a clog; therefore I have decreed not to sing in my cage. If I had my mouth, I would bite; if I had my liberty, I would do my liking. In the meantime let me be that I am, and seek not to alter me.

CONRADE

Can you make no use of your discontent?

DON JOHN

I make all use of it, for I use it only.

Enter Borachio.

Who comes here? What news, Borachio?

BORACHIO

I came yonder from a great supper. The Prince your brother is royally entertain’d by Leonato, and I can give you intelligence of an intended marriage.

DON JOHN

Will it serve for any model to build mischief on?

What is he for a fool that betroths himself to unquietness?

BORACHIO

Marry, it is your brother’s right hand.

DON JOHN

Who? the most exquisite Claudio?

BORACHIO

Even he.

DON JOHN

A proper squire! And who? and who? which way looks he?

BORACHIO

Marry, on Hero, the daughter and heir of Leonato.

DON JOHN

A very forward March-chick! How came you to this?

BORACHIO

Being entertain’d for a perfumer, as I was smoking a musty room, comes me the Prince and Claudio, hand in hand in sad conference. I whipt me behind the arras and there heard it agreed upon that the Prince should woo Hero for himself, and having obtain’d her, give her to Count Claudio.

DON JOHN

Come, come, let us thither. This may prove food to my displeasure. That young start-up hath all the glory of my overthrow. If I can cross him any way, I bless myself every way. You are both sure, and will assist me?

CONRADE

To the death, my lord.

DON JOHN

Let us to the great supper. Their cheer is the greater that I am subdued. Would the cook were o’ my mind! Shall we go prove what’s to be done?

BORACHIO

We’ll wait upon your lordship.

Exeunt.

ACT II.

Scene I.

A hall in Leonato’s house.

Enter Leonato, [Antonio] his Brother, Hero his Daughter, and Beatrice his Niece, and a Kinsman; [also Margaret and Ursula].

LEONATO

Was not Count John here at supper?

ANTONIO

I saw him not.

BEATRICE

How tartly that gentleman looks! I never can see him but I am heart-burn’d an hour after.

HERO

He is of a very melancholy disposition.

BEATRICE

He were an excellent man that were made just in the midway between him and Benedick. The one is too like an image and says nothing, and the other too like my lady’s eldest son, evermore tattling.

LEONATO

Then half Signior Benedick’s tongue in Count John’s mouth, and half Count John’s melancholy in Signior Benedick’s face--

BEATRICE

With a good leg and a good foot, uncle, and money enough in his purse, such a man would win any woman in the world--if ‘a could get her good will.

LEONATO

By my troth, niece, thou wilt never get thee a husband if thou be so shrewd of thy tongue.

ANTONIO

In faith, she’s too curst.

BEATRICE

Too curst is more than curst. I shall lessen God’s sending that way, for it is said, ‘God sends a curst cow short horns,’ but to a cow too curst he sends none.

LEONATO

So, by being too curst, God will send you no horns.

BEATRICE

Just, if he send me no husband; for the which blessing I am at him upon my knees every morning and evening. Lord, I could not endure a husband with a beard on his face. I had rather lie in the woollen!

LEONATO

You may light on a husband that hath no beard.

BEATRICE

What should I do with him? dress him in my apparel and make him my waiting gentlewoman? He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man; and he that is more than a youth is not for me; and he that is less than a man, I am not for him. Therefore I will even take sixpence in earnest of the berrord and lead his apes into hell.

LEONATO

Well then, go you into hell?

BEATRICE

No; but to the gate, and there will the devil meet me like an old cuckold with horns on his head, and say ‘Get you to heaven, Beatrice, get you to heaven. Here’s no place for you maids.’ So deliver I up my apes, and away to Saint Peter--for the heavens. He shows me where the bachelors sit, and there live we as merry as the day is long.

ANTONIO

[to Hero] Well, niece, I trust you will be rul’d by your father.

BEATRICE

Yes faith. It is my cousin’s duty to make cursy and say, ‘Father, as it please you.’ But yet for all that, cousin, let him be a handsome fellow, or else make another cursy, and say, ‘Father, as it please me.’

LEONATO

Well, niece, I hope to see you one day fitted with a husband.

BEATRICE

Not till God make men of some other metal than earth. Would it not grieve a woman to be overmaster’d with a piece of valiant dust? to make an account of her life to a clod of wayward marl?

No, uncle, I’ll none. Adam’s sons are my brethren, and truly I hold it a sin to match in my kinred.

LEONATO

Daughter, remember what I told you. If the Prince do solicit you in that kind, you know your answer.

BEATRICE

The fault will be in the music, cousin, if you be not wooed in good time. If the Prince be too important, tell him there is measure in everything, and so dance out the answer. For, hear me, Hero: wooing, wedding, and repenting is as a Scotch jig, a measure, and a cinque-pace: the first suit is hot and hasty like

a Scotch jig--and full as fantastical; the wedding, mannerly modest, as a measure, full of state and ancientry; and then comes Repentance and with his bad legs falls into the cinque-pace faster and faster, till he sink into his grave.

LEONATO

Cousin, you apprehend passing shrewdly.

BEATRICE

I have a good eye, uncle; I can see a church by daylight.

LEONATO

The revellers are ent’ring, brother. Make good room.

[Exit Antonio.]

Enter, [masked,] Don Pedro, Claudio, Benedick, and Balthasar. [With them enter Antonio, also masked. After them enter] Don John [and Borachio (without masks), who stand aside and look on during the dance].

DON PEDRO

Lady, will you walk a bout with your friend?

HERO

So you walk softly and look sweetly and say nothing,

I am yours for the walk; and especially when I walk away.

DON PEDRO

With me in your company?

HERO

I may say so when I please.

DON PEDRO

And when please you to say so?

HERO

When I like your favour, for God defend the lute should be like the case!

DON PEDRO

My visor is Philemon’s roof; within the house is Jove.

HERO

Why then, your visor should be thatch’d.

DON PEDRO

Speak low if you speak love. [Takes her aside.]

BALTHAZAR

Well, I would you did like me.

MARGARET

So would not I for your own sake, for I have many ill qualities.

BALTHAZAR

Which is one?

MARGARET

I say my prayers aloud.

BALTHAZAR

I love you the better. The hearers may cry Amen.

MARGARET

God match me with a good dancer!

BALTHAZAR

Amen.

MARGARET

And God keep him out of my sight when the dance is done! Answer, clerk.

BALTHAZAR

No more words. The clerk is answered.

[Takes her aside.]

URSULA

I know you well enough. You are Signior Antonio.

ANTONIO

At a word, I am not.

URSULA

I know you by the waggling of your head.

ANTONIO

To tell you true, I counterfeit him.

URSULA

You could never do him so ill-well unless you were the very man. Here’s his dry hand up and down. You are he, you are he!

ANTONIO

At a word, I am not.

URSULA

Come, come, do you think I do not know you by your excellent wit? Can virtue hide itself? Go to, mum you are he. Graces will appear, and there’s an end. [They step aside.]

BEATRICE

Will you not tell me who told you so?

BENEDICK

No, you shall pardon me.

BEATRICE

Nor will you not tell me who you are?

BENEDICK

Not now.

BEATRICE

That I was disdainful, and that I had my good wit out of the ‘Hundred Merry Tales.’ Well, this was Signior Benedick that said so.

BENEDICK

What’s he?

BEATRICE

I am sure you know him well enough.

BENEDICK

Not I, believe me.

BEATRICE

Did he never make you laugh?

BENEDICK

I pray you, what is he?

BEATRICE

Why, he is the Prince’s jester, a very dull fool. Only his gift is in devising impossible slanders. None but libertines delight in him; and the commendation is not in his wit, but in his villany; for he both pleases men and angers them, and then they laugh at him and beat him. I am sure he is in the fleet. I would he had boarded me.

BENEDICK

When I know the gentleman, I’ll tell him what you say.

BEATRICE

Do, do. He’ll but break a comparison or two on me; which peradventure, not marked or not laugh’d at, strikes him into melancholy; and then there’s a partridge wing saved, for the fool will eat no supper that night.

[Music.]

We must follow the leaders.

BENEDICK

In every good thing.

BEATRICE

Nay, if they lead to any ill, I will leave them at the next turning.

Dance. Exeunt (all but Don John, Borachio, and Claudio].

DON JOHN

Sure my brother is amorous on Hero and hath withdrawn her father to break with him about it. The ladies follow her and but one visor remains.

BORACHIO

And that is Claudio. I know him by his bearing.

DON JOHN

Are you not Signior Benedick?

CLAUDIO

You know me well. I am he.

DON JOHN

Signior, you are very near my brother in his love. He is enamour’d on Hero. I pray you dissuade him from her; she is no equal for his birth. You may do the part of an honest man in it.

CLAUDIO

How know you he loves her?

DON JOHN

I heard him swear his affection.

BORACHIO

So did I too, and he swore he would marry her tonight.

DON JOHN

Come, let us to the banquet.

Exeunt. Manet Claudio.

CLAUDIO

Thus answer I in name of Benedick

But hear these ill news with the ears of Claudio.

[Unmasks.]

‘Tis certain so. The Prince wooes for himself.

Friendship is constant in all other things

Save in the office and affairs of love.

Therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues;

Let every eye negotiate for itself

And trust no agent; for beauty is a witch

Against whose charms faith melteth into blood.

This is an accident of hourly proof,

Which I mistrusted not. Farewell therefore Hero!

Enter Benedick [unmasked].

BENEDICK

Count Claudio?

CLAUDIO

Yea, the same.

BENEDICK

Come, will you go with me?

CLAUDIO

Whither?

BENEDICK

Even to the next willow, about your own business, County. What fashion will you wear the garland of? about your neck, like an usurer’s chain? or under your arm, like a lieutenant’s scarf? You must wear it one way, for the Prince hath got your Hero.

CLAUDIO

I wish him joy of her.

BENEDICK

Why, that’s spoken like an honest drovier. So they sell bullocks. But did you think the Prince would have served you thus?

CLAUDIO

I pray you leave me.

BENEDICK

Ho! now you strike like the blind man! ‘Twas the boy that stole your meat, and you’ll beat the post.

CLAUDIO

If it will not be, I’ll leave you.

Exit.

BENEDICK

Alas, poor hurt fowl! now will he creep into sedges. But, that my Lady Beatrice should know me, and not know me! The Prince’s fool! Ha! it may be I go under that title because I am merry. Yea, but so I am apt to do myself wrong. I am not so reputed. It is the base (though bitter) disposition of Beatrice that puts the world into her person and so gives me out. Well,

I’ll be revenged as I may.

Enter Don Pedro.

DON PEDRO

Now, signior, where’s the Count? Did you see him?

BENEDICK

Troth, my lord, I have played the part of Lady Fame, I found him here as melancholy as a lodge in a warren. I told him, and I think I told him true, that your Grace had got the good will of this young lady, and I off’red him my company to a willow tree, either to make him a garland, as being forsaken, or to bind him up a rod, as being worthy to be whipt.

DON PEDRO

To be whipt? What’s his fault?

BENEDICK

The flat transgression of a schoolboy who, being overjoyed with finding a bird’s nest, shows it his companion, and he steals it.

DON PEDRO

Wilt thou make a trust a transgression? The transgression is in the stealer.

BENEDICK

Yet it had not been amiss the rod had been made, and the garland too; for the garland he might have worn himself, and the rod he might have bestowed on you, who, as I take it, have stol’n his bird’s nest.

DON PEDRO

I will but teach them to sing and restore them to the owner.

BENEDICK

If their singing answer your saying, by my faith you say honestly.

DON PEDRO

The Lady Beatrice hath a quarrel to you. The gentleman that danc’d with her told her she is much wrong’d by you.

BENEDICK

O, she misus’d me past the endurance of a block! An oak but with one green leaf on it would have answered her; my very visor began to assume life and scold with her. She told me, not thinking I had been myself, that I was the Prince’s jester, that

I was duller than a great thaw; huddling jest upon jest with such impossible conveyance upon me that I stood like a man at a mark, with a whole army shooting at me. She speaks poniards, and every word stabs. If her breath were as terrible as her terminations, there were no living near her; she would infect to the North Star. I would not marry her though she were endowed with all that Adam had left him before he transgress’d. She would have made Hercules have turn’d spit, yea, and have cleft his club to make the fire too. Come, talk not of her. You shall find her the infernal Ate in good apparel. I would to God some scholar would conjure her, for certainly, while she is here, a man may live as quiet in hell as in a sanctuary; and people sin upon purpose, because they would go thither; so indeed all disquiet, horror, and perturbation follows her.

Enter Claudio and Beatrice, Leonato, Hero.

