Much Ado about Nothing

Published：2026-08-02 06:17:38 Source: magnetic tiles Author: Creative Building

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING

by William Shakespeare

Contents

Dramatis Personæ

DON PEDRO, Prince of Arragon.
DON JOHN, his bastard Brother.
CLAUDIO, a young Lord of Florence.
BENEDICK, a young Lord of Padua.
LEONATO, Governor of Messina.
ANTONIO, his Brother.
BALTHASAR, Servant to Don Pedro.
BORACHIO, follower of Don John.
CONRADE, follower of Don John.
DOGBERRY, a Constable.
VERGES, a Headborough.
FRIAR FRANCIS.
A Sexton.
A Boy.

HERO, Daughter to Leonato.
BEATRICE, Niece to Leonato.
MARGARET, Waiting gentlewoman attending on Hero.
URSULA, Waiting gentlewoman attending on Hero.

Messengers, Watch, Attendants, &c.

SCENE. Messina.

ACT I

SCENE I. Before Leonato’s House.

Enter Leonato, Hero, Beatrice and others, with aMessenger.

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

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

LEONATO.
How many gentlemen have you lost in this action?

MESSENGER.
But few of any sort, and none of name.

LEONATO.
A victory is twice itself when the achiever brings home full numbers. I findhere that Don Pedro hath bestowed much honour on a young Florentine calledClaudio.

MESSENGER.
Much deserved on his part, and equally remembered by Don Pedro. He hath bornehimself beyond the promise of his age, doing in the figure of a lamb the featsof a lion: he hath indeed better bettered expectation than you must expect ofme 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; evenso much that joy could not show itself modest enough without a badge ofbitterness.

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 sowashed; 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 is returned, and as pleasant as ever he was.

BEATRICE.
He set up his bills here in Messina and challenged Cupid at the flight; and myuncle’s fool, reading the challenge, subscribed for Cupid, and challengedhim at the bird-bolt. I pray you, how many hath he killed and eaten in thesewars? But how many hath he killed? for, indeed, I promised to eat all of hiskilling.

LEONATO.
Faith, niece, you tax Signior Benedick too much; but he’ll be meet withyou, 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 valianttrencher-man; he hath an excellent stomach.

MESSENGER.
And a good soldier too, lady.

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

MESSENGER.
A lord to a lord, a man to a man; stuffed with all honourable virtues.

BEATRICE.
It is so indeed; he is no less than a stuffed man; but for the stuffing,—well,we are all mortal.

LEONATO.
You must not, sir, mistake my niece. There is a kind of merry war betwixtSignior Benedick and her; they never meet but there’s a skirmish of witbetween them.

BEATRICE.
Alas! he gets nothing by that. In our last conflict four of his five wits wenthalting off, and now is the whole man governed with one! so that if he have witenough to keep himself warm, let him bear it for a difference between himselfand his horse; for it is all the wealth that he hath left to be known areasonable creature. Who is his companion now? He hath every month a new swornbrother.

MESSENGER.
Is’t possible?

BEATRICE.
Very easily possible: he wears his faith but as the fashion of his hat; it everchanges with the next block.

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

BEATRICE.
No; and 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 thepestilence, and the taker runs presently mad. God help the noble Claudio! If hehave 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, Don John, Claudio, Benedick,Balthasar and Others.

DON PEDRO.
Good Signior Leonato, you are come to meet your trouble: the fashion of theworld is to avoid cost, and you encounter it.

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

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

LEONATO.
Her mother hath many times told me so.

BENEDICK.
Were you in doubt, sir, that you asked her?

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

DON PEDRO.
You have it full, Benedick: we may guess by this what you are, being a man.Truly the lady fathers herself. Be happy, lady, for you are like an honourablefather.

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

BEATRICE.
I wonder that you will still be talking, Signior Benedick: nobody marks you.

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

BEATRICE.
Is it possible Disdain should die while she hath such meet food to feed it asSignior Benedick? Courtesy itself must convert to disdain if you come in herpresence.

BENEDICK.
Then is courtesy a turncoat. But it is certain I am loved of all ladies, onlyyou 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 pernicioussuitor. I thank God and my cold blood, I am of your humour for that. I hadrather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me.

BENEDICK.
God keep your Ladyship still in that mind; so some gentleman or other shallscape a predestinate scratched face.

BEATRICE.
Scratching could not make it worse, and ’twere such a face as yours were.

BENEDICK.
Well, you are a rare parrot-teacher.

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

BENEDICK.
I would my horse had the speed of your tongue, and so good a continuer. Butkeep your way, i’ God’s name; I have done.

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

DON PEDRO.
That is the sum of all, Leonato: Signior Claudio, and Signior Benedick, my dearfriend Leonato hath invited you all. I tell him we shall stay here at the leasta month, and he heartly prays some occasion may detain us longer: I dare swearhe is no hypocrite, but prays from his heart.

LEONATO.
If you swear, my lord, you shall not be forsworn. [To Don John] Let mebid you welcome, my lord: being reconciled to the Prince your brother, I oweyou all duty.

DON JOHN.
I thank you: I am not of many words, but I thank you.

LEONATO.
Please it your Grace lead on?

DON PEDRO.
Your hand, Leonato; we will go together.

[Exeunt all but Benedick and Claudio.]

CLAUDIO.
Benedick, didst thou note the daughter of Signior Leonato?

BENEDICK.
I noted her not; but I looked on her.

CLAUDIO.
Is she not a modest young lady?

BENEDICK.
Do you question me, as an honest man should do, for my simple true judgment; orwould you have me speak after my custom, as being a professed tyrant to theirsex?

CLAUDIO.
No; I pray thee speak in sober judgment.

BENEDICK.
Why, i’ faith, methinks she’s too low for a high praise, too brownfor a fair praise, and too little for a great praise; only this commendation Ican afford her, that were she other than she is, she were unhandsome, and beingno other but as she is, I do not like her.

CLAUDIO.
Thou thinkest I am in sport: I pray thee tell me truly how thou likest her.

BENEDICK.
Would you buy her, that you enquire after her?

CLAUDIO.
Can the world buy such a jewel?

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

CLAUDIO.
In mine eye she is the sweetest lady that ever I looked on.

BENEDICK.
I can see yet without spectacles and I see no such matter: there’s hercousin and she were not possessed with a fury, exceeds her as much in beauty asthe first of May doth the last of December. But I hope you have no intent toturn husband, have you?

