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Much Ado About Nothing

by William Shakespeare

Dramatis Personae

Act 1

Scene 1

Enter Leonato, Governor of Messina, Hero his daughter, and Beatrice his niece, with a Messenger.

Leonato:[with a letter] I learn in this letter that Don Pedro of Aragon 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 Pedro hath bestowed much honor 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 honorable 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 he 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, Prince of Aragon, with 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. [Turning to Hero.] I think this is your daughter.

Leonato:Her mother hath many times told me so.

Signior 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 honorable father.

Leonato and the Prince move aside.

Signior 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.

Signior 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.

Signior 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 humor for that. I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me.

Signior 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.

Signior Benedick:Well, you are a rare parrot-teacher.

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

Signior 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.

Leonato and the Prince come forward.

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.

All exit except Benedick and Claudio.

Count Claudio:Benedick, didst thou note the daughter of Signior Leonato?

Signior Benedick:I noted her not, but I looked on her.

Count Claudio:Is she not a modest young lady?

Signior 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?

Count Claudio:No, I pray thee, speak in sober judgment.

Signior 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.

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

Signior Benedick:Would you buy her that you enquire after her?

Count Claudio:Can the world buy such a jewel?

Signior 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?

Count Claudio:In mine eye she is the sweetest lady that ever I looked on.

Signior 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?

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

Signior 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. Look, Don Pedro is returned to seek you.

Enter Don Pedro, Prince of Aragon.

Don Pedro:What secret hath held you here that you followed not to Leonato’s?

Signior Benedick:I would your Grace would constrain me to tell.

Don Pedro:I charge thee on thy allegiance.

Signior 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.

Count Claudio:If this were so, so were it uttered.

Signior Benedick:Like the old tale, my lord: "It is not so, nor ’twas not so, but, indeed, God forbid it should be so."

Count 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.

Count Claudio:You speak this to fetch me in, my lord.

Don Pedro:By my troth, I speak my thought.

Count Claudio:And in faith, my lord, I spoke mine.

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

Count Claudio:That I love her, I feel.

Don Pedro:That she is worthy, I know.

Signior 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.

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

Signior 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.

Signior 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.

Signior 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.

Signior 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."

Count 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.

Signior 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.

Signior Benedick:I have almost matter enough in me for such an embassage, and so I commit you—

Count Claudio:To the tuition of God. From my house, if I had it—

Don Pedro:The sixth of July. Your loving friend, Benedick.

Signior Benedick:Nay, mock not, mock not. The body of your discourse is sometimes 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.

He exits.

Count 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.

Count Claudio:Hath Leonato any son, my lord?

Don Pedro:No child but Hero; she’s his only heir. Dost thou affect her, Claudio?

Count Claudio:O, my lord, When you went onward on this ended action, I looked 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 returned 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?

Count 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 reveling tonight. 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.

They exit.

Scene 2

Enter Leonato, meeting an old man, brother to Leonato.

Leonato:How now, brother, where is my cousin, your son? Hath he provided this music?

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

Leonato:Are they good?

Leonato’s Brother:As the events 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?

Leonato’s Brother: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 Antonio’s son, with a Musician and 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.

They exit.

Scene 3

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 blessing brings it?

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

Don John:I wonder that thou, being, as thou sayst 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 humor.

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 whipped 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 o’ my mind! Shall we go prove what’s to be done?

Borachio:We’ll wait upon your Lordship.

They exit.

Act 2

Scene 1

Enter Leonato, his brother, Hero his daughter, and Beatrice his niece, with Ursula and Margaret.

Leonato:Was not Count John here at supper?

Leonato’s Brother:I saw him not.

Beatrice:How tartly that gentleman looks! I never can see him but I am heartburned 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 he could get her goodwill.

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

Leonato’s Brother: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 woolen!

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 bearherd, 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.

Leonato’s Brother:[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 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 kindred.

Leonato:[to Hero] 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 cinquepace. 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 cinquepace 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 revelers are entering, brother. Make good room.

Leonato and his brother step aside.

Enter, with a Drum, Prince Pedro, Claudio, and Benedick, Signior Antonio, and Balthasar, all in masks, with Borachio and Don John.