DON PEDRO

Look, here she comes.

BENEDICK

Will your Grace command me any service to the world’s end? I will go on the slightest errand now to the Antipodes that you can devise to send me on; I will fetch you a toothpicker now from the furthest inch of Asia; bring you the length of Prester John’s foot; fetch you a hair off the great Cham’s beard; do you any embassage to the Pygmies--rather than hold three words’ conference with this harpy. You have no employment for me?

DON PEDRO

None, but to desire your good company.

BENEDICK

O God, sir, here’s a dish I love not! I cannot endure my Lady Tongue. [Exit.]

DON PEDRO

Come, lady, come; you have lost the heart of Signior Benedick.

BEATRICE

Indeed, my lord, he lent it me awhile, and I gave him use for it--a double heart for his single one. Marry, once before he won it of me with false dice; therefore your Grace may well say I have lost it.

DON PEDRO

You have put him down, lady; you have put him down.

BEATRICE

So I would not he should do me, my lord, lest I should prove the mother of fools. I have brought Count Claudio, whom you sent me to seek.

DON PEDRO

Why, how now, Count? Wherefore are you sad?

CLAUDIO

Not sad, my lord.

DON PEDRO

How then? sick?

CLAUDIO

Neither, my lord.

BEATRICE

The Count is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor well; but civil count--civil as an orange, and something of that jealous complexion.

DON PEDRO

I’ faith, lady, I think your blazon to be true; though I’ll be sworn, if he be so, his conceit is false. Here, Claudio, I have wooed in thy name, and fair Hero is won. I have broke with her father, and his good will obtained. Name the day of marriage, and God give thee joy!

LEONATO

Count, take of me my daughter, and with her my fortunes. His Grace hath made the match, and all grace say Amen to it!

BEATRICE

Speak, Count, ‘tis your cue.

CLAUDIO

Silence is the perfectest herald of joy. I were but little happy if I could say how much. Lady, as you are mine, I am yours. I give away myself for you and dote upon the exchange.

BEATRICE

Speak, cousin; or, if you cannot, stop his mouth with a kiss and let not him speak neither.

DON PEDRO

In faith, lady, you have a merry heart.

BEATRICE

Yea, my lord; I thank it, poor fool, it keeps on the windy side of care. My cousin tells him in his ear that he is in her heart.

CLAUDIO

And so she doth, cousin.

BEATRICE

Good Lord, for alliance! Thus goes every one to the world but I, and I am sunburnt. I may sit in a corner and cry ‘Heigh-ho for a husband!’

DON PEDRO

Lady Beatrice, I will get you one.

BEATRICE

I would rather have one of your father’s getting. Hath your Grace ne’er a brother like you? Your father got excellent husbands, if a maid could come by them.

DON PEDRO

Will you have me, lady?

BEATRICE

No, my lord, unless I might have another for working days: your Grace is too costly to wear every day. But I beseech your Grace pardon me. I was born to speak all mirth and no matter.

DON PEDRO

Your silence most offends me, and to be merry best becomes you, for out o’ question you were born in a merry hour.

BEATRICE

No, sure, my lord, my mother cried; but then there was a star danc’d, and under that was I born. Cousins, God give you joy!

LEONATO

Niece, will you look to those things I told you of?

BEATRICE

I cry you mercy, uncle, By your Grace’s pardon.

Exit.

DON PEDRO

By my troth, a pleasant-spirited lady.

LEONATO

There’s little of the melancholy element in her, my lord. She is never sad but when she sleeps, and not ever sad then; for I have heard my daughter say she hath often dreamt of unhappiness and wak’d herself with laughing.

DON PEDRO

She cannot endure to hear tell of a husband.

LEONATO

O, by no means! She mocks all her wooers out of suit.

DON PEDRO

She were an excellent wife for Benedick.

LEONATO

O Lord, my lord! if they were but a week married, they would talk themselves mad.

DON PEDRO

County Claudio, when mean you to go to church?

CLAUDIO

To-morrow, my lord. Time goes on crutches till love have all his rites.

LEONATO

Not till Monday, my dear son, which is hence a just sevennight; and a time too brief too, to have all things answer my mind.

DON PEDRO

Come, you shake the head at so long a breathing; but I warrant thee, Claudio, the time shall not go dully by us. I will in the interim undertake one of Hercules’ labours, which is, to bring Signior Benedick and the Lady Beatrice into a mountain of affection th’ one with th’ other. I would fain have it a match, and I doubt not but to fashion it if you three will but minister such assistance as I shall give you direction.

LEONATO

My lord, I am for you, though it cost me ten nights’ watchings.

CLAUDIO

And I, my lord.

DON PEDRO

And you too, gentle Hero?

HERO

I will do any modest office, my lord, to help my cousin to a good husband.

DON PEDRO

And Benedick is not the unhopefullest husband that I know. Thus far can I praise him: he is of a noble strain, of approved valour, and confirm’d honesty. I will teach you how to humour your cousin, that she shall fall in love with Benedick; and I, [to Leonato and Claudio] with your two helps, will so practise on Benedick that, in despite of his quick wit and his queasy stomach, he shall fall in love with Beatrice. If we can do this, Cupid is no longer an archer; his glory shall be ours, for we are the only love-gods. Go in with me, and I will tell you my drift.

Exeunt.

Scene II.

A hall in Leonato’s house.

Enter [Don] John and Borachio.

DON JOHN

It is so. The Count Claudio shall marry the daughter of Leonato.

BORACHIO

Yea, my lord; but I can cross it.

DON JOHN

Any bar, any cross, any impediment will be med’cinable to me. I am sick in displeasure to him, and whatsoever comes athwart his affection ranges evenly with mine. How canst thou cross this marriage?

BORACHIO

Not honestly, my lord, but so covertly that no dishonesty shall appear in me.

DON JOHN

Show me briefly how.

BORACHIO

I think I told your lordship, a year since, how much I am in the favour of Margaret, the waiting gentlewoman to Hero.

DON JOHN

I remember.

BORACHIO

I can, at any unseasonable instant of the night, appoint her to look out at her lady’s chamber window.

DON JOHN

What life is in that to be the death of this marriage?

BORACHIO

The poison of that lies in you to temper. Go you to the Prince your brother; spare not to tell him that he hath wronged his honour in marrying the renowned Claudio (whose estimation do you mightily hold up) to a contaminated stale, such a one as Hero.

DON JOHN

What proof shall I make of that?

BORACHIO

Proof enough to misuse the Prince, to vex Claudio, to undo Hero, and kill Leonato. Look you for any other issue?

DON JOHN

Only to despite them I will endeavour anything.

BORACHIO

Go then; find me a meet hour to draw Don Pedro and the Count Claudio alone; tell them that you know that Hero loves me; intend a kind of zeal both to the Prince and Claudio, as--in love of your brother’s honour, who hath made this match, and his friend’s reputation, who is thus like to be cozen’d with the semblance of a maid--that you have discover’d thus. They will scarcely believe this without trial. Offer them instances; which shall bear no less likelihood than to see me at her chamber window, hear me call Margaret Hero, hear Margaret term me Claudio; and bring them to see this the very night before the intended wedding (for in the meantime I will so fashion the matter that Hero shall be absent) and there shall appear such seeming truth of Hero’s disloyalty that jealousy shall be call’d assurance and all the preparation overthrown.

DON JOHN

Grow this to what adverse issue it can, I will put it in practice. Be cunning in the working this, and thy fee is a thousand ducats.

BORACHIO

Be you constant in the accusation, and my cunning shall not shame me.

DON JOHN

I will presently go learn their day of marriage.

Exeunt.

Scene III.

Leonato’s orchard.

Enter Benedick alone.

BENEDICK

Boy!

[Enter Boy.]

BOY

Signior?

BENEDICK

In my chamber window lies a book. Bring it hither to me in the orchard.

BOY

I am here already, sir.

BENEDICK

I know that, but I would have thee hence and here again. (Exit Boy.) I do much wonder that one man, seeing how much another man is a fool when he dedicates his behaviours to love, will, after he hath laugh’d at such shallow follies in others, become the argument of his own scorn by falling in love; and such a man is Claudio. I have known when there was no music with him but the drum and the fife; and now had he rather hear the tabor and the pipe. I have known when he would have walk’d ten mile afoot to see a good armour; and now will he lie ten nights awake carving the fashion of a new doublet. He was wont to speak plain and to the purpose, like an honest man and a soldier; and now is he turn’d orthography; his words are a very fantastical banquet-- just so many strange dishes. May I be so converted and see with these eyes? I cannot tell; I think not. I will not be sworn but love may transform me to an oyster; but I’ll take my oath on it, till he have made an oyster of me he shall never make me such a fool. One woman is fair, yet I am well; another is wise, yet I am well; another virtuous, yet I am well; but till all graces be in one woman, one woman shall not come in my grace. Rich she shall be, that’s certain; wise, or I’ll none; virtuous, or I’ll never cheapen her; fair, or I’ll never look on her; mild, or come not near me; noble, or not I for an angel; of good discourse, an excellent musician, and her hair shall be of what colour it please God. Ha, the Prince and Monsieur Love! I will hide me in the arbour. [Hides.]

Enter Don Pedro, Leonato, Claudio.

Music [within]

DON PEDRO

Come, shall we hear this music?

CLAUDIO

Yea, my good lord. How still the evening is,

As hush’d on purpose to grace harmony!

DON PEDRO

See you where Benedick hath hid himself?

CLAUDIO

O, very well, my lord. The music ended,

We’ll fit the kid-fox with a pennyworth.

Enter Balthasar with Music.

DON PEDRO

Come, Balthasar, we’ll hear that song again.

BALTHAZAR

O, good my lord, tax not so bad a voice

To slander music any more than once.

DON PEDRO

It is the witness still of excellency

To put a strange face on his own perfection.

I pray thee sing, and let me woo no more.

BALTHAZAR

Because you talk of wooing, I will sing,

Since many a wooer doth commence his suit

To her he thinks not worthy, yet he wooes,

Yet will he swear he loves.

DON PEDRO

Nay, pray thee come;

Or if thou wilt hold longer argument,

Do it in notes.

BALTHAZAR

Note this before my notes:

There’s not a note of mine that’s worth the noting.

DON PEDRO

Why, these are very crotchets that he speaks!

Note notes, forsooth, and nothing! [Music.]

BENEDICK

[aside] Now divine air! Now is his soul ravish’d! Is it not strange that sheep’s guts should hale souls out of men’s bodies?

Well, a horn for my money, when all’s done.

[Balthasar sings.]

The Song.

Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more!

Men were deceivers ever,

One foot in sea, and one on shore;

To one thing constant never.

Then sigh not so,

But let them go,

And be you blithe and bonny,

Converting all your sounds of woe

Into Hey nonny, nonny.

Sing no more ditties, sing no moe,

Of dumps so dull and heavy!

DON PEDRO

By my troth, a good song.

BALTHAZAR

And an ill singer, my lord.

DON PEDRO

Ha, no, no, faith! Thou sing’st well enough for a shift.

BENEDICK

[aside] An he had been a dog that should have howl’d thus, they would have hang’d him; and I pray God his bad voice bode no mischief. I had as live have heard the night raven, come what plague could have come after it.

DON PEDRO

Yea, marry. Dost thou hear, Balthasar? I pray thee get us some excellent music; for to-morrow night we would have it at the Lady Hero’s chamber window.

BALTHAZAR

The best I can, my lord.

DON PEDRO

Do so. Farewell.

Exit Balthasar [with Musicians].

Come hither, Leonato. What was it you told me of to-day? that your niece Beatrice was in love with Signior Benedick?

CLAUDIO

O, ay!-[Aside to Pedro] Stalk on, stalk on; the fowl sits. --I did never think that lady would have loved any man.

LEONATO

No, nor I neither; but most wonderful that she should so dote on Signior Benedick, whom she hath in all outward behaviours seem’d ever to abhor.

BENEDICK

[aside] Is’t possible? Sits the wind in that corner?

LEONATO

By my troth, my lord, I cannot tell what to think of it, but that she loves him with an enraged affection. It is past the infinite of thought.

DON PEDRO

May be she doth but counterfeit.

CLAUDIO

Faith, like enough.

LEONATO

O God, counterfeit? There was never counterfeit of passion came so near the life of passion as she discovers it.

DON PEDRO

Why, what effects of passion shows she?

CLAUDIO

[aside] Bait the hook well! This fish will bite.

LEONATO

What effects, my lord? She will sit you--you heard my daughter tell you how.

CLAUDIO

She did indeed.

DON PEDRO

How, how, I pray you? You amaze me. I would have thought her spirit had been invincible against all assaults of affection.

