Much Ado About Nothing

Scene I. Before Leonato’s house.

Enter Leonato, Hero, and Beatrice, with a Messenger

Leonato

I learn in this letter that Don Peter 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

A victory is twice itself when the achiever brings home full numbers. I find here that Don Peter hath bestowed much honour on a young Florentine called Claudio.

Messenger

Much deserved on his part and equally remembered 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 bettered 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 washed. How much better is it to weep at joy than to joy at weeping!

Beatrice

I pray you, is Signior Mountanto returned 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 returned; and as pleasant as ever he was.

Beatrice

He set up his bills here in Messina and challenged Cupid at the flight; and my uncle’s fool, reading the challenge, subscribed for Cupid, and challenged him at the bird-bolt. I pray you, how many hath he killed and eaten in these wars? But how many hath he killed? 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; stuffed with all honourable virtues.

Beatrice

It is so, indeed; he is no less than a stuffed 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 governed 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 approached.

Enter Don Pedro, Don John, Claudio, Benedick, and Balthasar

Don Pedro

Good Signior Leonato, you are 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 asked 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 scratched 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, i’ 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 heartily 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 all except Benedick and Claudio

Claudio

Benedick, didst thou note the daughter of Signior Leonato?

Benedick

I noted her not; but I looked 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

No; I 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 likest her.

Benedick

Would you buy her, that you inquire 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 looked on.

Benedick

I can see yet without spectacles and I see no such matter: there’s her cousin, an she were not possessed 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 three-score again? Go to, i’ faith; an thou wilt needs thrust thy neck into a yoke, wear the print of it and sigh away Sundays. Look Don Pedro is returned to seek you.

Re-enter Don Pedro

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 uttered.

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 recheat 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 clapped on the shoulder, and called 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 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?

Claudio

O, my lord,
When you went onward on this ended action,
I look’d upon her with a soldier’s eye,
That liked, 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 liked 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. Was’t 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 salved 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 practise let us put it presently.

Exeunt

Scene II. A room in Leonato’s house.

Enter Leonato and Antonio, meeting

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.

Enter Attendants

Cousins, you know what you have to do. 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. The same.

Enter Don John and Conrade

Conrade

What the good-year, 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 blessing brings it?

Conrade

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

Don John

I wonder that thou, being, as thou sayest 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 disdained 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 enfranchised 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.
Who comes here?

Enter Borachio

What news, Borachio?

Borachio

I came yonder from a great supper: the prince your brother is royally entertained 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 entertained 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 obtained 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 of my mind! Shall we go prove what’s to be done?

Borachio

We’ll wait upon your lordship.

Exeunt

Scene I. A hall in Leonato’s house.

Enter Leonato, Antonio, Hero, Beatrice, and others

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-burned 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 bear-ward, 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 ruled by your father.

Beatrice

Yes, faith; it is my cousin’s duty to make curtsy and say ‘Father, as it please you.’ But yet for all that, cousin, let him be a handsome fellow, or else make another curtsy 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 overmastered with a pierce 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 kindred.

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 every thing 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 entering, brother: make good room.

All put on their masks

Enter Don Pedro, Claudio, Benedick, Balthasar, Don John, Borachio, Margaret, Ursula and others, masked

Don Pedro

Lady, will you walk about 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 thatched.

Don Pedro

Speak low, if you speak love.

Drawing her aside

Balthasar

Well, I would you did like me.

Margaret

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

Balthasar

Which is one?

Margaret

I say my prayers aloud.

Balthasar

I love you the better: the hearers may cry, Amen.

Margaret

God match me with a good dancer!

Balthasar

Amen.

Margaret

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

Balthasar

No more words: the clerk is answered.

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.

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 laughed 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. Then exeunt all except 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 not you Signior Benedick?

Claudio

You know me well; I am he.

Don John

Signior, you are very near my brother in his love: he is enamoured 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 to-night.

Don John

Come, let us to the banquet.