Don Pedro:[to Hero] Lady, will you walk a bout with your friend?

They begin to dance.

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 favor, 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.

They move aside; Benedick and Margaret move forward.

Signior Benedick:[to Margaret] Well, I would you did like me.

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

Signior Benedick:Which is one?

Margaret:I say my prayers aloud.

Signior Benedick:I love you the better; the hearers may cry "Amen."

Margaret:God match me with a good dancer.

They separate; Benedick moves aside; Balthasar moves forward.

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.

They move aside; Ursula and Antonio move forward.

Ursula:I know you well enough. You are Signior Antonio.

Signior Antonio:At a word, I am not.

Ursula:I know you by the waggling of your head.

Signior 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.

Signior 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 move aside; Benedick and Beatrice move forward.

Beatrice:Will you not tell me who told you so?

Signior Benedick:No, you shall pardon me.

Beatrice:Nor will you not tell me who you are?

Signior 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.

Signior Benedick:What’s he?

Beatrice:I am sure you know him well enough.

Signior Benedick:Not I, believe me.

Beatrice:Did he never make you laugh?

Signior 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 villainy, 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.

Signior 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 for the dance.] We must follow the leaders.

Signior Benedick:In every good thing.

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

Dance. Then exit all except Don John, Borachio, and Claudio.

Don John:[to Borachio] 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:[to Claudio] Are not you Signior Benedick?

Count Claudio:You know me well. I am he.

Don John:Signior, you are very near my brother in his love. He is enamored 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.

Count 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.

They exit. Claudio remains.

Count Claudio:[unmasking] Thus answer I in name of Benedick, But hear these ill news with the ears of Claudio. ’Tis certain so. The Prince woos 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.

Signior Benedick:Count Claudio?

Count Claudio:Yea, the same.

Signior Benedick:Come, will you go with me?

Count Claudio:Whither?

Signior 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.

Count Claudio:I wish him joy of her.

Signior Benedick:Why, that’s spoken like an honest drover; so they sell bullocks. But did you think the Prince would have served you thus?

Count Claudio:I pray you, leave me.

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

Count Claudio:If it will not be, I’ll leave you.

He exits.

Signior 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 the Prince, Hero, and Leonato.

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

Signior 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 goodwill 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?

Signior 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.

Signior 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 bird’s nest.

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

Signior 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.

Signior 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 had 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.

Enter Claudio and Beatrice.

Don Pedro:Look, here she comes.

Signior 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.

Signior Benedick:O God, sir, here’s a dish I love not! I cannot endure my Lady Tongue.

He exits.

Don Pedro:[to Beatrice] 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?

Count Claudio:Not sad, my lord.

Don Pedro:How then, sick?

Count 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 goodwill 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.

Count 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.

Count Claudio:And so she doth, cousin.

Beatrice:Good Lord for alliance! Thus goes everyone 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 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.

Beatrice exits.

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 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 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?

Count Claudio:Tomorrow, 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:[to Claudio] 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’ labors, 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.

Count 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 valor, and confirmed honesty. I will teach you how to humor your cousin that she shall fall in love with Benedick.— And I, with your two helps, will so practice 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.

They exit.

Scene 2

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 favor 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 honor 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 endeavor 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 honor, 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 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.

They exit.

Scene 3

Enter Benedick alone.

Signior Benedick:Boy!

Enter Boy.

Boy:Signior?

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

Boy:I am here already, sir.

Signior Benedick:I know that, but I would have thee hence and here again. [Boy exits.] 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 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 walked ten mile afoot to see a good armor, 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 color it please God. Ha! The Prince and Monsieur Love! I will hide me in the arbor.

He hides.

Enter Prince, Leonato, Claudio, and Balthasar with music.

Don Pedro:Come, shall we hear this music?

Count Claudio:Yea, my good lord. How still the evening is, As hushed on purpose to grace harmony!

Don Pedro:[aside to Claudio] See you where Benedick hath hid himself?

Count Claudio:[aside to Prince] O, very well my lord. The music ended, We’ll fit the kid-fox with a pennyworth.