LEONATO

I would have sworn it had, my lord--especially against Benedick.

BENEDICK

[aside] I should think this a gull but that the white-bearded fellow speaks it. Knavery cannot, sure, hide himself in such reverence.

CLAUDIO

[aside] He hath ta’en th’ infection. Hold it up.

DON PEDRO

Hath she made her affection known to Benedick?

LEONATO

No, and swears she never will. That’s her torment.

CLAUDIO

‘Tis true indeed. So your daughter says. ‘Shall I,’ says she, ‘that have so oft encount’red him with scorn, write to him that I love him?’”

LEONATO

This says she now when she is beginning to write to him; for she’ll be up twenty times a night, and there will she sit in her smock till she have writ a sheet of paper. My daughter tells us all.

CLAUDIO

Now you talk of a sheet of paper, I remember a pretty jest your daughter told us of.

LEONATO

O, when she had writ it, and was reading it over, she found ‘Benedick’ and ‘Beatrice’ between the sheet?

CLAUDIO

That.

LEONATO

O, she tore the letter into a thousand halfpence, rail’d at herself that she should be so immodest to write to one that she knew would flout her. ‘I measure him,’ says she, ‘by my own spirit; for I should flout him if he writ to me. Yea, though I love him, I should.’

CLAUDIO

Then down upon her knees she falls, weeps, sobs, beats her heart, tears her hair, prays, curses--’O sweet Benedick! God give me patience!’

LEONATO

She doth indeed; my daughter says so. And the ecstasy hath so much overborne her that my daughter is sometime afeard she will do a desperate outrage to herself. It is very true.

DON PEDRO

It were good that Benedick knew of it by some other, if she will not discover it.

CLAUDIO

To what end? He would make but a sport of it and torment the poor lady worse.

DON PEDRO

An he should, it were an alms to hang him! She’s an excellent sweet lady, and (out of all suspicion) she is virtuous.

CLAUDIO

And she is exceeding wise.

DON PEDRO

In everything but in loving Benedick.

LEONATO

O, my lord, wisdom and blood combating in so tender a body, we have ten proofs to one that blood hath the victory. I am sorry for her, as I have just cause, being her uncle and her guardian.

DON PEDRO

I would she had bestowed this dotage on me. I would have daff’d all other respects and made her half myself. I pray you tell Benedick of it and hear what ‘a will say.

LEONATO

Were it good, think you?

CLAUDIO

Hero thinks surely she will die; for she says she will die if he love her not, and she will die ere she make her love known, and she will die, if he woo her, rather than she will bate one breath of her accustomed crossness.

DON PEDRO

She doth well. If she should make tender of her love, ‘tis very possible he’ll scorn it; for the man (as you know all) hath a contemptible spirit.

CLAUDIO

He is a very proper man.

DON PEDRO

He hath indeed a good outward happiness.

CLAUDIO

Before God! and in my mind, very wise.

DON PEDRO

He doth indeed show some sparks that are like wit.

CLAUDIO

And I take him to be valiant.

DON PEDRO

As Hector, I assure you; and in the managing of quarrels you may say he is wise, for either he avoids them with great discretion, or undertakes them with a most Christianlike fear.

LEONATO

If he do fear God, ‘a must necessarily keep peace. If he break the peace, he ought to enter into a quarrel with fear and trembling.

DON PEDRO

And so will he do; for the man doth fear God, howsoever it seems not in him by some large jests he will make. Well, I am sorry for your niece. Shall we go seek Benedick and tell him of her love?

CLAUDIO

Never tell him, my lord. Let her wear it out with good counsel.

LEONATO

Nay, that’s impossible; she may wear her heart out first.

DON PEDRO

Well, we will hear further of it by your daughter. Let it cool the while. I love Benedick well, and I could wish he would modestly examine himself to see how much he is unworthy so good a lady.

LEONATO

My lord, will you .walk? Dinner is ready.

[They walk away.]

CLAUDIO

If he dote on her upon this, I will never trust my expectation.

DON PEDRO

Let there be the same net spread for her, and that must your daughter and her gentlewomen carry. The sport will be, when they hold one an opinion of another’s dotage, and no such matter. That’s the scene that I would see, which will be merely a dumb show. Let us send her to call him in to dinner.

Exeunt [Don Pedro, Claudio, and Leonato]

[Benedick advances from the arbour.]

BENEDICK

This can be no trick. The conference was sadly borne; they have the truth of this from Hero; they seem to pity the lady. It seems her affections have their full bent. Love me? Why, it must be requited. I hear how I am censur’d. They say I will bear myself proudly if I perceive the love come from her. They say too that she will rather die than give any sign of affection. I did never think to marry. I must not seem proud. Happy are they that hear their detractions and can put them to mending. They say the lady is fair--’tis a truth, I can bear them witness; and virtuous

--’tis so, I cannot reprove it; and wise, but for loving me--by my troth, it is no addition to her wit, nor no great argument of her folly, for I will be horribly in love with her. I may chance have some odd quirks and remnants of wit broken on me because I have railed so long against marriage. But doth not the appetite alters? A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age. Shall quips and sentences and these paper bullets of the brain awe a man from the career of his humour? No, the world must be peopled. When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married.

Enter Beatrice.

Here comes Beatrice. By this day, she’s a fair lady! I do spy some marks of love in her.

BEATRICE

Against my will I am sent to bid You come in to dinner.

BENEDICK

Fair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains.

BEATRICE

I took no more pains for those thanks than you take pains to thank me. If it had been painful, I would not have come.

BENEDICK

You take pleasure then in the message?

BEATRICE

Yea, just so much as you may take upon a knives point, and choke a daw withal. You have no stomach, signior. Fare you well.

Exit.

BENEDICK

Ha! ‘Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner.’ There’s a double meaning in that. ‘I took no more pains for those thanks than you took pains to thank me.’ That’s as much as to say, ‘Any pains that I take for you is as easy as thanks.’ If I do not take pity of her, I am a villain; if I do not love her, I am a Jew. I will go get her picture.

Exit.

ACT III.

Scene I.

Leonato’s orchard.

Enter Hero and two Gentlewomen, Margaret and Ursula.

HERO

Good Margaret, run thee to the parlour.

There shalt thou find my cousin Beatrice

Proposing with the Prince and Claudio.

Whisper her ear and tell her, I and Ursley

Walk in the orchard, and our whole discourse

Is all of her. Say that thou overheard’st us;

And bid her steal into the pleached bower,

Where honeysuckles, ripened by the sun,

Forbid the sun to enter--like favourites,

Made proud by princes, that advance their pride

Against that power that bred it. There will she hide her

To listen our propose. This is thy office.

Bear thee well in it and leave us alone.

MARGARET

I’ll make her come, I warrant you, presently.[Exit.]

HERO

Now, Ursula, when Beatrice doth come,

As we do trace this alley up and down,

Our talk must only be of Benedick.

When I do name him, let it be thy part

To praise him more than ever man did merit.

My talk to thee must be how Benedick

Is sick in love with Beatrice. Of this matter

Is little Cupid’s crafty arrow made,

That only wounds by hearsay.

[Enter Beatrice.]

Now begin;

For look where Beatrice like a lapwing runs

Close by the ground, to hear our conference.

[Beatrice hides in the arbour].

URSULA

The pleasant’st angling is to see the fish

Cut with her golden oars the silver stream

And greedily devour the treacherous bait.

So angle we for Beatrice, who even now

Is couched in the woodbine coverture.

Fear you not my part of the dialogue.

HERO

Then go we near her, that her ear lose nothing

Of the false sweet bait that we lay for it.

[They approach the arbour.]

No, truly, Ursula, she is too disdainful.

I know her spirits are as coy and wild

As haggards of the rock.

URSULA

But are you sure

That Benedick loves Beatrice so entirely?

HERO

So says the Prince, and my new-trothed lord.

URSULA

And did they bid you tell her of it, madam?

HERO

They did entreat me to acquaint her of it;

But I persuaded them, if they lov’d Benedick,

To wish him wrestle with affection

And never to let Beatrice know of it.

URSULA

Why did you so? Doth not the gentleman

Deserve as full, as fortunate a bed

As ever Beatrice shall couch upon?

HERO

O god of love! I know he doth deserve

As much as may be yielded to a man:

But Nature never fram’d a woman’s heart

Of prouder stuff than that of Beatrice.

Disdain and scorn ride sparkling in her eyes,

Misprizing what they look on; and her wit

Values itself so highly that to her

All matter else seems weak. She cannot love,

Nor take no shape nor project of affection,

She is so self-endeared.

URSULA

Sure I think so;

And therefore certainly it were not good

She knew his love, lest she’ll make sport at it.

HERO

Why, you speak truth. I never yet saw man,

How wise, how noble, young, how rarely featur’d,

But she would spell him backward. If fair-fac’d,

She would swear the gentleman should be her sister;

If black, why, Nature, drawing of an antic,

Made a foul blot; if tall, a lance ill-headed;

If low, an agate very vilely cut;

If speaking, why, a vane blown with all winds;

If silent, why, a block moved with none.

So turns she every man the wrong side out

And never gives to truth and virtue that

Which simpleness and merit purchaseth.

URSULA

Sure, sure, such carping is not commendable.

HERO

No, not to be so odd, and from all fashions,

As Beatrice is, cannot be commendable.

But who dare tell her so? If I should speak,

She would mock me into air; O, she would laugh me

Out of myself, press me to death with wit!

Therefore let Benedick, like cover’d fire,

Consume away in sighs, waste inwardly.

It were a better death than die with mocks,

Which is as bad as die with tickling.

URSULA

Yet tell her of it. Hear what she will say.

HERO

No; rather I will go to Benedick

And counsel him to fight against his passion.

And truly, I’ll devise some honest slanders

To stain my cousin with. One doth not know

How much an ill word may empoison liking.

URSULA

O, do not do your cousin such a wrong!

She cannot be so much without true judgment

(Having so swift and excellent a wit

As she is priz’d to have) as to refuse

So rare a gentleman as Signior Benedick.

HERO

He is the only man of Italy,

Always excepted my dear Claudio.

URSULA

I pray you be not angry with me, madam,

Speaking my fancy: Signior Benedick,

For shape, for bearing, argument, and valour,

Goes foremost in report through Italy.

HERO

Indeed he hath an excellent good name.

URSULA

His excellence did earn it ere he had it.

When are you married, madam?

HERO

Why, every day to-morrow! Come, go in.

I’ll show thee some attires, and have thy counsel

Which is the best to furnish me to-morrow.

[They walk away.]

URSULA

She’s lim’d, I warrant you! We have caught her, madam.

HERO

If it prove so, then loving goes by haps;

Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps.

Exeunt [Hero and Ursula].

[Beatrice advances from the arbour.]

BEATRICE

What fire is in mine ears? Can this be true?

Stand I condemn’d for pride and scorn so much?

Contempt, farewell! and maiden pride, adieu!

No glory lives behind the back of such.

And, Benedick, love on; I will requite thee,

Taming my wild heart to thy loving hand.

If thou dost love, my kindness shall incite thee

To bind our loves up in a holy band;

For others say thou dost deserve, and I

Believe it better than reportingly.

Exit.

Scene II.

A room in Leonato’s house.

Enter Don Pedro, Claudio, Benedick, and Leonato.

DON PEDRO

I do but stay till your marriage be consummate, and then go I toward Arragon.

CLAUDIO

I’ll bring you thither, my lord, if you’ll vouchsafe me.

DON PEDRO

Nay, that would be as great a soil in the new gloss of your marriage as to show a child his new coat and forbid him to wear it. I will only be bold with Benedick for his company; for, from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot, he is all mirth.

He hath twice or thrice cut Cupid’s bowstring, and the little hangman dare not shoot at him. He hath a heart as sound as a bell; and his tongue is the clapper, for what his heart thinks, his tongue speaks.

BENEDICK

Gallants, I am not as I have been.

LEONATO

So say I. Methinks you are sadder.

CLAUDIO

I hope he be in love.

DON PEDRO

Hang him, truant! There’s no true drop of blood in him to be truly touch’d with love. If he be sad, he wants money.

BENEDICK

I have the toothache.

DON PEDRO

Draw it.

BENEDICK

Hang it!

CLAUDIO

You must hang it first and draw it afterwards.

DON PEDRO

What? sigh for the toothache?

LEONATO

Where is but a humour or a worm.

BENEDICK

Well, every one can master a grief but he that has it.

CLAUDIO

Yet say I he is in love.

DON PEDRO

There is no appearance of fancy in him, unless it be a fancy that he hath to strange disguises; as to be a Dutchman to-day, a Frenchman to-morrow; or in the shape of two countries at once, as a German from the waist downward, all slops, and a Spaniard from the hip upward, no doublet. Unless he have a fancy to this foolery, as it appears he hath, he is no fool for fancy, as you would have it appear he is.