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

BENEDICK.
Is’t come to this, in faith? Hath not the world one man but he will wearhis cap with suspicion? Shall I never see a bachelor of threescore again? Goto, i’ faith; and thou wilt needs thrust thy neck into a yoke, wear theprint of it and sigh away Sundays.

Re-enter Don Pedro.

Look! Don Pedro is returned to seek you.

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

BENEDICK.
I would your Grace would constrain me to tell.

DON PEDRO.
I charge thee on thy allegiance.

BENEDICK.
You hear, Count Claudio: I can be secret as a dumb man; I would have you thinkso; but on my allegiance mark you this, on my allegiance: he is in love. Withwho? now that is your Grace’s part. Mark how short his answer is: withHero, Leonato’s short daughter.

CLAUDIO.
If this were so, so were it uttered.

BENEDICK.
Like the old tale, my lord: ‘it is not so, nor ’twas not so; butindeed, God forbid it should be so.’

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

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

CLAUDIO.
You speak this to fetch me in, my lord.

DON PEDRO.
By my troth, I speak my thought.

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

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

CLAUDIO.
That I love her, I feel.

DON PEDRO.
That she is worthy, I know.

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

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

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

BENEDICK.
That a woman conceived me, I thank her; that she brought me up, I likewise giveher 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 Iwill not do them the wrong to mistrust any, I will do myself the right to trustnone; and the fine is,—for the which I may go the finer,—I will live abachelor.

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

BENEDICK.
With anger, with sickness, or with hunger, my lord; not with love: prove thatever I lose more blood with love than I will get again with drinking, pick outmine eyes with a ballad-maker’s pen and hang me up at the door of abrothel-house for the sign of blind Cupid.

DON PEDRO.
Well, if ever thou dost fall from this faith, thou wilt prove a notableargument.

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 theyoke.’

BENEDICK.
The savage bull may; but if ever the sensible Benedick bear it, pluck off thebull’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 tohire,’ let them signify under my sign ‘Here you may see Benedickthe married man.’

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

DON PEDRO.
Nay, if Cupid have not spent all his quiver in Venice, thou wilt quake for thisshortly.

BENEDICK.
I look for an earthquake too then.

DON PEDRO.
Well, you will temporize with the hours. In the meantime, good SigniorBenedick, repair to Leonato’s: commend me to him and tell him I will notfail him at supper; for indeed he hath made great preparation.

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

CLAUDIO.
To the tuition of God: from my house, if I had it,—

DON PEDRO.
The sixth of July: your loving friend, Benedick.

BENEDICK.
Nay, mock not, mock not. The body of your discourse is sometime guarded withfragments, and the guards are but slightly basted on neither: ere you flout oldends any further, examine your conscience: and so I leave you.

[Exit.]

CLAUDIO.
My liege, your Highness now may do me good.

DON PEDRO.
My love is thine to teach: teach it but how,
And thou shalt see how apt it is to learn
Any hard lesson that may do thee good.

CLAUDIO.
Hath Leonato any son, my lord?

DON PEDRO.
No child but Hero; she’s his only heir.
Dost thou affect her, Claudio?

CLAUDIO.
O! my lord,
When you went onward on this ended action,
I looked upon her with a soldier’s eye,
That lik’d, but had a rougher task in hand
Than to drive liking to the name of love;
But now I am return’d, and that war-thoughts
Have left their places vacant, in their rooms
Come thronging soft and delicate desires,
All prompting me how fair young Hero is,
Saying, I lik’d her ere I went to wars.

DON PEDRO.
Thou wilt be like a lover presently,
And tire the hearer with a book of words.
If thou dost love fair Hero, cherish it,
And I will break with her, and with her father,
And thou shalt have her. Was’t not to this end
That thou began’st to twist so fine a story?

CLAUDIO.
How sweetly you do minister to love,
That know love’s grief by his complexion!
But lest my liking might too sudden seem,
I would have salv’d it with a longer treatise.

DON PEDRO.
What need the bridge much broader than the flood?
The fairest grant is the necessity.
Look, what will serve is fit: ’tis once, thou lov’st,
And I will fit thee with the remedy.
I know we shall have revelling 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.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE II. A room in Leonato’shouse.

Enter Leonato and Antonio, meeting.

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

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

LEONATO.
Are they good?

ANTONIO.
As the event stamps them: but they have a good cover; they show well outward.The Prince and Count Claudio, walking in a thick-pleached alley in my orchard,were thus much overheard by a man of mine: the Prince discovered to Claudiothat he loved my niece your daughter and meant to acknowledge it this night ina dance; and if he found her accordant, he meant to take the present time bythe top and instantly break with you of it.

LEONATO.
Hath the fellow any wit that told you this?

ANTONIO.
A good sharp fellow: I will send for him; and question him yourself.

LEONATO.
No, no; we will hold it as a dream till it appear itself: but I will acquaintmy daughter withal, that she may be the better prepared for an answer, ifperadventure this be true. Go you and tell her of it.

[Several persons cross the stage.]

Cousins, you know what you have to do. O! I cry you mercy, friend; go you withme, and I will use your skill. Good cousin, have a care this busy time.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE III. Another room inLeonato’s house.

Enter Don John and Conrade.

CONRADE.
What the good-year, my lord! why are you thus out of measure sad?

DON JOHN.
There is no measure in the occasion that breeds; therefore the sadness iswithout limit.

CONRADE.
You should hear reason.

DON JOHN.
And when I have heard it, what blessings brings it?

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

DON JOHN.
I wonder that thou (being as thou say’st thou art, born under Saturn)goest about to apply a moral medicine to a mortifying mischief. I cannot hidewhat 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 amdrowsy, and tend on no man’s business; laugh when I am merry, and claw noman in his humour.

CONRADE.
Yea; but you must not make the full show of this till you may do it withoutcontrolment. You have of late stood out against your brother, and he hathta’en you newly into his grace; where it is impossible you should taketrue root but by the fair weather that you make yourself: it is needful thatyou 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 betterfits my blood to be disdained of all than to fashion a carriage to rob lovefrom any: in this, though I cannot be said to be a flattering honest man, itmust not be denied but I am a plain-dealing villain. I am trusted with a muzzleand 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: inthe 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 royallyentertained by Leonato; and I can give you intelligence of an intendedmarriage.

DON JOHN.
Will it serve for any model to build mischief on? What is he for a fool thatbetroths 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 thePrince and Claudio, hand in hand, in sad conference: I whipt me behind thearras, and there heard it agreed upon that the Prince should woo Hero forhimself, and having obtained her, give her to Count Claudio.