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 woos, Yet will he swear he loves.

Don Pedro:Nay, 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.

Music plays.

Signior Benedick:[aside] 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 mo, Of dumps so dull and heavy. The fraud of men was ever so, Since summer first was leavy. Then sigh not so, but let them go, And be you blithe and bonny, Converting all your sounds of woe Into Hey, nonny nonny.

Don Pedro:By my troth, a good song.

Balthasar:And an ill singer, my lord.

Don Pedro:Ha, no, no, faith, thou sing’st well enough for a shift.

Signior Benedick:[aside] 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 tomorrow night we would have it at the Lady Hero’s chamber window.

Balthasar:The best I can, my lord.

Don Pedro:Do so. Farewell. [Balthasar exits.] Come hither, Leonato. What was it you told me of today, that your niece Beatrice was in love with Signior Benedick?

Count Claudio:O, ay. [Aside to Prince.] 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.

Signior 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:Maybe she doth but counterfeit.

Count 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?

Count Claudio:[aside to Leonato] Bait the hook well; this fish will bite.

Leonato:What effects, my lord? She will sit you—you heard my daughter tell you how.

Count 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.

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

Count Claudio:[aside to Prince] 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.

Count 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.

Count 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?

Count 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."

Count 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 sometimes 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.

Count 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.

Count 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 daffed all other respects and made her half myself. I pray you tell Benedick of it, and hear what he will say.

Leonato:Were it good, think you?

Count 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.

Count Claudio:He is a very proper man.

Don Pedro:He hath indeed a good outward happiness.

Count Claudio:Before God, and in my mind, very wise.

Don Pedro:He doth indeed show some sparks that are like wit.

Count 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, he 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?

Count 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.

Leonato, Prince, and Claudio begin to exit.

Count Claudio:[aside to Prince and Leonato] If he do not dote on her upon this, I will never trust my expectation.

Don Pedro:[aside to Leonato] 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.

Prince, Leonato, and Claudio exit.

Signior 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 humor? 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.

Signior 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.

Signior 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.

She exits.

Signior 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.

He exits.

Act 3

Scene 1

Enter Hero and two gentlewomen, 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 overheardst us, And bid her steal into the pleachèd bower Where honeysuckles ripened by the sun Forbid the sun to enter, like favorites, 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.

She exits.

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

Enter Beatrice, who hides in the bower.

Ursula:[aside to Hero] 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 couchèd in the woodbine coverture. Fear you not my part of the dialogue.

Hero:[aside to Ursula] Then go we near her, that her ear lose nothing Of the false sweet bait that we lay for it.— [They walk near the bower.] 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-trothèd 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, 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 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 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 covered 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 valor, 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, tomorrow. Come, go in. I’ll show thee some attires and have thy counsel Which is the best to furnish me tomorrow.

They move away from the bower.

Ursula:[aside to Hero] She’s limed, I warrant you. We have caught her, madam.

Hero:[aside to Ursula] If it prove so, then loving goes by haps; Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps.

Hero and Ursula exit.

Beatrice:[coming forward] What fire is in mine ears? Can this be true? Stand I condemned 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.

She exits.

Scene 2

Enter Prince, Claudio, Benedick, and Leonato.

Don Pedro:I do but stay till your marriage be consummate, and then go I toward Aragon.

Count 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.

Signior Benedick:Gallants, I am not as I have been.

Leonato:So say I. Methinks you are sadder.

Count 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.

Signior Benedick:I have the toothache.

Don Pedro:Draw it.

Signior Benedick:Hang it!

Count Claudio:You must hang it first, and draw it afterwards.

Don Pedro:What, sigh for the toothache?

Leonato:Where is but a humor or a worm.

Signior Benedick:Well, everyone can master a grief but he that has it.

Count 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 tomorrow, 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.

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

Don Pedro:Hath any man seen him at the barber’s?

Count 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, he rubs himself with civet. Can you smell him out by that?

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

Don Pedro:The greatest note of it is his melancholy.

Count 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.

Count 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.

Count Claudio:Nay, but I know who loves him.

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

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

Don Pedro:She shall be buried with her face upwards.