CLAUDIO

If he be not in love with some woman, there is no believing old signs. ‘A brushes his hat o’ mornings. What should that bode?

DON PEDRO

Hath any man seen him at the barber’s?

CLAUDIO

No, but the barber’s man hath been seen with him, and the old ornament of his cheek hath already stuff’d tennis balls.

LEONATO

Indeed he looks younger than he did, by the loss of a beard.

DON PEDRO

Nay, ‘a rubs himself with civet. Can you smell him out by that?

CLAUDIO

That’s as much as to say, the sweet youth’s in love.

DON PEDRO

And when was he wont to wash his face?

DON PEDRO

Yea, or to paint himself? for the which I hear what they say of him.

CLAUDIO

Nay, but his jesting spirit, which is new-crept into a lutestring, and now govern’d by stops.

DON PEDRO

Indeed that tells a heavy tale for him. Conclude, conclude, he is in love.

CLAUDIO

Nay, but I know who loves him.

DON PEDRO

That would I know too. I warrant, one that knows him not.

CLAUDIO

Yes, and his ill conditions; and in despite of all, dies for him.

DON PEDRO

She shall be buried with her face upwards.

BENEDICK

Yet is this no charm for the toothache. Old signior, walk aside with me. I have studied eight or nine wise words to speak to you, which these hobby-horses must not hear.

[Exeunt Benedick and Leonato.]

DON PEDRO

For my life, to break with him about Beatrice!

CLAUDIO

‘Tis even so. Hero and Margaret have by this played their parts with Beatrice, and then the two bears will not bite one another when they meet.

Enter John the Bastard.

DON JOHN

My lord and brother, God save you.

DON PEDRO

Good den, brother.

DON JOHN

If your leisure serv’d, I would speak with you.

DON PEDRO

In private?

DON JOHN

If it please you. Yet Count Claudio may hear, for what I would speak of concerns him.

DON PEDRO

What’s the matter?

DON JOHN

[to Claudio] Means your lordship to be married tomorrow?

DON PEDRO

You know he does.

DON JOHN

I know not that, when he knows what I know.

CLAUDIO

If there be any impediment, I pray you discover it.

DON JOHN

You may think I love you not. Let that appear hereafter, and aim better at me by that I now will manifest. For my brother, I think he holds you well and in dearness of heart hath holp to effect your ensuing marriage--surely suit ill spent and labour ill bestowed!

DON PEDRO

Why, what’s the matter?

DON JOHN

I came hither to tell you, and, circumstances short’ned (for she has been too long a-talking of), the lady is disloyal.

CLAUDIO

Who? Hero?

DON JOHN

Even she--Leonato’s Hero, your Hero, every man’s Hero.

CLAUDIO

Disloyal?

DON JOHN

The word is too good to paint out her wickedness. I could say she were worse; think you of a worse title, and I will fit her to it. Wonder not till further warrant. Go but with me to-night, you shall see her chamber window ent’red, even the night before her wedding day. If you love her then, to-morrow wed her. But it would better fit your honour to change your mind.

CLAUDIO

May this be so?

DON PEDRO

I will not think it.

DON JOHN

If you dare not trust that you see, confess not that you know. If you will follow me, I will show you enough; and when you have seen more and heard more, proceed accordingly.

CLAUDIO

If I see anything to-night why I should not marry her to-morrow, in the congregation where I should wed, there will I shame her.

DON PEDRO

And, as I wooed for thee to obtain her, I will join with thee to disgrace her.

DON JOHN

I will disparage her no farther till you are my witnesses. Bear it coldly but till midnight, and let the issue show itself.

DON PEDRO

O day untowardly turned!

CLAUDIO

O mischief strangely thwarting!

DON JOHN

O plague right well prevented! So will you say when you have seen the Sequel.

Exeunt.

Scene III.

A street.

Enter Dogberry and his compartner [Verges], with the Watch.

DOGBERRY

Are you good men and true?

VERGES

Yea, or else it were pity but they should suffer salvation, body and soul.

DOGBERRY

Nay, that were a punishment too good for them if they should have any allegiance in them, being chosen for the Prince’s watch.

VERGES

Well, give them their charge, neighbour Dogberry.

DOGBERRY

First, who think you the most desartless man to be constable?

FIRST WATCHMAN.

Hugh Oatcake, sir, or George Seacoal; for they can write and read.

DOGBERRY

Come hither, neighbour Seacoal. God hath bless’d you with a good name. To be a well-favoured man is the gift of fortune, but to write and read comes by nature.

SECOND WATCHMAN.

Both which, Master Constable--

DOGBERRY

You have. I knew it would be your answer. Well, for your favour, sir, why, give God thanks and make no boast of it; and for your writing and reading, let that appear when there is no need of such vanity. You are thought here to be the most senseless and fit man for the constable of the watch. Therefore bear you the lanthorn. This is your charge: you shall comprehend all vagrom men; you are to bid any man stand, in the Prince’s name.

SECOND WATCHMAN.

How if ‘a will not stand?

DOGBERRY

Why then, take no note of him, but let him go, and presently call the rest of the watch together and thank God you are rid of a knave.

VERGES

If he will not stand when he is bidden, he is none of the Prince’s subjects.

DOGBERRY

True, and they are to meddle with none but the Prince’s subjects. You shall also make no noise in the streets; for for the watch to babble and to talk is most tolerable, and not to be endured.

SECOND WATCHMAN.

We will rather sleep than talk. We know what belongs to a watch.

DOGBERRY

Why, you speak like an ancient and most quiet watchman, for I cannot see how sleeping should offend. Only have a care that your bills be not stol’n. Well, you are to call at all the alehouses and bid those that are drunk get them to bed.

SECOND WATCHMAN.

How if they will not?

DOGBERRY

Why then, let them alone till they are sober. If they make you not then the better answer, You may say they are not the men you took them for.

SECOND WATCHMAN.

Well, sir.

DOGBERRY

If you meet a thief, you may suspect him, by virtue of your office, to be no true man; and for such kind of men, the less you meddle or make with them, why, the more your honesty.

SECOND WATCHMAN.

If we know him to be a thief, shall we not lay hands on him?

DOGBERRY

Truly, by your office you may; but I think they that touch pitch will be defil’d. The most peaceable way for you, if you do take a thief, is to let him show himself what he is, and steal out of your company.

VERGES

You have been always called a merciful man, partner.

DOGBERRY

Truly, I would not hang a dog by my will, much more a man who hath any honesty in him.

VERGES

If you hear a child cry in the night, you must call to the nurse and bid her still it.

SECOND WATCHMAN.

How if the nurse be asleep and will not hear us?

DOGBERRY

Why then, depart in peace and let the child wake her with crying; for the ewe that will not hear her lamb when it baes will never answer a calf when he bleats.

VERGES

‘Tis very true.

DOGBERRY

This is the end of the charge: you, constable, are to present the Prince’s own person. If you meet the Prince in the night, you may stay him.

VERGES

Nay, by’r lady, that I think ‘a cannot.

DOGBERRY

Five shillings to one on’t with any man that knows the statutes, he may stay him! Marry, not without the Prince be willing; for indeed the watch ought to offend no man, and it is an offence to stay a man against his will.

VERGES

By’r lady, I think it be so.

DOGBERRY

Ha, ah, ha! Well, masters, good night. An there be any matter of weight chances, call up me. Keep your fellows’ counsels and your own, and good night. Come, neighbour.

SECOND WATCHMAN.

Well, masters, we hear our charge. Let us go sit here upon the church bench till two, and then all to bed.

DOGBERRY

One word more, honest neighbours. I pray you watch about Signior Leonato’s door; for the wedding being there tomorrow, there is a great coil to-night. Adieu. Be vigitant, I beseech you. Exeunt [Dogberry and Verges].

Enter Borachio and Conrade.

BORACHIO

What, Conrade!

SECOND WATCHMAN.

[aside] Peace! stir not!

BORACHIO

Conrade, I say!

CONRADE

Here, man. I am at thy elbow.

BORACHIO

Mass, and my elbow itch’d! I thought there would a scab follow.

CONRADE

I will owe thee an answer for that; and now forward with thy tale.

BORACHIO

Stand thee close then under this penthouse, for it drizzles rain, and I will, like a true drunkard, utter all to thee.

SECOND WATCHMAN.

[aside] Some treason, masters. Yet stand close.

BORACHIO

Therefore know I have earned of Don John a thousand ducats.

CONRADE

Is it possible that any villany should be so dear?

BORACHIO

Thou shouldst rather ask if it were possible any villany should be so rich; for when rich villains have need of poor ones, poor ones may make what price they will.

CONRADE

I wonder at it.

BORACHIO

That shows thou art unconfirm’d. Thou knowest that the fashion of a doublet, or a hat, or a cloak, is nothing to a man.

CONRADE

Yes, it is apparel.

BORACHIO

I mean the fashion.

CONRADE

Yes, the fashion is the fashion.

BORACHIO

Tush! I may as well say the fool’s the fool. But seest thou not what a deformed thief this fashion is?

SECOND WATCHMAN.

[aside] I know that Deformed. ‘A bas been a vile thief this seven year; ‘a goes up and down like a gentleman. I remember his name.

BORACHIO

Didst thou not hear somebody?

CONRADE

No; ‘twas the vane on the house.

BORACHIO

Seest thou not, I say, what a deformed thief this fashion is? how giddily ‘a turns about all the hot-bloods between fourteen and five-and-thirty? sometimes fashioning them like Pharaoh’s soldiers in the reechy painting, sometime like god Bel’s priests in the old church window, sometime like the shaven Hercules in the smirch’d worm-eaten tapestry, where his codpiece seems as massy as his club?

CONRADE

All this I see; and I see that the fashion wears out more apparel than the man. But art not thou thyself giddy with the fashion too, that thou hast shifted out of thy tale into telling me of the fashion?

BORACHIO

Not so neither. But know that I have to-night wooed Margaret, the Lady Hero’s gentlewoman, by the name of Hero. She leans me out at her mistress’ chamber window, bids me a thousand times good night--I tell this tale vilely; I should first tell thee how the Prince, Claudio and my master, planted and placed and possessed by my master Don John, saw afar off in the orchard this amiable encounter.

CONRADE

And thought they Margaret was Hero?

BORACHIO

Two of them did, the Prince and Claudio; but the devil my master knew she was Margaret; and partly by his oaths, which first possess’d them, partly by the dark night, which did deceive them, but chiefly by my villany, which did confirm any slander that Don John had made, away went Claudio enrag’d; swore he would meet her, as he was appointed, next morning at the temple, and there, before the whole congregation, shame her with what he saw

o’ernight and send her home again without a husband.

SECOND WATCHMAN.

We charge you in the Prince’s name stand!

FIRST WATCHMAN.

Call up the right Master Constable. We have here recover’d the most dangerous piece of lechery that ever was known in the commonwealth.

SECOND WATCHMAN.

And one Deformed is one of them. I know him; ‘a wears a lock.

CONRADE

Masters, masters--

FIRST WATCHMAN.

You’ll be made bring Deformed forth, I warrant you.

CONRADE

Masters--

SECOND WATCHMAN.

Never speak, we charge you. Let us obey you to go with us.

BORACHIO

We are like to prove a goodly commodity, being taken up of these men’s bills.

CONRADE

A commodity in question, I warrant you. Come, we’ll obey you.

Exeunt.

Scene IV.

A room in Leonato’s house.

Enter Hero, and Margaret and Ursula.

HERO

Good Ursula, wake my cousin Beatrice and desire her to rise.

URSULA

I will, lady.

HERO

And bid her come hither.

URSULA

Well [Exit.]

MARGARET

Troth, I think your other rebato were better.

HERO

No, pray thee, good Meg, I’ll wear this.

MARGARET

By my troth, ‘s not so good, and I warrant your cousin will say so.

HERO

My cousin’s a fool, and thou art another. I’ll wear none but this.

MARGARET

I like the new tire within excellently, if the hair were a thought browner; and your gown’s a most rare fashion, i’ faith. I saw the Duchess of Milan’s gown that they praise so.

HERO

O, that exceeds, they say.

MARGARET

By my troth, ‘s but a nightgown in respect of yours-- cloth-o’-gold and cuts, and lac’d with silver, set with pearls down sleeves, side-sleeves, and skirts, round underborne with a blush tinsel. But for a fine, quaint, graceful, and excellent fashion, yours is worth ten on’t.

HERO

God give me joy to wear it! for my heart is exceeding heavy.