DON JOHN.
Come, come; let us thither: this may prove food to my displeasure. That youngstart-up hath all the glory of my overthrow: if I can cross him any way, Ibless 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. Wouldthe cook were of my mind! Shall we go to prove what’s to be done?

BORACHIO.
We’ll wait upon your Lordship.

[Exeunt.]

ACT II

SCENE I. A hall in Leonato’s house.

Enter Leonato, Antonio, Hero, Beatrice andothers.

LEONATO.
Was not Count John here at supper?

ANTONIO.
I saw him not.

BEATRICE.
How tartly that gentleman looks! I never can see him but I am heart-burned anhour after.

HERO.
He is of a very melancholy disposition.

BEATRICE.
He were an excellent man that were made just in the mid-way between him andBenedick: the one is too like an image, and says nothing; and the other toolike my lady’s eldest son, evermore tattling.

LEONATO.
Then half Signior Benedick’s tongue in Count John’s mouth, and halfCount 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 aman would win any woman in the world if a’ could get her good will.

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

ANTONIO.
In faith, she’s too curst.

BEATRICE.
Too curst is more than curst: I shall lessen God’s sending that way; forit is said, ‘God sends a curst cow short horns;’ but to a cow toocurst 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 myknees every morning and evening. Lord! I could not endure a husband with abeard on his face: I had rather lie in the woollen.

LEONATO.
You may light on a husband that hath no beard.

BEATRICE.
What should I do with him? dress him in my apparel and make him my waitinggentlewoman? He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath nobeard is less than a man; and he that is more than a youth is not for me; andhe that is less than a man, I am not for him: therefore I will even takesixpence in earnest of the bear-ward, and lead his apes into hell.

LEONATO.
Well then, go you into hell?

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

ANTONIO.
[To Hero.] Well, niece, I trust you will be ruled by your father.

BEATRICE.
Yes, faith; it is my cousin’s duty to make curtsy, and say,‘Father, as it please you:’— but yet for all that, cousin, let himbe a handsome fellow, or else make another curtsy, and say, ‘Father, asit 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 awoman to be over-mastered with a piece of valiant dust? to make an account ofher life to a clod of wayward marl? No, uncle, I’ll none: Adam’ssons are my brethren; and truly, I hold it a sin to match in my kindred.

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

BEATRICE.
The fault will be in the music, cousin, if you be not wooed in good time: ifthe Prince be too important, tell him there is measure in everything, and sodance out the answer. For, hear me, Hero: wooing, wedding, and repenting is asa 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 ameasure, full of state and ancientry; and then comes Repentance, and with hisbad legs, falls into the cinquepace faster and faster, till he sink into hisgrave.

LEONATO.
Cousin, you apprehend passing shrewdly.

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

LEONATO.
The revellers are entering, brother: make good room.

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

DON PEDRO.
Lady, will you walk about with your friend?

HERO.
So you walk softly and look sweetly and say nothing, I am yours for the walk;and especially when I walk away.

DON PEDRO.
With me in your company?

HERO.
I may say so, when I please.

DON PEDRO.
And when please you to say so?

HERO.
When I like your favour; for God defend the lute should be like the case!

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

HERO.
Why, then, your visor should be thatch’d.

DON PEDRO.
Speak low, if you speak love.

[Takes her aside.]

BALTHASAR.
Well, I would you did like me.

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

BALTHASAR.
Which is one?

MARGARET.
I say my prayers aloud.

BALTHASAR.
I love you the better; the hearers may cry Amen.

MARGARET.
God match me with a good dancer!

BALTHASAR.
Amen.

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

BALTHASAR.
No more words: the clerk is answered.

URSULA.
I know you well enough: you are Signior Antonio.

ANTONIO.
At a word, I am not.

URSULA.
I know you by the waggling of your head.

ANTONIO.
To tell you true, I counterfeit him.

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

ANTONIO.
At a word, I am not.

URSULA.
Come, come; do you think I do not know you by your excellent wit? Can virtuehide itself? Go to, mum, you are he: graces will appear, and there’s anend.

BEATRICE.
Will you not tell me who told you so?

BENEDICK.
No, you shall pardon me.

BEATRICE.
Nor will you not tell me who you are?

BENEDICK.
Not now.

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

BENEDICK.
What’s he?

BEATRICE.
I am sure you know him well enough.

BENEDICK.
Not I, believe me.

BEATRICE.
Did he never make you laugh?

BENEDICK.
I pray you, what is he?

BEATRICE.
Why, he is the Prince’s jester: a very dull fool; only his gift is indevising impossible slanders: none but libertines delight in him; and thecommendation is not in his wit, but in his villainy; for he both pleases menand angers them, and then they laugh at him and beat him. I am sure he is inthe fleet: I would he had boarded me!

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

BEATRICE.
Do, do: he’ll but break a comparison or two on me; which, peradventurenot marked or not laughed at, strikes him into melancholy; and thenthere’s a partridge wing saved, for the fool will eat no supper thatnight. [Music within.] We must follow the leaders.

BENEDICK.
In every good thing.

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

[Dance. Then exeunt all but Don John, Borachioand Claudio.]

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

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

DON JOHN.
Are you not Signior Benedick?

CLAUDIO.
You know me well; I am he.

DON JOHN.
Signior, you are very near my brother in his love: he is enamoured on Hero; Ipray you, dissuade him from her; she is no equal for his birth: you may do thepart of an honest man in it.

CLAUDIO.
How know you he loves her?

DON JOHN.
I heard him swear his affection.

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

DON JOHN.
Come, let us to the banquet.

[Exeunt Don John and Borachio.]

CLAUDIO.
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!

Re-enter Benedick.

BENEDICK.
Count Claudio?

CLAUDIO.
Yea, the same.

BENEDICK.
Come, will you go with me?

CLAUDIO.
Whither?

BENEDICK.
Even to the next willow, about your own business, Count. What fashion will youwear the garland of? About your neck, like a usurer’s chain? or underyour arm, like a lieutenant’s scarf? You must wear it one way, for thePrince hath got your Hero.

CLAUDIO.
I wish him joy of her.

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

CLAUDIO.
I pray you, leave me.

BENEDICK.
Ho! now you strike like the blind man: ’twas the boy that stole yourmeat, and you’ll beat the post.

CLAUDIO.
If it will not be, I’ll leave you.

[Exit.]