Signior 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.

Benedick and Leonato exit.

Don Pedro:For my life, to break with him about Beatrice!

Count 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 e’en, 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 tomorrow?

Don Pedro:You know he does.

Don John:I know not that, when he knows what I know.

Count 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 labor 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.

Count Claudio:Who, Hero?

Don John:Even she: Leonato’s Hero, your Hero, every man’s Hero.

Count 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 tonight, you shall see her chamber window entered, even the night before her wedding day. If you love her then, tomorrow wed her. But it would better fit your honor to change your mind.

Count Claudio:[to Prince] 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.

Count Claudio:If I see anything tonight why I should not marry her, tomorrow 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!

Count Claudio:O mischief strangely thwarting!

Don John:O plague right well prevented! So will you say when you have seen the sequel.

They exit.

Scene 3

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, neighbor 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, neighbor Seacoal. [Seacoal steps forward.] God hath blessed you with a good name. To be a well-favored man is the gift of fortune, but to write and read comes by nature.

George Seacoal:Both which, master constable—

Dogberry:You have. I knew it would be your answer. Well, for your favor, 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.

George Seacoal:How if he 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 stolen. Well, you are to call at all the alehouses and bid those that are drunk get them to bed.

George Seacoal: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.

George Seacoal: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.

George Seacoal: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:[to the Watch] 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 baas 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 he 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 offense to stay a man against his will.

Verges:By ’r Lady, I think it be so.

Dogberry:Ha, ah ha!—Well, masters, goodnight. An there be any matter of weight chances, call up me. Keep your fellows’ counsels and your own, and goodnight.—Come, neighbor.

Dogberry and Verges begin to exit.

George Seacoal: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 neighbors. I pray you watch about Signior Leonato’s door, for the wedding being there tomorrow, there is a great coil tonight. Adieu, be vigitant, I beseech you.

Dogberry and Verges exit.

Enter Borachio and Conrade.

Borachio:What, Conrade!

George Seacoal:[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 penthouse, for it drizzles rain, and I will, like a true drunkard, utter all to thee.

George Seacoal:[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 villainy should be so dear?

Borachio:Thou shouldst rather ask if it were possible any villainy 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?

First Watchman:[aside] I know that Deformed. He has been a vile thief this seven year. He 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 he turns about all the hot bloods between fourteen and five-and-thirty, sometimes fashioning them like Pharaoh’s soldiers in the reechy painting, sometimes like god Bel’s priests in the old church window, sometimes 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 tonight 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 goodnight. 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 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 villainy, 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’ernight and send her home again without a husband.

First Watchman:We charge you in the Prince’s name stand!

George Seacoal:Call up the right Master Constable. [Second Watchman exits.] 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; he wears a lock.

Enter Dogberry, Verges, and Second Watchman.

Dogberry:Masters, masters—

First Watchman:[to Borachio] You’ll be made bring Deformed forth, I warrant you.

Dogberry:[to Borachio and Conrade] Masters, never speak, we charge you, let us obey you to go with us.

Borachio:[to Conrade] 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.

They exit.

Scene 4

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.

Ursula exits.

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 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 honorably? Is not marriage honorable in a beggar? Is not your lord honorable 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:You 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, an 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 everyone 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: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 distilled 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.

They exit.

Scene 5

Enter Leonato, and Dogberry, the Constable, and Verges, the Headborough.

Leonato:What would you with me, honest neighbor?

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, neighbor Verges.

Leonato:Neighbors, 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, 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 tonight, 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, neighbor 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 worshiped, all men are not alike, alas, good neighbor.

Leonato:Indeed, neighbor, 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.

He exits, with the 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 noncome. Only get the learned writer to set down our excommunication and meet me at the jail.

They exit.

Act 4

Scene 1

Enter Prince, John the Bastard, Leonato, Friar, Claudio, Benedick, Hero, and Beatrice, with Attendants.

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

Friar Francis:[to Claudio] You come hither, my lord, to marry this lady?

Count 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.

Count Claudio:Know you any, Hero?

Hero:None, my lord.

Friar Francis:Know you any, count?