Exeunt Don John and Borachio

Claudio

Thus answer I in the name of Benedick,
But hear these ill news with the ears of Claudio.
’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!

Re-enter Benedick

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.

Re-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 offered 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 whipped.

Don Pedro

To be whipped! What’s his fault?

Benedick

The flat transgression of a schoolboy, who, being overjoyed with finding a birds’ 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 stolen his birds’ 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 danced with her told her she is much wronged by you.

Benedick

O, she misused 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 bad left him before he transgressed: she would have made Hercules have turned 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.

Don Pedro

Look, here she comes.

Enter Claudio, Beatrice, Hero, and Leonato

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 tooth-picker 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 Pigmies, 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 an 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 of question, you were born in a merry hour.

Beatrice

No, sure, my lord, my mother cried; but then there was a star danced, 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 dreamed of unhappiness and waked 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 Benedict.

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 seven-night; 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 the one with the 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 confirmed honesty. I will teach you how to humour your cousin, that she shall fall in love with Benedick; and I, 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: hi s 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. The same.

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 medicinable 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 any thing.

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 cozened with the semblance of a maid,—that you have discovered 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 called assurance and all the preparation overthrown.

Don John

Grow this to what adverse issue it can, I will put it in practise. 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

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 behaviors to love, will, after he hath laughed at such shallow follies in others, become the argument of his own scorn by failing 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 tabour and the pipe: I have known when he would have walked ten mile a-foot 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 turned 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.

Withdraws

Enter Don Pedro, Claudio, and Leonato

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.

Balthasar

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.

Balthasar

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

Now, pray thee, come;
Or, if thou wilt hold longer argument,
Do it in notes.

Balthasar

  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.

Air

Benedick

Now, divine air! now is his soul ravished! Is it not strange that sheeps’ guts should hale souls out of men’s bodies? Well, a horn for my money, when all’s done.

Balthasar

[Sings] 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;
The fraud of men was ever so,
Since summer first was leafy:
Then sigh not so, & c.

Don Pedro

By my troth, a good song.

Balthasar

And an ill singer, my lord.

Don Pedro

Ha, no, no, faith; thou singest well enough for a shift.

Benedick

An he had been a dog that should have howled thus, they would have hanged him: and I pray God his bad voice bode no mischief. I had as lief 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.

Balthasar

The best I can, my lord.

Don Pedro

Do so: farewell.

Exit Balthasar

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: 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 behaviors seemed ever to abhor.

Benedick

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

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

Leonato

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

Benedick

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

Claudio

He hath ta’en the 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 encountered 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; railed 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 afeared 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 every thing 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 daffed 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 Christian-like 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.

Claudio

If he do not 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

[Coming forward] 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 censured: 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 alter? 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. Here comes Beatrice. By this day! she’s a fair lady: I do spy some marks of love in her.

Enter Beatrice

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 knife’s 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

Scene I. Leonato’s garden.

Enter Hero, Margaret, and Ursula

Hero

Good Margaret, run thee to the parlor;
There shalt thou find my cousin Beatrice
Proposing with the prince and Claudio:
Whisper her ear and tell her, I and Ursula
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, ripen’d 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 purpose. 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, behind

Now begin;
For look where Beatrice, like a lapwing, runs
Close by the ground, to hear our conference.

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.

Approaching the bower

No, truly, Ursula, she is too disdainful;
I know her spirits are as coy and wild
As haggerds 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 loved 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 framed a woman’s heart
Of prouder stuff than that of Beatrice;
Disdain and scorn ride sparkling in her eyes,
Misprising 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 make sport at it.

Hero

Why, you speak truth. I never yet saw man,
How wise, how noble, young, how rarely featured,
But she would spell him backward: if fair-faced,
She would swear the gentleman should be her sister;
If black, why, Nature, drawing of an antique,
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 prized 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.

Ursula

She’s limed, I warrant you: we have caught her, madam.

Hero

If it proves so, then loving goes by haps:
Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps.