BENEDICK.
Alas! poor hurt fowl. Now will he creep into sedges. But, that my Lady Beatriceshould know me, and not know me! The Prince’s fool! Ha! it may be I gounder that title because I am merry. Yea, but so I am apt to do myself wrong; Iam not so reputed: it is the base though bitter disposition of Beatrice thatputs the world into her person, and so gives me out. Well, I’ll berevenged as I may.

Re-enter Don Pedro.

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

BENEDICK.
Troth, my lord, I have played the part of Lady Fame. I found him here asmelancholy as a lodge in a warren. I told him, and I think I told him true,that your Grace had got the good will of this young lady; and I offered him mycompany to a willow tree, either to make him a garland, as being forsaken, orto bind him up a rod, as being worthy to be whipped.

DON PEDRO.
To be whipped! What’s his fault?

BENEDICK.
The flat transgression of a school-boy, who, being overjoy’d with findinga bird’s nest, shows it his companion, and he steals it.

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

BENEDICK.
Yet it had not been amiss the rod had been made, and the garland too; for thegarland 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.

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 hertold her she is much wronged by you.

BENEDICK.
O! she misused me past the endurance of a block: an oak but with one green leafon it would have answered her: my very visor began to assume life and scoldwith her. She told me, not thinking I had been myself, that I was thePrince’s jester, that I was duller than a great thaw; huddling jest uponjest with such impossible conveyance upon me, that I stood like a man at amark, with a whole army shooting at me. She speaks poniards, and every wordstabs: if her breath were as terrible as her terminations, there were no livingnear her; she would infect to the north star. I would not marry her, though shewere endowed with all that Adam had left him before he transgressed: she wouldhave made Hercules have turned spit, yea, and have cleft his club to make thefire too. Come, talk not of her; you shall find her the infernal Ate in goodapparel. I would to God some scholar would conjure her, for certainly, whileshe is here, a man may live as quiet in hell as in a sanctuary; and people sinupon purpose because they would go thither; so indeed, all disquiet, horror andperturbation follow her.

Re-enter Claudio, Beatrice, Hero and Leonato.

DON PEDRO.
Look! here she comes.

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

DON PEDRO.
None, but to desire your good company.

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

[Exit.]

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

BEATRICE.
Indeed, my lord, he lent it me awhile; and I gave him use for it, a doubleheart for a 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 offools. I have brought Count Claudio, whom you sent me to seek.

DON PEDRO.
Why, how now, Count! wherefore are you sad?

CLAUDIO.
Not sad, my lord.

DON PEDRO.
How then? Sick?

CLAUDIO.
Neither, my lord.

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

DON PEDRO.
I’ faith, lady, I think your blazon to be true; though, I’ll besworn, if he be so, his conceit is false. Here, Claudio, I have wooed in thyname, and fair Hero is won; I have broke with her father, and, his good willobtained; 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 madethe match, and all grace say Amen to it!

BEATRICE.
Speak, Count, ’tis your cue.

CLAUDIO.
Silence is the perfectest herald of joy: I were but little happy, if I couldsay how much. Lady, as you are mine, I am yours: I give away myself for you anddote upon the exchange.

BEATRICE.
Speak, cousin; or, if you cannot, stop his mouth with a kiss, and let not himspeak 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. Mycousin tells him in his ear that he is in her heart.

CLAUDIO.
And so she doth, cousin.

BEATRICE.
Good Lord, for alliance! Thus goes everyone to the world but I, and I amsunburnt. 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 Gracene’er a brother like you? Your father got excellent husbands, if a maidcould 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 toocostly to wear every day. But, I beseech your Grace, pardon me; I was born tospeak all mirth and no matter.

DON PEDRO.
Your silence most offends me, and to be merry best becomes you; for out ofquestion, you were born in a merry hour.

BEATRICE.
No, sure, my lord, my mother cried; but then there was a star danced, and underthat was I born. Cousins, God give you joy!

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

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

[Exit.]

DON PEDRO.
By my troth, a pleasant spirited lady.

LEONATO.
There’s little of the melancholy element in her, my lord: she is neversad but when she sleeps; and not ever sad then, for I have heard my daughtersay, she hath often dreamed of unhappiness and waked herself with laughing.

DON PEDRO.
She cannot endure to hear tell of a husband.

LEONATO.
O! by no means: she mocks all her wooers out of suit.

DON PEDRO.
She were an excellent wife for Benedick.

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

DON PEDRO.
Count Claudio, when mean you to go to church?

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 seven-night; and a time toobrief too, to have all things answer my mind.

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

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

CLAUDIO.
And I, my lord.

DON PEDRO.
And you too, gentle Hero?

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

DON PEDRO.
And Benedick is not the unhopefullest husband that I know. Thus far can Ipraise him; he is of a noble strain, of approved valour, and confirmed honesty.I will teach you how to humour your cousin, that she shall fall in love withBenedick; and I, with your two helps, will so practise on Benedick that, indespite of his quick wit and his queasy stomach, he shall fall in love withBeatrice. If we can do this, Cupid is no longer an archer: his glory shall beours, for we are the only love-gods. Go in with me, and I will tell you mydrift.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE II. Another room inLeonato’s house.

Enter Don John and Borachio.

DON JOHN.
It is so; the Count Claudio shall marry the daughter of Leonato.

BORACHIO.
Yea, my lord; but I can cross it.

DON JOHN.
Any bar, any cross, any impediment will be medicinable to me: I am sick indispleasure to him, and whatsoever comes athwart his affection ranges evenlywith mine. How canst thou cross this marriage?

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

DON JOHN.
Show me briefly how.

BORACHIO.
I think I told your lordship, a year since, how much I am in the favour ofMargaret, 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 herlady’s chamber window.

DON JOHN.
What life is in that, to be the death of this marriage?

BORACHIO.
The poison of that lies in you to temper. Go you to the Prince your brother;spare not to tell him, that he hath wronged his honour in marrying the renownedClaudio,—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 killLeonato. Look you for any other issue?

DON JOHN.
Only to despite them, I will endeavour anything.

BORACHIO.
Go then; find me a meet hour to draw Don Pedro and the Count Claudio alone:tell them that you know that Hero loves me; intend a kind of zeal both to thePrince and Claudio, as—in love of your brother’s honour, who hath madethis match, and his friend’s reputation, who is thus like to be cozenedwith the semblance of a maid,—that you have discovered thus. They will scarcelybelieve this without trial: offer them instances, which shall bear no lesslikelihood 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 beforethe intended wedding: for in the meantime I will so fashion the matter thatHero shall be absent; and there shall appear such seeming truth of Hero’sdisloyalty, that jealousy shall be called assurance, and all the preparationoverthrown.