Leonato:I dare make his answer, none.

Count Claudio:O, what men dare do! What men may do! What men daily do, not knowing what they do!

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

Count Claudio:Stand thee by, friar.—Father, by your leave, Will you with free and unconstrainèd soul Give me this maid, your daughter?

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

Count 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.

Count 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 honor. 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?

Count Claudio:Not to be married, Not to knit my soul to an approvèd wanton.

Leonato:Dear my lord, if you in your own proof Have vanquished the resistance of her youth, And made defeat of her virginity—

Count 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, showed Bashful sincerity and comely love.

Hero:And seemed I ever otherwise to you?

Count 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 pampered 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 dishonored 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.

Signior Benedick:This looks not like a nuptial.

Hero:True! O God!

Count 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?

Count 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 catechizing call you this?

Count Claudio:To make you answer truly to your name.

Hero:Is it not Hero? Who can blot that name With any just reproach?

Count Claudio:Marry, that can Hero! Hero itself can blot out Hero’s virtue. What man was he talked with you yesternight Out at your window betwixt twelve and one? Now, if you are a maid, answer to this.

Hero:I talked 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 honor, Myself, my brother, and this grievèd 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, Confessed 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 offense, to utter them.—Thus, pretty lady, I am sorry for thy much misgovernment.

Count 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 falls.

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.

Claudio, Prince, and Don John exit.

Signior 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 wished for.

Beatrice:How now, cousin Hero?

Hero stirs.

Friar Francis:[to Hero] Have comfort, lady.

Leonato:[to Hero] 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, smirchèd 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 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!

Signior 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!

Signior Benedick:Lady, were you her bedfellow last night?

Beatrice:No, truly not, although until last night I have this twelvemonth been her bedfellow.

Leonato:Confirmed, confirmed! O, that is stronger made Which was before barred up with ribs of iron! Would the two princes lie and Claudio lie, Who loved her so that, speaking of her foulness, Washed it with tears? Hence from her. Let her die!

Friar Francis:Hear me a little, For I have only silent been so long, And given way unto this course of fortune, By noting of the lady. I have marked 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 appeared 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 Maintained 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.

Signior Benedick:Two of them have the very bent of honor, And if their wisdoms be misled in this, The practice of it lives in John the Bastard, Whose spirits toil in frame of villainies.

Leonato:I know not. If they speak but truth of her, These hands shall tear her. If they wrong her honor, 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 be so maintained, 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 lacked 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 appareled 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 leveled 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.

Signior 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 honor, 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 prolonged. Have patience and endure. [All but Beatrice and Benedick exit.]

Signior Benedick:Lady Beatrice, have you wept all this while?

Beatrice:Yea, and I will weep a while longer.

Signior Benedick:I will not desire that.

Beatrice:You have no reason. I do it freely.

Signior Benedick:Surely I do believe your fair cousin is wronged.

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

Signior Benedick:Is there any way to show such friendship?

Beatrice:A very even way, but no such friend.

Signior Benedick:May a man do it?

Beatrice:It is a man’s office, but not yours.

Signior 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.

Signior Benedick:By my sword, Beatrice, thou lovest me!

Beatrice:Do not swear and eat it.

Signior 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?

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

Beatrice:Why then, God forgive me.

Signior Benedick:What offense, sweet Beatrice?

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

Signior Benedick:And do it with all thy heart.

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

Signior Benedick:Come, bid me do anything for thee.

Beatrice:Kill Claudio.

Signior Benedick:Ha! Not for the wide world.

Beatrice:You kill me to deny it. Farewell.

She begins to exit.

Signior 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.

Signior Benedick:Beatrice—

Beatrice:In faith, I will go.

Signior Benedick:We’ll be friends first.

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

Signior Benedick:Is Claudio thine enemy?

Beatrice:Is he not approved in the height a villain that hath slandered, scorned, dishonored my kinswoman? O, that I were a man! What, bear her in hand until they come to take hands, and then, with public accusation, uncovered slander, unmitigated rancor—O God, that I were a man! I would eat his heart in the marketplace.

Signior Benedick:Hear me, Beatrice—

Beatrice:Talk with a man out at a window! A proper saying.