Exeunt Hero and Ursula

Beatrice

[Coming forward]
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 bow-string 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 touched 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 today, 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 stuffed 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

The greatest note of it is his melancholy.

Claudio

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 now crept into a lute-string and now governed 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 Don John

Don John

My lord and brother, God save you!

Don Pedro

Good den, brother.

Don John

If your leisure served, 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 to-morrow?

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 shortened, for she has been too long a talking of, the lady is disloyal.

Claudio

Who, Hero?

Don Pedro

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 entered, 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 any thing 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 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 desertless man to be constable?

First Watchman

Hugh Otecake, sir, or George Seacole; for they can write and read.

Dogberry

Come hither, neighbour Seacole. God hath blessed 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 lantern. 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.

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 stolen. Well, you are to call at all the ale-houses, and bid those that are drunk get them to bed.

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.

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 is for your honesty.

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 defiled: 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.

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 our 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, ha, 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.

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 to-morrow, there is a great coil to-night. Adieu: be vigitant, I beseech you.

Exeunt Dogberry and Verges

Enter Borachio and Conrade

Borachio

What Conrade!

Watchman

[Aside] Peace! stir not.

Borachio

Conrade, I say!

Conrade

Here, man; I am at thy elbow.

Borachio

Mass, and my elbow itched; 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 pent-house, for it drizzles rain; and I will, like a true drunkard, utter all to thee.

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 unconfirmed. 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?

Watchman

[Aside] I know that Deformed; a’ has 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 reeky painting, sometime like god Bel’s priests in the old church-window, sometime like the shaven Hercules in the smirched 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 possessed 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 enraged; 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’er night and send her home again without a husband.

First Watchman

We charge you, in the prince’s name, stand!

Second Watchman

Call up the right master constable. We have here recovered the most dangerous piece of lechery that ever was known in the commonwealth.

First Watchman

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

Conrade

Masters, masters,—

Second Watchman

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

Conrade

Masters,—

First 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. Hero’s apartment.

Enter Hero, 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 rabato 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 night-gown in respect of yours: cloth o’ gold, and cuts, and laced with silver, set with pearls, down sleeves, side sleeves, and skirts, round underborne with a bluish 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:’ and bad thinking do not wrest true speaking, I’ll offend nobody: is there any harm in ‘the heavier for a husband’? None, I think, and 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

Ye light o’ love, with your heels! then, if your husband have stables enough, you’ll see he shall lack no barns.

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: heigh-ho!

Margaret

For a hawk, a horse, or a husband?

Beatrice

For the letter that begins them all, H.

Margaret

Well, and you be not turned 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 stuffed, cousin; I cannot smell.

Margaret

A maid, and stuffed! there’s goodly catching of cold.

Beatrice

O, God help me! God help me! how long have you professed apprehension?

Margaret

Even 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 distilled Carduus Benedictus, and lay it to your heart: it is the only thing for a qualm.

Hero

There thou prickest 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.

Re-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. Another room in Leonato’s house.

Enter Leonato, with Dogberry and Verges

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 it in my heart to bestow it all of your worship.

Leonato

All thy tediousness on me, ah?

Dogberry

Yea, an ’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 worshipped; 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 Seacole; bid him bring his pen and inkhorn to the gaol: 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 gaol.

Exeunt

Scene I. A church.

Enter Don Pedro, Don John, 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, 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 thee! 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 pamper’d 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 mine 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 named, 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 placed
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 John, 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. Grieved I, I had but one?
Chid 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 smirch’d thus and mired with infamy,
I might have said ‘No part of it is mine;
This shame derives itself from unknown loins’?
But mine and mine I loved and mine I praised
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 fallen
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 attired 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 loved 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 observations,
Which with experimental seal doth warrant
The tenor 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 accused 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 conversed
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 practise 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, awaked 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 so be maintain’d,
Upon the instant that she was accused,
Shall be lamented, pitied and excused
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,
The 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 lived indeed; then shall he mourn,
If ever love had interest in his liver,
And wish he had not so accused her,
No, though he 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