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

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

DON JOHN.
I will presently go learn their day of marriage.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE III. Leonato’sGarden.

Enter Benedick.

BENEDICK.
Boy!

Enter a Boy.

BOY.
Signior?

BENEDICK.
In my chamber window lies a book; bring it hither to me in the orchard.

BOY.
I am here already, sir.

BENEDICK.
I know that; but I would have thee hence, and here again.

[Exit Boy.]

I do much wonder that one man, seeing how much another man is a fool when hededicates his behaviours to love, will, after he hath laughed at such shallowfollies in others, become the argument of his own scorn by falling in love: andsuch a man is Claudio. I have known, when there was no music with him but thedrum and the fife; and now had he rather hear the tabor and the pipe: I haveknown when he would have walked ten mile afoot to see a good armour; and nowwill he lie ten nights awake, carving the fashion of a new doublet. He was wontto speak plain and to the purpose, like an honest man and a soldier; and now ishe turned orthography; his words are a very fantastical banquet, just so manystrange 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; butI’ll take my oath on it, till he have made an oyster of me, he shallnever 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 onewoman, one woman shall not come in my grace. Rich she shall be, that’scertain; 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 notI for an angel; of good discourse, an excellent musician, and her hair shall beof what colour it please God. Ha! the Prince and Monsieur Love! I will hide mein the arbour.

[Withdraws.]

Enter Don Pedro, Leonato and Claudio, followed by Balthasar and Musicians.

DON PEDRO.
Come, shall we hear this music?

CLAUDIO.
Yea, my good lord. How still the evening is,
As hush’d on purpose to grace harmony!

DON PEDRO.
See you where Benedick hath hid himself?

CLAUDIO.
O! very well, my lord: the music ended,
We’ll fit the kid-fox with a penny-worth.

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

BALTHASAR.
O! good my lord, tax not so bad a voice
To slander music any more than once.

DON PEDRO.
It is the witness still of excellency,
To put a strange face on his own perfection.
I pray thee, sing, and let me woo no more.

BALTHASAR.
Because you talk of wooing, I will sing;
Since many a wooer doth commence his suit
To her he thinks not worthy; yet he wooes;
Yet will he swear he loves.

DON PEDRO.
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;
Notes, notes, forsooth, and nothing!

[Music.]

BENEDICK.
Now, divine air! now is his soul ravished! Is it not strange that sheep’sguts 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 singest well enough for a shift.

BENEDICK.
[Aside] And he had been a dog that should have howled thus, they wouldhave hanged him; and I pray God his bad voice bode no mischief. I had as liefhave 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 someexcellent music, for tomorrow night we would have it at the Lady Hero’schamber window.

BALTHASAR.
The best I can, my lord.

DON PEDRO.
Do so: farewell.

[Exeunt Balthasar and Musicians.]

Come hither, Leonato: what was it you told me of today, that your nieceBeatrice was in love with Signior Benedick?

CLAUDIO.
O! ay:—[Aside to Don Pedro] Stalk on, stalk on; the fowl sits. I didnever think that lady would have loved any man.

LEONATO.
No, nor I neither; but most wonderful that she should so dote on SigniorBenedick, whom she hath in all outward behaviours seemed ever to abhor.

BENEDICK.
[Aside] Is’t possible? Sits the wind in that corner?

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

DON PEDRO.
Maybe she doth but counterfeit.

CLAUDIO.
Faith, like enough.

LEONATO.
O God! counterfeit! There was never counterfeit of passion came so near thelife of passion as she discovers it.

DON PEDRO.
Why, what effects of passion shows she?

CLAUDIO.
[Aside] Bait the hook well: this fish will bite.

LEONATO.
What effects, my lord? She will sit you; [To Claudio] You heard mydaughter tell you how.

CLAUDIO.
She did, indeed.

DON PEDRO.
How, how, I pray you? You amaze me: I would have thought her spirit had beeninvincible against all assaults of affection.

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

BENEDICK.
[Aside] I should think this a gull, but that the white-bearded fellowspeaks it: knavery cannot, sure, hide itself in such reverence.

CLAUDIO.
[Aside] He hath ta’en the infection: hold it up.

DON PEDRO.
Hath she made her affection known to Benedick?

LEONATO.
No; and swears she never will: that’s her torment.

CLAUDIO.
’Tis true, indeed; so your daughter says: ‘Shall I,’ saysshe, ‘that have so oft encountered him with scorn, write to him that Ilove him?’

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

CLAUDIO.
Now you talk of a sheet of paper, I remember a pretty jest your daughter toldus of.

LEONATO.
O! when she had writ it, and was reading it over, she found Benedick andBeatrice between the sheet?

CLAUDIO.
That.

LEONATO.
O! she tore the letter into a thousand halfpence; railed at herself, that sheshould be so immodest to write to one that she knew would flout her: ‘Imeasure him,’ says she, ‘by my own spirit; for I should flout him,if he writ to me; yea, though I love him, I should.’

CLAUDIO.
Then down upon her knees she falls, weeps, sobs, beats her heart, tears herhair, prays, curses; ‘O sweet Benedick! God give me patience!’

LEONATO.
She doth indeed; my daughter says so; and the ecstasy hath so much overborneher, that my daughter is sometimes afeard she will do a desperate outrage toherself. It is very true.

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

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

DON PEDRO.
And he should, it were an alms to hang him. She’s an excellent sweetlady, and, out of all suspicion, she is virtuous.

CLAUDIO.
And she is exceeding wise.

DON PEDRO.
In everything but in loving Benedick.

LEONATO.
O! my lord, wisdom and blood combating in so tender a body, we have ten proofsto 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 otherrespects and made her half myself. I pray you, tell Benedick of it, and hearwhat he will say.

LEONATO.
Were it good, think you?

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

DON PEDRO.
She doth well: if she should make tender of her love, ’tis very possiblehe’ll scorn it; for the man,—as you know all,—hath a contemptible spirit.

CLAUDIO.
He is a very proper man.

DON PEDRO.
He hath indeed a good outward happiness.

CLAUDIO.
’Fore God, and in my mind, very wise.

DON PEDRO.
He doth indeed show some sparks that are like wit.

CLAUDIO.
And I take him to be valiant.