Signior Benedick:Nay, but Beatrice—

Beatrice:Sweet Hero, she is wronged, she is slandered, she is undone.

Signior 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 curtsies, valor into compliment, and men are only turned 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.

Signior Benedick:Tarry, good Beatrice. By this hand, I love thee.

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

Signior Benedick:Think you in your soul the Count Claudio hath wronged Hero?

Beatrice:Yea, as sure as I have a thought or a soul.

Signior Benedick:Enough, I am engaged. 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.

They exit.

Scene 2

Enter the Constables Dogberry and Verges, and the Town Clerk, or Sexton, in gowns, with the Watch, Conrade, and Borachio.

Dogberry:Is our whole dissembly appeared?

Verges:O, a stool and a cushion for the Sexton.

A stool is brought in; the Sexton sits.

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. [Conrade and Borachio are brought forward.] 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?

Borachio, Conrade: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 marvelous 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:[to Watch] What heard you him say else?

George Seacoal: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 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:[to Borachio] O, villain! Thou wilt be condemned into everlasting redemption for this!

Sexton:What else?

George Seacoal:This is all.

Sexton:And this is more, masters, than you can deny. Prince John is this morning secretly stolen away. Hero was in this manner accused, in this very manner refused, 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.

He exits.

Dogberry:Come, let them be opinioned.

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 proved 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!

They exit.

Act 5

Scene 1

Enter Leonato and his brother.

Leonato’s Brother: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 loved his child, Whose joy of her is overwhelmed like mine, And bid him speak 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 med’cine 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.

Leonato’s Brother: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.

Leonato’s Brother: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 dishonor her.

Enter Prince and Claudio.

Leonato’s Brother:Here comes the Prince and Claudio hastily.

Don Pedro:Good e’en, good e’en.

Count 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.

Leonato’s Brother:If he could right himself with quarrelling, Some of us would lie low.

Count 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.

Count Claudio:Marry, 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 wronged mine innocent child and me That I am forced to lay my reverence by, And with gray 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 lies buried with her ancestors, O, in a tomb where never scandal slept, Save this of hers, framed by thy villainy.

Count Claudio:My villainy?

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.

Count Claudio:Away! I will not have to do with you.

Leonato:Canst thou so daff me? Thou hast killed my child. If thou kill’st me, boy, thou shalt kill a man.

Leonato’s Brother: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—

Leonato’s Brother:Content yourself. God knows I loved my niece, And she is dead, slandered 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—

Leonato’s Brother:Hold you content. What, man! I know them, yea, And what they weigh, even to the utmost scruple— Scambling, outfacing, fashionmonging boys, That lie and cog and flout, deprave and slander, Go anticly and 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—

Leonato’s Brother: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 honor, she was charged 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.

Leonato’s Brother:And shall, or some of us will smart for it.

Leonato and his brother exit.

Enter Benedick.

Don Pedro:See, see, here comes the man we went to seek.

Count Claudio:Now, signior, what news?

Signior Benedick:[to Prince] Good day, my lord.

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

Count Claudio:We had like to have had our two noses snapped 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.

Signior Benedick:In a false quarrel there is no true valor. I came to seek you both.

Count 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?

Signior Benedick:It is in my scabbard. Shall I draw it?

Don Pedro:Dost thou wear thy wit by thy side?

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

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

Count Claudio:[to Benedick] What, courage, man! What though care killed a cat? Thou hast mettle enough in thee to kill care.

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

Count Claudio:[to Prince] 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.

Count Claudio:If he be, he knows how to turn his girdle.

Signior Benedick:Shall I speak a word in your ear?

Count Claudio:God bless me from a challenge!

Signior 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 killed a sweet lady, and her death shall fall heavy on you. Let me hear from you.

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

Don Pedro:What, a feast, a feast?

Count Claudio:I’ faith, I thank him. He hath bid me to a calf’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?

Signior Benedick:Sir, your wit ambles well; it goes easily.

Don Pedro:I’ll tell thee how Beatrice praised 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.

Count 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.

Count 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?