MARGARET

‘Twill be heavier soon by the weight of a man.

HERO

Fie upon thee! art not ashamed?

MARGARET

Of what, lady? of speaking honourably? Is not marriage honourable in a beggar? Is not your lord honourable without marriage? I think you would have me say, ‘saving your reverence,a husband.’ An bad thinking do not wrest true speaking, I’ll offend nobody. Is there any harm in ‘the heavier for a husband’? None, I think, an it be the right husband and the right wife. Otherwise ‘tis light, and not heavy. Ask my Lady Beatrice else. Here she comes.

Enter Beatrice.

HERO

Good morrow, coz.

BEATRICE

Good morrow, sweet Hero.

HERO

Why, how now? Do you speak in the sick tune?

BEATRICE

I am out of all other tune, methinks.

MARGARET

Clap’s into ‘Light o’ love.’ That goes without a burden. Do you sing it, and I’ll dance it.

BEATRICE

Yea, ‘Light o’ love’ with your heels! then, if your husband have stables enough, you’ll see he shall lack no barnes.

MARGARET

O illegitimate construction! I scorn that with my heels.

BEATRICE

‘Tis almost five o’clock, cousin; ‘tis time you were ready. By my troth, I am exceeding ill. Hey-ho!

MARGARET

For a hawk, a horse, or a husband?

BEATRICE

For the letter that begins them all, H.

MARGARET

Well, an you be not turn’d Turk, there’s no more sailing by the star.

BEATRICE

What means the fool, trow?

MARGARET

Nothing I; but God send every one their heart’s desire!

HERO

These gloves the Count sent me, they are an excellent perfume.

BEATRICE

I am stuff’d, cousin; I cannot smell.

MARGARET

A maid, and stuff’d! There’s goodly catching of cold.

BEATRICE

O, God help me! God help me! How long have you profess’d apprehension?

MARGARET

Ever since you left it. Doth not my wit become me rarely?

BEATRICE

It is not seen enough. You should wear it in your cap. By my troth, I am sick.

MARGARET

Get you some of this distill’d carduus benedictus and lay it to your heart. It is the only thing for a qualm.

HERO

There thou prick’st her with a thistle.

BEATRICE

Benedictus? why benedictus? You have some moral in this ‘benedictus.’

MARGARET

Moral? No, by my troth, I have no moral meaning; I meant plain holy thistle. You may think perchance that I think you are in love. Nay, by’r lady, I am not such a fool to think what I list; nor I list not to think what I can; nor indeed I cannot think, if I would think my heart out of thinking, that you are in love, or that you will be in love, or that you can be in love.

Yet Benedick was such another, and now is he become a man. He swore he would never marry; and yet now in despite of his heart he eats his meat without grudging; and how you may be converted I know not, but methinks you look with your eyes as other women do.

BEATRICE

What pace is this that thy tongue keeps?

MARGARET

Not a false gallop.

Enter Ursula.

URSULA

Madam, withdraw. The Prince, the Count, Signior Benedick, Don John, and all the gallants of the town are come to fetch you to church.

HERO

Help to dress me, good coz, good Meg, good Ursula.

[Exeunt.]

Scene V.

The hall in Leonato’s house.

Enter Leonato and the Constable [Dogberry] and the Headborough [erges].

LEONATO

What would you with me, honest neighbour?

DOGBERRY

Marry, sir, I would have some confidence with you that decerns you nearly.

LEONATO

Brief, I pray you; for you see it is a busy time with me.

DOGBERRY

Marry, this it is, sir.

VERGES

Yes, in truth it is, sir.

LEONATO

What is it, my good friends?

DOGBERRY

Goodman Verges, sir, speaks a little off the matter--an old man, sir, and his wits are not so blunt as, God help, I would desire they were; but, in faith, honest as the skin between his brows.

VERGES

Yes, I thank God I am as honest as any man living that is an old man and no honester than I.

DOGBERRY

Comparisons are odorous. Palabras, neighbour Verges.

LEONATO

Neighbours, you are tedious.

DOGBERRY

It pleases your worship to say so, but we are the poor Duke’s officers; but truly, for mine own part, if I were as tedious as a king, I could find in my heart to bestow it all of your worship.

LEONATO

All thy tediousness on me, ah?

DOGBERRY

Yea, in ‘twere a thousand pound more than ‘tis; for I hear as good exclamation on your worship as of any man in the city; and though I be but a poor man, I am glad to hear it.

VERGES

And so am I.

LEONATO

I would fain know what you have to say.

VERGES

Marry, sir, our watch to-night, excepting your worship’s presence, ha’ ta’en a couple of as arrant knaves as any in Messina.

DOGBERRY

A good old man, sir; he will be talking. As they say, ‘When the age is in, the wit is out.’ God help us! it is a world to see! Well said, i’ faith, neighbour Verges. Well, God’s a good man. An two men ride of a horse, one must ride behind. An honest soul, i’ faith, sir, by my troth he is, as ever broke bread; but God is to be worshipp’d; all men are not alike, alas, good neighbour!

LEONATO

Indeed, neighbour, he comes too short of you.

DOGBERRY

Gifts that God gives.

LEONATO

I must leave you.

DOGBERRY

One word, sir. Our watch, sir, have indeed comprehended two aspicious persons, and we would have them this morning examined before your worship.

LEONATO

Take their examination yourself and bring it me. I am now in great haste, as it may appear unto you.

DOGBERRY

It shall be suffigance.

LEONATO

Drink some wine ere you go. Fare you well.

[Enter a Messenger.]

MESSENGER

My lord, they stay for you to give your daughter to her husband.

LEONATO

I’ll wait upon them. I am ready.

[Exeunt Leonato and Messenger.]

DOGBERRY

Go, good partner, go get you to Francis Seacoal; bid him bring his pen and inkhorn to the jail. We are now to examination these men.

VERGES

And we must do it wisely.

DOGBERRY

We will spare for no wit, I warrant you. Here’s that shall drive some of them to a non-come. Only get the learned writer to set down our excommunication, and meet me at the jail.

[Exeunt.]

ACT IV.

Scene I.

A church.

Enter Don Pedro, [John the] Bastard, Leonato, Friar [Francis], Claudio, Benedick, Hero, Beatrice, [and Attendants].

LEONATO

Come, Friar Francis, be brief. Only to the plain form of marriage, and you shall recount their particular duties afterwards.

FRIAR FRANCIS

You come hither, my lord, to marry this lady?

CLAUDIO

No.

LEONATO

To be married to her. Friar, you come to marry her.

FRIAR FRANCIS

Lady, you come hither to be married to this count?

HERO

I do.

FRIAR FRANCIS

If either of you know any inward impediment why you should not be conjoined, I charge you on your souls to utter it.

CLAUDIO

Know you any, Hero?

HERO

None, my lord.

FRIAR FRANCIS

Know you any, Count?

LEONATO

I dare make his answer--none.

CLAUDIO

O, what men dare do! what men may do! what men daily do, not knowing what they do!

BENEDICK

How now? interjections? Why then, some be of laughing, as, ah, ha, he!

CLAUDIO

Stand thee by, friar. Father, by your leave:

Will you with free and unconstrained soul

Give me this maid your daughter?

LEONATO

As freely, son, as God did give her me.

CLAUDIO

And what have I to give you back whose worth

May counterpoise this rich and precious gift?

DON PEDRO

Nothing, unless you render her again.

CLAUDIO

Sweet Prince, you learn me noble thankfulness.

There, Leonato, take her back again.

Give not this rotten orange to your friend.

She’s but the sign and semblance of her honour.

Behold how like a maid she blushes here!

O, what authority and show of truth

Can cunning sin cover itself withal!

Comes not that blood as modest evidence

To witness simple virtue, Would you not swear,

All you that see her, that she were a maid

By these exterior shows? But she is none:

She knows the heat of a luxurious bed;

Her blush is guiltiness, not modesty.

LEONATO

What do you mean, my lord?

CLAUDIO

Not to be married,

Not to knit my soul to an approved wanton.

LEONATO

Dear my lord, if you, in your own proof,

Have vanquish’d the resistance of her youth

And made defeat of her virginity--

CLAUDIO

I know what you would say. If I have known her,

You will say she did embrace me as a husband,

And so extenuate the forehand sin.

No, Leonato,

I never tempted her with word too large,

But, as a brother to his sister, show’d

Bashful sincerity and comely love.

HERO

And seem’d I ever otherwise to you?

CLAUDIO

Out on the seeming! I will write against it.

You seem to me as Dian in her orb,

As chaste as is the bud ere it be blown;

But you are more intemperate in your blood

Than Venus, or those pamp’red animals

That rage in savage sensuality.

HERO

Is my lord well that he doth speak so wide?

LEONATO

Sweet Prince, why speak not you?

DON PEDRO

What should I speak?

I stand dishonour’d that have gone about

To link my dear friend to a common stale.

LEONATO

Are these things spoken, or do I but dream?

DON JOHN

Sir, they are spoken, and these things are true.

BENEDICK

This looks not like a nuptial.

HERO

‘True!’ O God!

CLAUDIO

Leonato, stand I here?

Is this the Prince, Is this the Prince’s brother?

Is this face Hero’s? Are our eyes our own?

LEONATO

All this is so; but what of this, my lord?

CLAUDIO

Let me but move one question to your daughter,

And by that fatherly and kindly power

That you have in her, bid her answer truly.

LEONATO

I charge thee do so, as thou art my child.

HERO

O, God defend me! How am I beset!

What kind of catechising call you this?

CLAUDIO

To make you answer truly to your name.

HERO

Is it not Hero? Who can blot that name

With any just reproach?

CLAUDIO

Marry, that can Hero!

Hero itself can blot out Hero’s virtue.

What man was he talk’d with you yesternight,

Out at your window betwixt twelve and one?

Now, if you are a maid, answer to this.

HERO

I talk’d with no man at that hour, my lord.

DON PEDRO

Why, then are you no maiden. Leonato,

I am sorry you must hear. Upon my honour,

Myself, my brother, and this grieved Count

Did see her, hear her, at that hour last night

Talk with a ruffian at her chamber window,

Who hath indeed, most like a liberal villain,

Confess’d the vile encounters they have had

A thousand times in secret.

DON JOHN

Fie, fie! they are not to be nam’d, my lord--

Not to be spoke of;

There is not chastity, enough in language

Without offence to utter them. Thus, pretty lady,

I am sorry for thy much misgovernment.

CLAUDIO

O Hero! what a Hero hadst thou been

If half thy outward graces had been plac’d

About thy thoughts and counsels of thy heart!

But fare thee well, most foul, most fair! Farewell,

Thou pure impiety and impious purity!

For thee I’ll lock up all the gates of love,

And on my eyelids shall conjecture hang,

To turn all beauty into thoughts of harm,

And never shall it more be gracious.

LEONATO

Hath no man’s dagger here a point for me?

[Hero swoons.]

BEATRICE

Why, how now, cousin? Wherefore sink you down?

DON JOHN

Come let us go. These things, come thus to light,

Smother her spirits up.

[Exeunt Don Pedro, Don Juan, and Claudio.]

BENEDICK

How doth the lady?

BEATRICE

Dead, I think. Help, uncle!

Hero! why, Hero! Uncle! Signior Benedick! Friar!

LEONATO

O Fate, take not away thy heavy hand!

Death is the fairest cover for her shame

That may be wish’d for.

BEATRICE

How now, cousin Hero?

FRIAR FRANCIS

Have comfort, lady.

LEONATO

Dost thou look up?

FRIAR FRANCIS

Yea, wherefore should she not?

LEONATO

Wherefore? Why, doth not every earthly thing

Cry shame upon her? Could she here deny

The story that is printed in her blood?

Do not live, Hero; do not ope thine eyes;

For, did I think thou wouldst not quickly die,

Thought I thy spirits were stronger than thy shames,

Myself would on the rearward of reproaches

Strike at thy life. Griev’d I, I had but one?

Child I for that at frugal nature’s frame?

O, one too much by thee! Why had I one?

Why ever wast thou lovely in my eyes?

Why had I not with charitable hand

Took up a beggar’s issue at my gates,

Who smirched thus and mir’d with infamy,

I might have said, ‘No part of it is mine;

This shame derives itself from unknown loins’?

But mine, and mine I lov’d, and mine I prais’d,

And mine that I was proud on--mine so much

That I myself was to myself not mine,

Valuing of her--why, she, O, she is fall’n

Into a pit of ink, that the wide sea

Hath drops too few to wash her clean again,

And salt too little which may season give

To her foul tainted flesh!

BENEDICK

Sir, sir, be patient.

For my part, I am so attir’d in wonder,

I know not what to say.