DON PEDRO.
As Hector, I assure you: and in the managing of quarrels you may say he iswise; for either he avoids them with great discretion, or undertakes them witha most Christian-like fear.

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

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

CLAUDIO.
Never tell him, my lord: let her wear it out with good counsel.

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

DON PEDRO.
Well, we will hear further of it by your daughter: let it cool the while. Ilove Benedick well, and I could wish he would modestly examine himself, to seehow much he is unworthy so good a lady.

LEONATO.
My lord, will you walk? dinner is ready.

CLAUDIO.
[Aside] If he do not dote on her upon this, I will never trust myexpectation.

DON PEDRO.
[Aside] Let there be the same net spread for her; and that must yourdaughter and her gentlewoman carry. The sport will be, when they hold one anopinion of another’s dotage, and no such matter: that’s the scenethat I would see, which will be merely a dumb show. Let us send her to call himin to dinner.

[Exeunt Don Pedro, Claudio and Leonato.]

BENEDICK.
[Advancing from the arbour.] This can be no trick: the conference wassadly 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 berequited. I hear how I am censured: they say I will bear myself proudly, if Iperceive the love come from her; they say too that she will rather die thangive 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. Theysay the lady is fair: ’tis a truth, I can bear them witness; andvirtuous: ’tis so, I cannot reprove it; and wise, but for loving me: bymy troth, it is no addition to her wit, nor no great argument of her folly, forI will be horribly in love with her. I may chance have some odd quirks andremnants 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 hecannot endure in his age. Shall quips and sentences and these paper bullets ofthe brain awe a man from the career of his humour? No; the world must bepeopled. When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live tillI were married. Here comes Beatrice. By this day! she’s a fair lady: I dospy some marks of love in her.

Enter Beatrice.

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

BENEDICK.
Fair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains.

BEATRICE.
I took no more pains for those thanks than you take pains to thank me: if ithad been painful, I would not have come.

BENEDICK.
You take pleasure then in the message?

BEATRICE.
Yea, just so much as you may take upon a knife’s point, and choke a dawwithal. You have no stomach, signior: fare you well.

[Exit.]

BENEDICK.
Ha! ‘Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner,’there’s a double meaning in that. ‘I took no more pains for thosethanks 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 ofher, I am a villain; if I do not love her, I am a Jew. I will go get herpicture.

[Exit.]

ACT III

SCENE I. Leonato’s Garden.

Enter Hero, Margaret and Ursula.

HERO.
Good Margaret, run thee to the parlour;
There shalt thou find my cousin Beatrice
Proposing with the Prince and Claudio:
Whisper her ear, and tell her, I and Ursala
Walk in the orchard, and our whole discourse
Is all of her; say that thou overheard’st us,
And bid her steal into the pleached bower,
Where honey-suckles, ripen’d by the sun,
Forbid the sun to enter; like favourites,
Made proud by princes, that advance their pride
Against that power that bred it. There will she hide her,
To listen our propose. This is thy office;
Bear thee well in it and leave us alone.

MARGARET.
I’ll make her come, I warrant you, presently.

[Exit.]

HERO.
Now, Ursula, when Beatrice doth come,
As we do trace this alley up and down,
Our talk must only be of Benedick:
When I do name him, let it be thy part
To praise him more than ever man did merit.
My talk to thee must be how Benedick
Is sick in love with Beatrice: of this matter
Is little Cupid’s crafty arrow made,
That only wounds by hearsay.

Enter Beatrice behind.

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

URSULA.
The pleasant’st angling is to see the fish
Cut with her golden oars the silver stream,
And greedily devour the treacherous bait:
So angle we for Beatrice; who even now
Is couched in the woodbine coverture.
Fear you not my part of the dialogue.

HERO.
Then go we near her, that her ear lose nothing
Of the false sweet bait that we lay for it.

[They advance to 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-trothed lord.

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

HERO.
They did entreat me to acquaint her of it;
But I persuaded them, if they lov’d Benedick,
To wish him wrestle with affection,
And never to let Beatrice know of it.

URSULA.
Why did you so? Doth not the gentleman
Deserve as full as fortunate a bed
As ever Beatrice shall couch upon?

HERO.
O god of love! I know he doth deserve
As much as may be yielded to a man;
But Nature never fram’d a woman’s heart
Of prouder stuff than that of Beatrice;
Disdain and scorn ride sparkling in her eyes,
Misprising what they look on, and her wit
Values itself so highly, that to her
All matter else seems weak. She cannot love,
Nor take no shape nor project of affection,
She is so self-endear’d.

URSULA.
Sure I think so;
And therefore certainly it were not good
She knew his love, lest she make sport at it.

HERO.
Why, you speak truth. I never yet saw man,
How wise, how noble, young, how rarely featur’d,
But she would spell him backward: if fair-fac’d,
She would swear the gentleman should be her sister;
If black, why, Nature, drawing of an antick,
Made a foul blot; if tall, a lance ill-headed;
If low, an agate very vilely cut;
If speaking, why, a vane blown with all winds;
If silent, why, a block moved with none.
So turns she every man the wrong side out,
And never gives to truth and virtue that
Which simpleness and merit purchaseth.

URSULA.
Sure, sure, such carping is not commendable.

HERO.
No; not to be so odd, and from all fashions,
As Beatrice is, cannot be commendable.
But who dare tell her so? If I should speak,
She would mock me into air: O! she would laugh me
Out of myself, press me to death with wit.
Therefore let Benedick, like cover’d fire,
Consume away in sighs, waste inwardly:
It were a better death than die with mocks,
Which is as bad as die with tickling.

URSULA.
Yet tell her of it: hear what she will say.

HERO.
No; rather I will go to Benedick,
And counsel him to fight against his passion.
And, truly, I’ll devise some honest slanders
To stain my cousin with. One doth not know
How much an ill word may empoison liking.

URSULA.
O! do not do your cousin such a wrong.
She cannot be so much without true judgment,—
Having so swift and excellent a wit
As she is priz’d to have,—as to refuse
So rare a gentleman as Signior Benedick.

HERO.
He is the only man of Italy,
Always excepted my dear Claudio.

URSULA.
I pray you, be not angry with me, madam,
Speaking my fancy: Signior Benedick,
For shape, for bearing, argument and valour,
Goes foremost in report through Italy.

HERO.
Indeed, he hath an excellent good name.

URSULA.
His excellence did earn it, ere he had it.
When are you married, madam?