Count Claudio:Yea, and text underneath: "Here dwells Benedick, the married man"?

Signior Benedick:Fare you well, boy. You know my mind. I will leave you now to your gossip-like humor. You break jests as braggarts 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 killed a sweet and innocent lady. For my Lord Lackbeard there, he and I shall meet, and till then peace be with him.

Benedick exits.

Don Pedro:He is in earnest.

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

Don Pedro:And hath challenged thee?

Count Claudio:Most sincerely.

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

Count 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?

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

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 looked to.

Don Pedro:How now, two of my brother’s men bound? Borachio one!

Count Claudio:Hearken after their offense, my lord.

Don Pedro:Officers, what offense 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 offense; sixth and lastly, why they are committed; and, to conclude, what you lay to their charge.

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

Don Pedro:[to Borachio and Conrade] 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 offense?

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 disgraced her when you should marry her. My villainy 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:[to Claudio] Runs not this speech like iron through your blood?

Count Claudio:I have drunk poison whiles he uttered it.

Don Pedro:[to Borachio] But did my brother set thee on to this?

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

Don Pedro:He is composed and framed of treachery, And fled he is upon this villainy.

Count Claudio:Sweet Hero, now thy image doth appear In the rare semblance that I loved 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, 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 killed Mine innocent child?

Borachio:Yea, even I alone.

Leonato:No, not so, villain, thou beliest thyself. Here stand a pair of honorable 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.

Count 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 sinned 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 labor aught in sad invention, Hang her an epitaph upon her tomb And sing it to her bones. Sing it tonight. Tomorrow 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.

Count Claudio:O, noble sir! Your overkindness doth wring tears from me. I do embrace your offer and dispose For henceforth of poor Claudio.

Leonato:Tomorrow then I will expect your coming. Tonight I take my leave. This naughty man Shall face to face be brought to Margaret, Who I believe was packed in all this wrong, Hired 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:[to Leonato] 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 remembered 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 used so long and never paid that now men grow hardhearted 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:[giving him money] There’s for thy pains.

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 wished, God prohibit it.— Come, neighbor.

Dogberry and Verges exit.

Leonato:Until tomorrow morning, lords, farewell.

Leonato’s Brother:Farewell, my lords. We look for you tomorrow.

Don Pedro:We will not fail.

Count Claudio:Tonight I’ll mourn with Hero.

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

They exit.

Scene 2

Enter Benedick and Margaret.

Signior 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?

Signior 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?

Signior 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.

Signior 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.

Signior 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.

Signior Benedick:And therefore will come. [Margaret exits.] [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 carpetmongers, whose names yet run smoothly in the even road of a blank verse, why, they were never so truly turned 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 I cannot woo in festival terms. [Enter Beatrice.] Sweet Beatrice, wouldst thou come when I called thee?

Beatrice:Yea, signior, and depart when you bid me.

Signior 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, which is, with knowing what hath passed between you and Claudio.

Signior 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 unkissed.

Signior 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 maintained 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?

Signior 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.

Signior 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.

Signior Benedick:An old, an old instance, Beatrice, that lived in the time of good neighbors. 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?

Signior Benedick:Question: why, an hour in clamor 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.

Signior Benedick:And how do you?

Beatrice:Very ill, too.

Signior 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 accused, the Prince and Claudio mightily abused, and Don John is the author of all, who is fled and gone. Will you come presently?

Ursula exits.

Beatrice:Will you go hear this news, signior?

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

They exit.

Scene 3

Enter Claudio, Prince, and three or four Lords with tapers, and Musicians.

Count Claudio:Is this the monument of Leonato?

First Lord:It is, my lord.

Count Claudio:[reading an 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. [He hangs up the scroll.] Hang thou there upon the tomb, Praising her when I am dumb. Now music, sound, and sing your solemn hymn.

Musicians: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 utterèd, Heavily, heavily.

Count Claudio:Now, unto thy bones, goodnight. Yearly will I do this rite.

Don Pedro:Good morrow, masters. Put your torches out. The wolves have preyed, and look, the gentle day Before the wheels of Phoebus, round about Dapples the drowsy east with spots of gray. Thanks to you all, and leave us. Fare you well.