BEATRICE

O, on my soul, my cousin is belied!

BENEDICK

Lady, were you her bedfellow last night?

BEATRICE

No, truly, not; although, until last night,

I have this twelvemonth been her bedfellow

LEONATO

Confirm’d, confirm’d! O, that is stronger made

Which was before barr’d up with ribs of iron!

Would the two princes lie? and Claudio lie,

Who lov’d her so that, speaking of her foulness,

Wash’d it with tears? Hence from her! let her die.

FRIAR FRANCIS

Hear me a little;

For I have only been silent so long,

And given way unto this course of fortune,

By noting of the lady. I have mark’d

A thousand blushing apparitions

To start into her face, a thousand innocent shames

In angel whiteness beat away those blushes,

And in her eye there hath appear’d a fire

To burn the errors that these princes hold

Against her maiden truth. Call me a fool;

Trust not my reading nor my observation,

Which with experimental seal doth warrant

The tenure of my book; trust not my age,

My reverence, calling, nor divinity,

If this sweet lady lie not guiltless here

Under some biting error.

LEONATO

Friar, it cannot be.

Thou seest that all the grace that she hath left

Is that she will not add to her damnation

A sin of perjury: she not denies it.

Why seek’st thou then to cover with excuse

That which appears in proper nakedness?

FRIAR FRANCIS

Lady, what man is he you are accus’d of?

HERO

They know that do accuse me; I know none.

If I know more of any man alive

Than that which maiden modesty doth warrant,

Let all my sins lack mercy! O my father,

Prove you that any man with me convers’d

At hours unmeet, or that I yesternight

Maintain’d the change of words with any creature,

Refuse me, hate me, torture me to death!

FRIAR FRANCIS

There is some strange misprision in the princes.

BENEDICK

Two of them have the very bent of honour;

And if their wisdoms be misled in this,

The practice of it lives in John the bastard,

Whose spirits toil in frame of villanies.

LEONATO

I know not. If they speak but truth of her,

These hands shall tear her. If they wrong her honour,

The proudest of them shall well hear of it.

Time hath not yet so dried this blood of mine,

Nor age so eat up my invention,

Nor fortune made such havoc of my means,

Nor my bad life reft me so much of friends,

But they shall find awak’d in such a kind

Both strength of limb and policy of mind,

Ability in means, and choice of friends,

To quit me of them throughly.

FRIAR FRANCIS

Pause awhile

And let my counsel sway you in this case.

Your daughter here the princes left for dead,

Let her awhile be secretly kept in,

And publish it that she is dead indeed;

Maintain a mourning ostentation,

And on your family’s old monument

Hang mournful epitaphs, and do all rites

That appertain unto a burial.

LEONATO

What shall become of this? What will this do?

FRIAR FRANCIS

Marry, this well carried shall on her behalf

Change slander to remorse. That is some good.

But not for that dream I on this strange course,

But on this travail look for greater birth.

She dying, as it must be so maintain’d,

Upon the instant that she was accus’d,

Shall be lamented, pitied, and excus’d

Of every hearer; for it so falls out

That what we have we prize not to the worth

Whiles we enjoy it, but being lack’d and lost,

Why, then we rack the value, then we find

The virtue that possession would not show us

Whiles it was ours. So will it fare with Claudio.

When he shall hear she died upon his words,

Th’ idea of her life shall sweetly creep

Into his study of imagination,

And every lovely organ of her life

Shall come apparell’d in more precious habit,

More moving, delicate, and full of life,

Into the eye and prospect of his soul

Than when she liv’d indeed. Then shall he mourn

(If ever love had interest in his liver)

And wish he had not so accused her--

No, though be thought his accusation true.

Let this be so, and doubt not but success

Will fashion the event in better shape

Than I can lay it down in likelihood.

But if all aim but this be levell’d false,

The supposition of the lady’s death

Will quench the wonder of her infamy.

And if it sort not well, you may conceal her,

As best befits her wounded reputation,

In some reclusive and religious life,

Out of all eyes, tongues, minds, and injuries.

BENEDICK

Signior Leonato, let the friar advise you;

And though you know my inwardness and love

Is very much unto the Prince and Claudio,

Yet, by mine honour, I will deal in this

As secretly and justly as your soul

Should with your body.

LEONATO

Being that I flow in grief,

The smallest twine may lead me.

FRIAR FRANCIS

‘Tis well consented. Presently away;

For to strange sores strangely they strain the cure.

Come, lady, die to live. This wedding day

Perhaps is but prolong’d. Have patience and endure.

Exeunt [all but Benedick and Beatrice]

BENEDICK

Lady Beatrice, have you wept all this while?

BEATRICE

Yea, and I will weep a while longer.

BENEDICK

I will not desire that.

BEATRICE

You have no reason. I do it freely.

BENEDICK

Surely I do believe your fair cousin is wronged.

BEATRICE

Ah, how much might the man deserve of me that would right her!

BENEDICK

Is there any way to show such friendship?

BEATRICE

A very even way, but no such friend.

BENEDICK

May a man do it?

BEATRICE

It is a man’s office, but not yours.

BENEDICK

I do love nothing in the world so well as you. Is not that strange?

BEATRICE

As strange as the thing I know not. It were as possible for me to say I loved nothing so well as you. But believe me not; and yet I lie not. I confess nothing, nor I deny nothing. I am sorry for my cousin.

BENEDICK

By my sword, Beatrice, thou lovest me.

BEATRICE

Do not swear, and eat it.

BENEDICK

I will swear by it that you love me, and I will make him eat it that says I love not you.

BEATRICE

Will you not eat your word?

BENEDICK

With no sauce that can be devised to it. I protest I love thee.

BEATRICE

Why then, God forgive me!

BENEDICK

What offence, sweet Beatrice?

BEATRICE

You have stayed me in a happy hour. I was about to protest I loved you.

BENEDICK

And do it with all thy heart.

BEATRICE

I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest.

BENEDICK

Come, bid me do anything for thee.

BEATRICE

Kill Claudio.

BENEDICK

Ha! not for the wide world!

BEATRICE

You kill me to deny it. Farewell.

BENEDICK

Tarry, sweet Beatrice.

BEATRICE

I am gone, though I am here. There is no love in you. Nay, I pray you let me go.

BENEDICK

Beatrice--

BEATRICE

In faith, I will go.

BENEDICK

We’ll be friends first.

BEATRICE

You dare easier be friends with me than fight with mine enemy.

BENEDICK

Is Claudio thine enemy?

BEATRICE

Is ‘a not approved in the height a villain, that hath slandered, scorned, dishonoured my kinswoman? O that I were a man! What? bear her in hand until they come to take hands, and then with public accusation, uncover’d slander, unmitigated rancour--O God, that I were a man! I would eat his heart in the market place.

BENEDICK

Hear me, Beatrice!

BEATRICE

Talk with a man out at a window!-a proper saying!

BENEDICK

Nay but Beatrice--

BEATRICE

Sweet Hero! she is wrong’d, she is sland’red, she is undone.

BENEDICK

Beat--

BEATRICE

Princes and Counties! Surely a princely testimony, a goodly count, Count Comfect, a sweet gallant surely! O that I were a man for his sake! or that I had any friend would be a man for my sake! But manhood is melted into cursies, valour into compliment, and men are only turn’d into tongue, and trim ones too. He is now as valiant as Hercules that only tells a lie,and swears it. I cannot be a man with wishing; therefore I will die a woman with grieving.

BENEDICK

Tarry, good Beatrice. By this hand, I love thee.

BEATRICE

Use it for my love some other way than swearing by it.

BENEDICK

Think you in your soul the Count Claudio hath wrong’d Hero?

BEATRICE

Yea, as sure is I have a thought or a soul.

BENEDICK

Enough, I am engag’d, I will challenge him. I will kiss your hand, and so I leave you. By this hand, Claudio shall render me a dear account. As you hear of me, so think of me. Go comfort your cousin. I must say she is dead-and so farewell.

[Exeunt.]

Scene II.

A prison.

Enter the Constables [Dogberry and Verges] and the Sexton, in gowns, [and the Watch, with Conrade and] Borachio.

DOGBERRY

Is our whole dissembly appear’d?

VERGES

O, a stool and a cushion for the sexton.

SEXTON

Which be the malefactors?

DOGBERRY

Marry, that am I and my partner.

VERGES

Nay, that’s certain. We have the exhibition to examine.

SEXTON

But which are the offenders that are to be examined? let them come before Master Constable.

DOGBERRY

Yea, marry, let them come before me. What is your name, friend?

BORACHIO

Borachio.

DOGBERRY

Pray write down Borachio. Yours, sirrah?

CONRADE

I am a gentleman, sir, and my name is Conrade.

DOGBERRY

Write down Master Gentleman Conrade. Masters, do you serve God?

BOTH

Yea, sir, we hope.

DOGBERRY

Write down that they hope they serve God; and write God first, for God defend but God should go before such villains! Masters, it is proved already that you are little better than false knaves, and it will go near to be thought so shortly. How answer you for yourselves?

CONRADE

Marry, sir, we say we are none.

DOGBERRY

A marvellous witty fellow, I assure you; but I will go about with him. Come you hither, sirrah. A word in your ear. Sir, I say to you, it is thought you are false knaves.

BORACHIO

Sir, I say to you we are none.

DOGBERRY

Well, stand aside. Fore God, they are both in a tale.

Have you writ down that they are none?

SEXTON

Master Constable, you go not the way to examine. You must call forth the watch that are their accusers.

DOGBERRY

Yea, marry, that’s the eftest way. Let the watch come forth. Masters, I charge you in the Prince’s name accuse these men.

FIRST WATCHMAN.

This man said, sir, that Don John the Prince’s brother was a villain.

DOGBERRY

Write down Prince John a villain. Why, this is flat perjury, to call a prince’s brother villain.

BORACHIO

Master Constable--

DOGBERRY

Pray thee, fellow, peace. I do not like thy look, I promise thee.

SEXTON

What heard you him say else?

SECOND WATCHMAN.

Marry, that he had received a thousand ducats of Don John for accusing the Lady Hero wrongfully.

DOGBERRY

Flat burglary as ever was committed.

VERGES

Yea, by th’ mass, that it is.

SEXTON

What else, fellow?

FIRST WATCHMAN.

And that Count Claudio did mean, upon his words, to disgrace Hero before the whole assembly, and not marry her.

DOGBERRY

O villain! thou wilt be condemn’d into everlasting redemption for this.

SEXTON

What else?

WATCHMEN

This is all.

SEXTON

And this is more, masters, than you can deny. Prince John is this morning secretly stol’n away. Hero was in this manner accus’d, in this manner refus’d, and upon the grief of this suddenly died. Master Constable, let these men be bound and brought to Leonato’s. I will go before and show him their examination. [Exit.]

DOGBERRY

Come, let them be opinion’d.

VERGES

Let them be in the hands--

CONRADE

Off, coxcomb!

DOGBERRY

God’s my life, where’s the sexton? Let him write down the Prince’s officer coxcomb. Come, bind them.--Thou naughty varlet!

CONRADE

Away! you are an ass, you are an ass.

DOGBERRY

Dost thou not suspect my place? Dost thou not suspect my years? O that he were here to write me down an ass! But, masters, remember that I am an ass. Though it be not written down, yet forget not that I am an ass. No, thou villain, thou art full of piety, as shall be prov’d upon thee by good witness. I am a wise fellow; and which is more, an officer; and which is more, a householder; and which is more, as pretty a piece of flesh as any is in Messina, and one that knows the law, go to! and a rich fellow enough, go to! and a fellow that hath had losses; and one that hath two gowns and everything handsome about him. Bring him away. O that I had been writ down an ass!

Exeunt.

ACT V.

Scene I.

The street, near Leonato’s house.

Enter Leonato and his brother [Antonio].

ANTONIO

If you go on thus, you will kill yourself,

And ‘tis not wisdom thus to second grief

Against yourself.

LEONATO

I pray thee cease thy counsel,

Which falls into mine ears as profitless

As water in a sieve. Give not me counsel,

Nor let no comforter delight mine ear

But such a one whose wrongs do suit with mine.

Bring me a father that so lov’d his child,

Whose joy of her is overwhelm’d like mine,

And bid him speak to me of patience.

Measure his woe the length and breadth of mine,

And let it answer every strain for strain,

As thus for thus, and such a grief for such,

In every lineament, branch, shape, and form.

If such a one will smile and stroke his beard,

Bid sorrow wag, cry ‘hem’ when he should groan,

Patch grief with proverbs, make misfortune drunk

With candle-wasters--bring him yet to me,

And I of him will gather patience.