HERO.
Why, every day, tomorrow. Come, go in:
I’ll show thee some attires, and have thy counsel
Which is the best to furnish me tomorrow.

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

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

[Exeunt Hero and Ursula.]

BEATRICE.
[Advancing.] What fire is in mine ears? Can this be true?
Stand I condemn’d for pride and scorn so much?
Contempt, farewell! and maiden pride, adieu!
No glory lives behind the back of such.
And, Benedick, love on; I will requite thee,
Taming my wild heart to thy loving hand:
If thou dost love, my kindness shall incite thee
To bind our loves up in a holy band;
For others say thou dost deserve, and I
Believe it better than reportingly.

[Exit.]

SCENE II. A Room inLeonato’s House.

Enter Don Pedro, Claudio, Benedick and Leonato.

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

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

DON PEDRO.
Nay, that would be as great a soil in the new gloss of your marriage, as toshow a child his new coat and forbid him to wear it. I will only be bold withBenedick for his company; for, from the crown of his head to the sole of hisfoot, he is all mirth; he hath twice or thrice cut Cupid’s bowstring, andthe little hangman dare not shoot at him. He hath a heart as sound as a bell,and his tongue is the clapper; for what his heart thinks, his tongue speaks.

BENEDICK.
Gallants, I am not as I have been.

LEONATO.
So say I: methinks you are sadder.

CLAUDIO.
I hope he be in love.

DON PEDRO.
Hang him, truant! there’s no true drop of blood in him to be trulytouched with love. If he be sad, he wants money.

BENEDICK.
I have the tooth-ache.

DON PEDRO.
Draw it.

BENEDICK.
Hang it.

CLAUDIO.
You must hang it first, and draw it afterwards.

DON PEDRO.
What! sigh for the tooth-ache?

LEONATO.
Where is but a humour or a worm?

BENEDICK.
Well, everyone can master a grief but he that has it.

CLAUDIO.
Yet say I, he is in love.

DON PEDRO.
There is no appearance of fancy in him, unless it be a fancy that he hath tostrange disguises; as to be a Dutchman today, a Frenchman tomorrow; or in theshape 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 thisfoolery, as it appears he hath, he is no fool for fancy, as you would have itappear he is.

CLAUDIO.
If he be not in love with some woman, there is no believing old signs: a’brushes his hat a mornings; what should that bode?

DON PEDRO.
Hath any man seen him at the barber’s?

CLAUDIO.
No, but the barber’s man hath been seen with him; and the old ornament ofhis cheek hath already stuffed tennis balls.

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

DON PEDRO.
Nay, a’ rubs himself with civet: can you smell him out by that?

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

DON PEDRO.
The greatest note of it is his melancholy.

CLAUDIO.
And when was he wont to wash his face?

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

CLAUDIO.
Nay, but his jesting spirit; which is now crept into a lute-string, and nowgoverned by stops.

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

CLAUDIO.
Nay, but I know who loves him.

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

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

DON PEDRO.
She shall be buried with her face upwards.

BENEDICK.
Yet is this no charm for the tooth-ache. Old signior, walk aside with me: Ihave studied eight or nine wise words to speak to you, which these hobby-horsesmust not hear.

[Exeunt Benedick and Leonato.]

DON PEDRO.
For my life, to break with him about Beatrice.

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

Enter Don John.

DON JOHN.
My lord and brother, God save you!

DON PEDRO.
Good den, brother.

DON JOHN.
If your leisure served, I would speak with you.

DON PEDRO.
In private?

DON JOHN.
If it please you; yet Count Claudio may hear, for what I would speak ofconcerns him.

DON PEDRO.
What’s the matter?

DON JOHN.
[To Claudio.] Means your lordship to be married tomorrow?

DON PEDRO.
You know he does.

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

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

DON JOHN.
You may think I love you not: let that appear hereafter, and aim better at meby that I now will manifest. For my brother, I think he holds you well, and indearness of heart hath holp to effect your ensuing marriage; surely suitill-spent and labour ill bestowed!

DON PEDRO.
Why, what’s the matter?

DON JOHN.
I came hither to tell you; and circumstances shortened,—for she has been toolong a talking of,—the lady is disloyal.

CLAUDIO.
Who, Hero?

DON JOHN.
Even she: Leonato’s Hero, your Hero, every man’s Hero.

CLAUDIO.
Disloyal?

DON JOHN.
The word’s too good to paint out her wickedness; I could say, she wereworse: think you of a worse title, and I will fit her to it. Wonder not tillfurther warrant: go but with me tonight, you shall see her chamber windowentered, even the night before her wedding-day: if you love her then, tomorrowwed her; but it would better fit your honour to change your mind.

CLAUDIO.
May this be so?

DON PEDRO.
I will not think it.

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

CLAUDIO.
If I see anything tonight why I should not marry her tomorrow, in thecongregation, 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 buttill midnight, and let the issue show itself.

DON PEDRO.
O day untowardly turned!

CLAUDIO.
O mischief strangely thwarting!

DON JOHN.
O plague right well prevented! So will you say when you have seen the sequel.

[Exeunt.]

Scene III. A Street.

Enter Dogberry and Verges, with the Watch.

DOGBERRY.
Are you good men and true?

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

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

VERGES.
Well, give them their charge, neighbour Dogberry.

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

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

DOGBERRY.
Come hither, neighbour Seacoal. God hath blessed you with a good name: to be awell-favoured man is the gift of Fortune; but to write and read comes byNature.

SECOND WATCH.
Both which, Master Constable,—

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

SECOND WATCH.
How, if a’ will not stand?

DOGBERRY.
Why, then, take no note of him, but let him go; and presently call the rest ofthe 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’ssubjects.

DOGBERRY.
True, and they are to meddle with none but the Prince’s subjects. Youshall also make no noise in the streets: for, for the watch to babble and totalk is most tolerable and not to be endured.

SECOND WATCH.
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 howsleeping 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 tobed.

SECOND WATCH.
How if they will not?

DOGBERRY.
Why then, let them alone till they are sober: if they make you not then thebetter answer, you may say they are not the men you took them for.

SECOND WATCH.
Well, sir.

DOGBERRY.
If you meet a thief, you may suspect him, by virtue of your office, to be notrue man; and, for such kind of men, the less you meddle or make with them,why, the more is for your honesty.

SECOND WATCH.
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 bedefiled. The most peaceable way for you, if you do take a thief, is to let himshow 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 honestyin him.

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

SECOND WATCH.
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 ewethat will not hear her lamb when it baes, will never answer a calf when hebleats.