Count Claudio:Good morrow, masters. Each his several way.

Lords and Musicians exit.

Don Pedro:Come, let us hence, and put on other weeds, And then to Leonato’s we will go.

Count Claudio:And Hymen now with luckier issue speed ’s, Than this for whom we rendered up this woe.

They exit.

Scene 4

Enter Leonato, Benedick, Beatrice, Margaret, Ursula, Leonato’s brother, Friar, Hero.

Friar Francis:Did I not tell you she was innocent?

Leonato:So are the Prince and Claudio, who accused 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.

Leonato’s Brother:Well, I am glad that all things sorts so well.

Signior Benedick:And so am I, being else by faith enforced 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 masked. The Prince and Claudio promised 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.

The ladies exit.

Leonato’s Brother:Which I will do with confirmed countenance.

Signior Benedick:Friar, I must entreat your pains, I think.

Friar Francis:To do what, signior?

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 favor.

Leonato:That eye my daughter lent her; ’tis most true.

Signior 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?

Signior Benedick:Your answer, sir, is enigmatical. But for my will, my will is your goodwill May stand with ours, this day to be conjoined In the state of honorable marriage— In which, good friar, I shall desire your help.

Leonato:My heart is with your liking.

Friar Francis:And my help. Here comes the Prince and Claudio.

Enter Prince, and Claudio, and two or three other.

Don Pedro:Good morrow to this fair assembly.

Leonato:Good morrow, prince; good morrow, Claudio. We here attend you. Are you yet determined Today to marry with my brother’s daughter?

Count Claudio:I’ll hold my mind were she an Ethiope.

Leonato:Call her forth, brother. Here’s the Friar ready.

Leonato’s brother exits.

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?

Count 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.

Signior Benedick:Bull Jove, sir, had an amiable low, And some such strange bull leapt your father’s cow And got a calf in that same noble feat Much like to you, for you have just his bleat.

Count Claudio:For this I owe you. Here comes other reck’nings. [Enter Leonato’s brother, Hero, Beatrice, Margaret, Ursula, the ladies masked.] Which is the lady I must seize upon?

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

Count 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.

Count Claudio:[to Hero] Give me your hand before this holy friar. [They take hands.] I am your husband, if you like of me.

Hero:And when I lived, I was your other wife, And when you loved, you were my other husband.

She unmasks.

Count Claudio:Another Hero!

Hero:Nothing certainer. One Hero died defiled, 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 lived.

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.

Signior Benedick:Soft and fair, friar.—Which is Beatrice?

Beatrice:[unmasking] I answer to that name. What is your will?

Signior Benedick:Do not you love me?

Beatrice:Why no, no more than reason.

Signior Benedick:Why then, your uncle and the Prince and Claudio Have been deceived. They swore you did.

Beatrice:Do not you love me?

Signior Benedick:Troth, no, no more than reason.

Beatrice:Why then, my cousin, Margaret, and Ursula Are much deceived, for they did swear you did.

Signior Benedick:They swore that you were almost sick for me.

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

Signior 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.

Count 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, Fashioned to Beatrice.

He shows a paper.

Hero:And here’s another, Writ in my cousin’s hand, stol’n from her pocket, Containing her affection unto Benedick.

She shows a paper.

Signior 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.

Signior Benedick:Peace! I will stop your mouth.

They kiss.

Don Pedro:How dost thou, Benedick, the married man?

Signior Benedick:I’ll tell thee what, prince: a college of wit-crackers cannot flout me out of my humor. Dost thou think I care for a satire or an epigram? No. If a man will be beaten with brains, he 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 unbruised, and love my cousin.

Count Claudio:I had well hoped thou wouldst have denied Beatrice, that I might have cudgeled 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.

Signior 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.

Signior 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 reverend than one tipped with horn.

Enter Messenger.

Messenger:[to Prince] My lord, your brother John is ta’en in flight, And brought with armed men back to Messina.

Signior Benedick:[to Prince] Think not on him till tomorrow. I’ll devise thee brave punishments for him.—Strike up, pipers!

Music plays. They dance.

They exit.