But there is no such man; for, brother, men

Can counsel and speak comfort to that grief

Which they themselves not feel; but, tasting it,

Their counsel turns to passion, which before

Would give preceptial medicine to rage,

Fetter strong madness in a silken thread,

Charm ache with air and agony with words.

No, no! ‘Tis all men’s office to speak patience

To those that wring under the load of sorrow,

But no man’s virtue nor sufficiency

To be so moral when he shall endure

The like himself. Therefore give me no counsel.

My griefs cry louder than advertisement.

ANTONIO

Therein do men from children nothing differ.

LEONATO

I pray thee peace. I will be flesh and blood;

For there was never yet philosopher

That could endure the toothache patiently,

However they have writ the style of gods

And made a push at chance and sufferance.

ANTONIO

Yet bend not all the harm upon yourself.

Make those that do offend you suffer too.

LEONATO

There thou speak’st reason. Nay, I will do so.

My soul doth tell me Hero is belied;

And that shall Claudio know; so shall the Prince,

And all of them that thus dishonour her.

Enter Don Pedro and Claudio.

ANTONIO

Here comes the Prince and Claudio hastily.

DON PEDRO

Good den, Good den.

CLAUDIO

Good day to both of you.

LEONATO

Hear you, my lords!

DON PEDRO

We have some haste, Leonato.

LEONATO

Some haste, my lord! well, fare you well, my lord.

Are you so hasty now? Well, all is one.

DON PEDRO

Nay, do not quarrel with us, good old man.

ANTONIO

If he could right himself with quarrelling,

Some of us would lie low.

CLAUDIO

Who wrongs him?

LEONATO

Marry, thou dost wrong me, thou dissembler, thou!

Nay, never lay thy hand upon thy sword;

I fear thee not.

CLAUDIO

Mary, beshrew my hand

If it should give your age such cause of fear.

In faith, my hand meant nothing to my sword.

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 lied buried with her ancestors-

O, in a tomb where never scandal slept,

Save this of hers, fram’d by thy villany!

CLAUDIO

My villany?

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.

And. 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!

LEONATO

Brother Anthony--

ANTONIO

Hold you content. What, man! I know them, yea,

And what they weigh, even to the utmost scruple,

Scambling, outfacing, fashion-monging boys,

That lie and cog and flout, deprave and slander,

Go anticly, show outward hideousness,

And speak off half a dozen dang’rous words,

How they might hurt their enemies, if they durst;

And this is all.

LEONATO

But, brother Anthony--

ANTONIO

Come, ‘tis no matter.

Do not you meddle; let me deal in this.

DON PEDRO

Gentlemen both, we will not wake your patience.

My heart is sorry for your daughter’s death;

But, on my honour, she was charg’d with nothing

But what was true, and very full of proof.

LEONATO

My lord, my lord--

DON PEDRO

I will not hear you.

LEONATO

No? Come, brother, away!--I will be heard.

ANTONIO

And shall, or some of us will smart for it.

Exeunt ambo.

Enter Benedick.

DON PEDRO

See, see! Here comes the man we went to seek.

CLAUDIO

Now, signior, what news?

BENEDICK

Good day, my lord.

DON PEDRO

Welcome, signior. You are almost come to part almost a fray.

CLAUDIO

We had lik’d to have had our two noses snapp’d off with two old men without teeth.

DON PEDRO

Leonato and his brother. What think’st thou? Had we fought, I doubt we should have been too young for them.

BENEDICK

In a false quarrel there is no true valour. I came to seek you both.

CLAUDIO

We have been up and down to seek thee; for we are high-proof melancholy, and would fain have it beaten away. Wilt thou use thy wit?

BENEDICK

It is in my scabbard. Shall I draw it?

DON PEDRO

Dost thou wear thy wit by thy side?

CLAUDIO

Never any did so, though very many have been beside their wit. I will bid thee draw, as we do the minstrel--draw to pleasure us.

DON PEDRO

As I am an honest man, he looks pale. Art thou sick or angry?

CLAUDIO

What, courage, man! What though care kill’d a cat, thou hast mettle enough in thee to kill care.

BENEDICK

Sir, I shall meet your wit in the career an you charge it against me. I pray you choose another subject.

CLAUDIO

Nay then, give him another staff; this last was broke cross.

DON PEDRO

By this light, he changes more and more. I think he be angry indeed.

CLAUDIO

If he be, he knows how to turn his girdle.

BENEDICK

Shall I speak a word in your ear?

CLAUDIO

God bless me from a challenge!

BENEDICK

[aside to Claudio] You are a villain. I jest not; I will make it good how you dare, with what you dare, and when you dare. Do me right, or I will protest your cowardice. You have kill’d a sweet lady, and her death shall fall heavy on you. Let me hear from you.

CLAUDIO

Well, I will meet you, so I may have good cheer.

DON PEDRO

What, a feast, a feast?

CLAUDIO

I’ faith, I thank him, he hath bid me to a calve’s head and a capon, the which if I do not carve most curiously, say my knife’s naught. Shall I not find a woodcock too?

BENEDICK

Sir, your wit ambles well; it goes easily.

DON PEDRO

I’ll tell thee how Beatrice prais’d thy wit the other day. I said thou hadst a fine wit: ‘True,’ said she, ‘a fine little one.’ ‘No,’ said I, ‘a great wit.’ ‘Right,’ says she, ‘a great gross one.’ ‘Nay,’ said I, ‘a good wit.’ ‘Just,’ said she, ‘it hurts nobody.’ ‘Nay,’ said I, ‘the gentleman is wise.’ ‘Certain,’ said she, a wise gentleman.’ ‘Nay,’ said I, ‘he hath the tongues.’ ‘That I believe’ said she, ‘for he swore a thing to me on Monday night which he forswore on Tuesday morning. There’s a double tongue; there’s two tongues.’ Thus did she an hour together transshape thy particular virtues. Yet at last she concluded with a sigh, thou wast the proper’st man in Italy.

CLAUDIO

For the which she wept heartily and said she cared not.

DON PEDRO

Yea, that she did; but yet, for all that, an if she did not hate him deadly, she would love him dearly. The old man’s daughter told us all.

CLAUDIO

All, all! and moreover, God saw him when he was hid in the garden.

DON PEDRO

But when shall we set the savage bull’s horns on the sensible Benedick’s head?

CLAUDIO

Yea, and text underneath, ‘Here dwells Benedick, the married man’?

BENEDICK

Fare you well, boy; you know my mind. I will leave you now to your gossiplike humour. You break jests as braggards do their blades, which God be thanked hurt not. My lord, for your many courtesies I thank you. I must discontinue your company. Your brother the bastard is fled from Messina. You have among you kill’d a sweet and innocent lady. For my Lord Lackbeard there, he and I shall meet; and till then peace be with him.

[Exit.]

DON PEDRO

He is in earnest.

CLAUDIO

In most profound earnest; and, I’ll warrant you, for the love of Beatrice.

DON PEDRO

And hath challeng’d thee.

CLAUDIO

Most sincerely.

DON PEDRO

What a pretty thing man is when he goes in his doublet and hose and leaves off his wit!

Enter Constables [Dogberry and Verges, with the Watch, leading] Conrade and Borachio.

CLAUDIO

He is then a giant to an ape; but then is an ape a doctor to such a man.

DON PEDRO

But, soft you, let me be! Pluck up, my heart, and be sad! Did he not say my brother was fled?

DOGBERRY

Come you, sir. If justice cannot tame you, she shall ne’er weigh more reasons in her balance. Nay, an you be a cursing hypocrite once, you must be look’d to.

DON PEDRO

How now? two of my brother’s men bound? Borachio one.

CLAUDIO

Hearken after their offence, my lord.

DON PEDRO

Officers, what offence have these men done?

DOGBERRY

Marry, sir, they have committed false report; moreover, they have spoken untruths; secondarily, they are slanders; sixth and lastly, they have belied a lady; thirdly, they have verified unjust things; and to conclude, they are lying knaves.

DON PEDRO

First, I ask thee what they have done; thirdly, I ask thee what’s their offence; sixth and lastly, why they are committed; and to conclude, what you lay to their charge.

CLAUDIO

Rightly reasoned, and in his own division; and by my troth there’s one meaning well suited.

DON PEDRO

Who have you offended, masters, that you are thus bound to your answer? This learned constable is too cunning to be understood. What’s your offence?

BORACHIO

Sweet Prince, let me go no farther to mine answer. Do you hear me, and let this Count kill me. I have deceived even your very eyes. What your wisdoms could not discover, these shallow fools have brought to light, who in the night overheard me confessing to this man, how Don John your brother incensed me to slander the Lady Hero; how you were brought into the orchard and saw me court Margaret in Hero’s garments; how you disgrac’d her when you should marry her. My villany they have upon record, which I had rather seal with my death than repeat over to my shame. The lady is dead upon mine and my master’s false accusation; and briefly, I desire nothing but the reward of a villain.

DON PEDRO

Runs not this speech like iron through your blood?

CLAUDIO

I have drunk poison whiles he utter’d it.

DON PEDRO

But did my brother set thee on to this?

BORACHIO

Yea, and paid me richly for the practice of it.

DON PEDRO

He is compos’d and fram’d of treachery,

And fled he is upon this villany.

CLAUDIO

Sweet Hero, now thy image doth appear

In the rare semblance that I lov’d it first.

DOGBERRY

Come, bring away the plaintiffs. By this time our sexton hath reformed Signior Leonato of the matter. And, masters, do not forget to specify, when time and place shall serve, that I am an ass.

VERGES

Here, here comes Master Signior Leonato, and the sexton too.

Enter Leonato, his brother [Antonio], and the Sexton.

LEONATO

Which is the villain? Let me see his eyes,

That, when I note another man like him,

I may avoid him. Which of these is he?

BORACHIO

If you would know your wronger, look on me.

LEONATO

Art thou the slave that with thy breath hast kill’d

Mine innocent child?

BORACHIO

Yea, even I alone.

LEONATO

No, not so, villain! thou beliest thyself.

Here stand a pair of honourable men--

A third is fled--that had a hand in it.

I thank you princes for my daughter’s death.

Record it with your high and worthy deeds.

‘Twas bravely done, if you bethink you of it.

CLAUDIO

I know not how to pray your patience;

Yet I must speak. Choose your revenge yourself;

Impose me to what penance your invention

Can lay upon my sin. Yet sinn’d I not

But in mistaking.

DON PEDRO

By my soul, nor I!

And yet, to satisfy this good old man,

I would bend under any heavy weight

That he’ll enjoin me to.

LEONATO

I cannot bid you bid my daughter live-

That were impossible; but I pray you both,

Possess the people in Messina here

How innocent she died; and if your love

Can labour aught in sad invention,

Hang her an epitaph upon her tomb,

And sing it to her bones--sing it to-night.

To-morrow morning come you to my house,

And since you could not be my son-in-law,

Be yet my nephew. My brother hath a daughter,

Almost the copy of my child that’s dead,

And she alone is heir to both of us.

Give her the right you should have giv’n her cousin,

And so dies my revenge.

CLAUDIO

O noble sir!

Your over-kindness doth wring tears from me.

I do embrace your offer; and dispose

For henceforth of poor Claudio.

LEONATO

To-morrow then I will expect your coming;

To-night I take my leave. This naughty man

Shall fact to face be brought to Margaret,

Who I believe was pack’d in all this wrong,

Hir’d to it by your brother.

BORACHIO

No, by my soul, she was not;

Nor knew not what she did when she spoke to me;

But always hath been just and virtuous

In anything that I do know by her.

DOGBERRY

Moreover, sir, which indeed is not under white and black, this plaintiff here, the offender, did call me ass. I beseech you let it be rememb’red in his punishment. And also the watch heard them talk of one Deformed. They say he wears a key in his ear, and a lock hanging by it, and borrows money in God’s name, the which he hath us’d so long and never paid that now men grow hard-hearted and will lend nothing for God’s sake. Pray you examine him upon that point.

LEONATO

I thank thee for thy care and honest pains.

DOGBERRY

Your worship speaks like a most thankful and reverent youth, and I praise God for you.

LEONATO

There’s for thy pains. [Gives money.]

DOGBERRY

God save the foundation!

LEONATO

Go, I discharge thee of thy prisoner, and I thank thee.

DOGBERRY

I leave an arrant knave with your worship, which I beseech your worship to correct yourself, for the example of others. God keep your worship! I wish your worship well. God restore you to health! I humbly give you leave to depart; and if a merry meeting may be wish’d, God prohibit it! Come, neighbour.

Exeunt [Dogberry and Verges].

LEONATO

Until to-morrow morning, lords, farewell.

ANTONIO

Farewell, my lords. We look for you to-morrow.

DON PEDRO

We will not fall.

CLAUDIO

To-night I’ll mourn with Hero.

[Exeunt Don Pedro and Claudio.]

LEONATO

[to the Watch] Bring you these fellows on.--We’ll talk with Margaret, How her acquaintance grew with this lewd fellow.

Exeunt.

Scene II.

Leonato’s orchard.

Enter Benedick and Margaret [meeting].

BENEDICK

Pray thee, sweet Mistress Margaret, deserve well at my hands by helping me to the speech of Beatrice.

MARGARET

Will you then write me a sonnet in praise of my beauty?

BENEDICK

In so high a style, Margaret, that no man living shall come over it; for in most comely truth thou deservest it.

MARGARET

To have no man come over me? Why, shall I always keep below stairs?

BENEDICK

Thy wit is as quick as the greyhound’s mouth--it catches.

MARGARET

And yours as blunt as the fencer’s foils, which hit but hurt not.

BENEDICK

A most manly wit, Margaret: it will not hurt a woman. And so I pray thee call Beatrice. I give thee the bucklers.

MARGARET

Give us the swords; we have bucklers of our own.

BENEDICK

If you use them, Margaret, you must put in the pikes with a vice, and they are dangerous weapons for maids.

MARGARET

Well, I will call Beatrice to you, who I think hath legs.

BENEDICK

And therefore will come.

Exit Margaret.

[Sings] The god of love,

That sits above

And knows me, and knows me,

How pitiful I deserve--

I mean in singing; but in loving Leander the good swimmer,

Troilus the first employer of panders and a whole book full of these quondam carpet-mongers, whose names yet run smoothly in the even road of a blank verse--why, they were never so truly turn’d over and over as my poor self in love. Marry, I cannot show it in rhyme. I have tried. I can find out no rhyme to ‘lady’ but ‘baby’

--an innocent rhyme; for ‘scorn,’ ‘horn’--a hard rhyme; for

‘school’, ‘fool’--a babbling rhyme: very ominous endings! No, I was not born under a rhyming planet, nor cannot woo in festival terms.

Enter Beatrice.

Sweet Beatrice, wouldst thou come when I call’d thee?

BEATRICE

Yea, signior, and depart when you bid me.

BENEDICK

O, stay but till then!

BEATRICE

‘Then’ is spoken. Fare you well now. And yet, ere I go, let me go with that I came for, which is, with knowing what hath pass’d between you and Claudio.

BENEDICK

Only foul words; and thereupon I will kiss thee.

BEATRICE

Foul words is but foul wind, and foul wind is but foul breath, and foul breath is noisome. Therefore I will depart unkiss’d.

BENEDICK

Thou hast frighted the word out of his right sense, so forcible is thy wit. But I must tell thee plainly, Claudio undergoes my challenge; and either I must shortly hear from him or I will subscribe him a coward. And I pray thee now tell me, for which of my bad parts didst thou first fall in love with me?

BEATRICE

For them all together, which maintain’d so politic a state of evil that they will not admit any good part to intermingle with them. But for which of my good parts did you first suffer love for me?

BENEDICK

Suffer love!--a good epithet. I do suffer love indeed, for I love thee against my will.

BEATRICE

In spite of your heart, I think. Alas, poor heart! If you spite it for my sake, I will spite it for yours, for I will never love that which my friend hates.

BENEDICK

Thou and I are too wise to woo peaceably.

BEATRICE

It appears not in this confession. There’s not one wise man among twenty, that will praise himself.

BENEDICK

An old, an old instance, Beatrice, that liv’d in the time of good neighbours. If a man do not erect in this age his own tomb ere he dies, he shall live no longer in monument than the bell rings and the widow weeps.

BEATRICE

And how long is that, think you?

BENEDICK

Question: why, an hour in clamour and a quarter in rheum. Therefore is it most expedient for the wise, if Don Worm (his conscience) find no impediment to the contrary, to be the trumpet of his own virtues, as I am to myself. So much for praising myself, who, I myself will bear witness, is praiseworthy. And now tell me, how doth your cousin?

BEATRICE

Very ill.

BENEDICK

And how do you?

BEATRICE

Very ill too.

BENEDICK

Serve God, love me, and mend. There will I leave you too, for here comes one in haste.

Enter Ursula.

URSULA

Madam, you must come to your uncle. Yonder’s old coil at home. It is proved my Lady Hero hath been falsely accus’d, the Prince and Claudio mightily abus’d, and Don John is the author of all, who is fled and gone. Will you come presently?

BEATRICE

Will you go hear this news, signior?

BENEDICK

I will live in thy heart, die in thy lap, and be buried thy eyes; and moreover, I will go with thee to thy uncle’s.

Exeunt.

Scene III.

A churchyard.

Enter Claudio, Don Pedro, and three or four with tapers, [followed by Musicians].

CLAUDIO

Is this the monument of Leonato?

LORD

It is, my lord.

CLAUDIO

[reads from a scroll]

Epitaph.

Done to death by slanderous tongues

Was the Hero that here lies.

Death, in guerdon of her wrongs,

Gives her fame which never dies.

So the life that died with shame

Lives in death with glorious fame.

Hang thou there upon the tomb,

[Hangs up the scroll.]

Praising her when I am dumb.

Now, music, sound, and sing your solemn hymn.

Song.

Pardon, goddess of the night,

Those that slew thy virgin knight;

For the which, with songs of woe,

Round about her tomb they go.

Midnight, assist our moan,

Help us to sigh and groan

Heavily, heavily,

Graves, yawn and yield your dead,

Till death be uttered

Heavily, heavily.

CLAUDIO

Now unto thy bones good night!

Yearly will I do this rite.

DON PEDRO

Good morrow, masters. Put your torches out.

The wolves have prey’d, and look, the gentle day,

Before the wheels of Phoebus, round about

Dapples the drowsy east with spots of grey.

Thanks to you all, and leave us. Fare you well.

CLAUDIO

Good morrow, masters. Each his several way.

Pedro

Come, let us hence and put on other weeds,

And then to Leonato’s we will go.

CLAUDIO

And Hymen now with luckier issue speeds

Than this for whom we rend’red up this woe.

Exeunt.

Scene IV

The hall in Leonato’s house.

Enter Leonato, Benedick, [Beatrice,] Margaret, Ursula, Antonio, Friar [Francis], Hero.

FRIAR FRANCIS

Did I not tell you she was innocent?

LEONATO

So are the Prince and Claudio, who accus’d her

Upon the error that you heard debated.

But Margaret was in some fault for this,

Although against her will, as it appears

In the true course of all the question.

ANTONIO

Well, I am glad that all things sort so well.

BENEDICK

And so am I, being else by faith enforc’d

To call young Claudio to a reckoning for it.

LEONATO

Well, daughter, and you gentlewomen all,

Withdraw into a chamber by yourselves,

And when I send for you, come hither mask’d.

Exeunt Ladies.

The Prince and Claudio promis’d by this hour

To visit me. You know your office, brother:

You must be father to your brother’s daughter,

And give her to young Claudio.

ANTONIO

Which I will do with confirm’d countenance.

BENEDICK

Friar, I must entreat your pains, I think.

FRIAR FRANCIS

To do what, signior?

BENEDICK

To bind me, or undo me--one of them.

Signior Leonato, truth it is, good signior,

Your niece regards me with an eye of favour.

LEONATO

That eye my daughter lent her. ‘Tis most true.

BENEDICK

And I do with an eye of love requite her.

LEONATO

The sight whereof I think you had from me,

From Claudio, and the Prince; but what’s your will?

BENEDICK

Your answer, sir, is enigmatical;

But, for my will, my will is, your good will

May stand with ours, this day to be conjoin’d

In the state of honourable marriage;

In which, good friar, I shall desire your help.

LEONATO

My heart is with your liking.

FRIAR FRANCIS

And my help.

[Enter Don Pedro and Claudio and two or three other.]

Here comes the Prince and Claudio.

DON PEDRO

Good morrow to this fair assembly.

LEONATO

Good morrow, Prince; good morrow, Claudio.

We here attend you. Are you yet determin’d

To-day to marry with my brother’s daughter?

CLAUDIO

I’ll hold my mind, were she an Ethiope.

LEONATO

Call her forth, brother. Here’s the friar ready.

[Exit Antonio.]

DON PEDRO

Good morrow, Benedick. Why, what’s the matter

That you have such a February face,

So full of frost, of storm, and cloudiness?

CLAUDIO

I think he thinks upon the savage bull.

Tush, fear not, man! We’ll tip thy horns with gold,

And all Europa shall rejoice at thee,

As once Europa did at lusty Jove

When he would play the noble beast in love.

BENEDICK

Bull Jove, sir, had an amiable low,

And some such strange bull leap’d your father’s cow

And got a calf in that same noble feat

Much like to you, for you have just his bleat.

Enter [Leonato’s] brother [Antonio], Hero, Beatrice, Margaret, Ursula, [the ladies wearing masks].

CLAUDIO

For this I owe you. Here comes other reckonings.

Which is the lady I must seize upon?

ANTONIO

This same is she, and I do give you her.

CLAUDIO

Why then, she’s mine. Sweet, let me see your face.

LEONATO

No, that you shall not till you take her hand

Before this friar and swear to marry her.

CLAUDIO

Give me your hand before this holy friar.

I am your husband if you like of me.

HERO

And when I liv’d I was your other wife;[Unmasks.]

And when you lov’d you were my other husband.

CLAUDIO

Another Hero!

HERO

Nothing certainer.

One Hero died defil’d; but I do live,

And surely as I live, I am a maid.

DON PEDRO

The former Hero! Hero that is dead!

LEONATO

She died, my lord, but whiles her slander liv’d.

FRIAR FRANCIS

All this amazement can I qualify,

When, after that the holy rites are ended,

I’ll tell you largely of fair Hero’s death.

Meantime let wonder seem familiar,

And to the chapel let us presently.

BENEDICK

Soft and fair, friar. Which is Beatrice?

BEATRICE

[unmasks] I answer to that name. What is your will?

BENEDICK

Do not you love me?

BEATRICE

Why, no; no more than reason.

BENEDICK

Why, then your uncle, and the Prince, and Claudio

Have been deceived; for they swore you did.

BEATRICE

Do not you love me?

BENEDICK

Troth, no; no more than reason.

BEATRICE

Why, then my cousin, Margaret, and Ursula

Are much deceiv’d; for they did swear you did.

BENEDICK

They swore that you were almost sick for me.

BEATRICE

They swore that you were well-nigh dead for me.

BENEDICK

‘Tis no such matter. Then you do not love me?

BEATRICE

No, truly, but in friendly recompense.

LEONATO

Come, cousin, I am sure you love the gentleman.

CLAUDIO

And I’ll be sworn upon’t that he loves her;

For here’s a paper written in his hand,

A halting sonnet of his own pure brain,

Fashion’d to Beatrice.

HERO

And here’s another,

Writ in my cousin’s hand, stol’n from her pocket,

Containing her affection unto Benedick.

BENEDICK

A miracle! Here’s our own hands against our hearts.

Come, I will have thee; but, by this light, I take thee for pity.

BEATRICE

I would not deny you; but, by this good day, I yield upon great persuasion, and partly to save your life, for I was told you were in a consumption.

BENEDICK

Peace! I will stop your mouth. [Kisses her.]

BEATRICE

I’ll tell thee what, Prince: a college of wit-crackers cannot flout me out of my humour. Dost thou think I care for a satire or an epigram? No. If a man will be beaten with brains, ‘a shall wear nothing handsome about him. In brief, since I do purpose to marry, I will think nothing to any purpose that the world can say against it; and therefore never flout at me for what I have said against it; for man is a giddy thing, and this is my conclusion. For thy part, Claudio, I did think to have beaten thee; but in that thou art like to be my kinsman, live unbruis’d, and love my cousin.

CLAUDIO

I had well hop’d thou wouldst have denied Beatrice, that I might have cudgell’d thee out of thy single life, to make thee a double-dealer, which out of question thou wilt be if my cousin do not look exceeding narrowly to thee.

BENEDICK

Come, come, we are friends. Let’s have a dance ere we are married, that we may lighten our own hearts and our wives’ heels.

LEONATO

We’ll have dancing afterward.

BENEDICK

First, of my word! Therefore play, music. Prince, thou art sad. Get thee a wife, get thee a wife! There is no staff more reverent than one tipp’d with horn.

Enter Messenger.

MESSENGER

My lord, your brother John is ta’en in flight,

And brought with armed men back to Messina.

BENEDICK

Think not on him till to-morrow. I’ll devise thee brave punishments for him. Strike up, pipers!

Dance. [Exeunt.]

-THE END-