VERGES.
’Tis very true.

DOGBERRY.
This is the end of the charge. You constable, are to present the Prince’sown person: if you meet the Prince in the night, you may stay him.

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

DOGBERRY.
Five shillings to one on’t, with any man that knows the statutes, he maystay him: marry, not without the Prince be willing; for, indeed, the watchought to offend no man, and it is an offence to stay a man against his will.

VERGES.
By’r lady, I think it be so.

DOGBERRY.
Ha, ah, ha! Well, masters, good night: an there be any matter of weightchances, call up me: keep your fellows’ counsels and your own, and goodnight. Come, neighbour.

SECOND WATCH.
Well, masters, we hear our charge: let us go sit here upon the church benchtill two, and then all to bed.

DOGBERRY.
One word more, honest neighbours. I pray you, watch about SigniorLeonato’s door; for the wedding being there tomorrow, there is a greatcoil tonight. Adieu; be vigitant, I beseech you.

[Exeunt Dogberry and Verges.]

Enter Borachio and Conrade.

BORACHIO.
What, Conrade!

WATCH.
[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.

WATCH.
[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 pricethey will.

CONRADE.
I wonder at it.

BORACHIO.
That shows thou art unconfirmed. Thou knowest that the fashion of a doublet, ora 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 adeformed thief this fashion is?

WATCH.
[Aside] I know that Deformed; a’ has been a vile thief this sevenyears; a’ goes up and down like a gentleman: I remember his name.

BORACHIO.
Didst thou not hear somebody?

CONRADE.
No: ’twas the vane on the house.

BORACHIO.
Seest thou not, I say, what a deformed thief this fashion is? how giddily heturns about all the hot bloods between fourteen and five-and-thirty? sometimefashioning them like Pharaoh’s soldiers in the reechy painting; sometimelike god Bel’s priests in the old church window; sometime like the shavenHercules in the smirched worm-eaten tapestry, where his codpiece seems as massyas 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 outof thy tale into telling me of the fashion?

BORACHIO.
Not so neither; but know, that I have tonight wooed Margaret, the LadyHero’s gentlewoman, by the name of Hero: she leans me out at hermistress’ chamber window, bids me a thousand times good night,—I tellthis tale vilely:—I should first tell thee how the Prince, Claudio, and mymaster, planted and placed and possessed by my master Don John, saw afar off inthe orchard this amiable encounter.

CONRADE.
And thought they Margaret was Hero?

BORACHIO.
Two of them did, the Prince and Claudio; but the devil my master, knew she wasMargaret; and partly by his oaths, which first possessed them, partly by thedark night, which did deceive them, but chiefly by my villainy, which didconfirm any slander that Don John had made, away went Claudio enraged; swore hewould meet her, as he was appointed, next morning at the temple, and there,before the whole congregation, shame her with what he saw o’er night, andsend her home again without a husband.

FIRST WATCH.
We charge you in the Prince’s name, stand!

SECOND WATCH.
Call up the right Master Constable. We have here recovered the most dangerouspiece of lechery that ever was known in the commonwealth.

FIRST WATCH.
And one Deformed is one of them: I know him, a’ wears a lock.

CONRADE.
Masters, masters!

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

CONRADE.
Masters,—

FIRST WATCH.
Never speak: we charge you let us obey you to go with us.

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

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

[Exeunt.]

Scene IV. A Room inLeonato’s House.

Enter Hero, Margaret and Ursula.

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

URSULA.
I will, lady.

HERO.
And bid her come hither.

URSULA.
Well.

[Exit.]

MARGARET.
Troth, I think your other 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; andyour gown’s a most rare fashion, i’ faith. I saw the Duchess of Milan’s gownthat they praise so.

HERO.
O! that exceeds, they say.

MARGARET.
By my troth ’s but a night-gown in respect of yours: cloth o’ gold,and cuts, and laced with silver, set with pearls, down sleeves, side sleeves,and skirts round, underborne with a bluish tinsel; but for a fine, quaint,graceful, and excellent fashion, yours is worth ten on’t.

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

MARGARET.
’Twill be heavier soon by the weight of a man.

HERO.
Fie upon thee! art not ashamed?

MARGARET.
Of what, lady? of speaking honourably? Is not marriage honourable in a beggar?Is not your lord honourable without marriage? I think you would have me say,saving your reverence, ‘a husband:’ an bad thinking do not wresttrue speaking, I’ll offend nobody. Is there any harm in ‘theheavier for a husband’? None, I think, and it be the right husband andthe right wife; otherwise ’tis light, and not heavy: ask my Lady Beatriceelse; 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 aburden: do you sing it, and I’ll dance it.

BEATRICE.
Ye, light o’ love with your heels! then, if your husband have stablesenough, you’ll see he shall lack no barnes.

MARGARET.
O illegitimate construction! I scorn that with my heels.

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

MARGARET.
For a hawk, a horse, or a husband?

BEATRICE.
For the letter that begins them all, H.

MARGARET.
Well, and you be not turned Turk, there’s no more sailing by the star.

BEATRICE.
What means the fool, trow?

MARGARET.
Nothing I; but God send 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 yourheart: 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 thisbenedictus.

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, Iam 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, thatyou are in love, or that you will be in love, or that you can be in love. YetBenedick was such another, and now is he become a man: he swore he would nevermarry; 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 eyesas other women do.

BEATRICE.
What pace is this that thy tongue keeps?

MARGARET.
Not a false gallop.

Re-enter Ursula.

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

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

[Exeunt.]

Scene V. Another Room inLeonato’s House.

Enter Leonato and Dogberry and Verges.

LEONATO.
What would you with me, honest neighbour?

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

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

DOGBERRY.
Marry, this it is, sir.

VERGES.
Yes, in truth it is, sir.

LEONATO.
What is it, my good friends?

DOGBERRY.
Goodman Verges, sir, speaks a little off the matter: an old man, sir, and hiswits 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 nohonester than I.

DOGBERRY.
Comparisons are odorous: palabras, neighbour Verges.

LEONATO.
Neighbours, you are tedious.

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

LEONATO.
All thy tediousness on me! ah?

DOGBERRY.
Yea, and ’twere a thousand pound more than ’tis; for I hear as goodexclamation on your worship, as of any man in the city, and though I be but apoor 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 isin, the wit is out.’ God help us! it is a world to see! Well said,i’ faith, neighbour Verges: well, God’s a good man; and two menride of a horse, one must ride behind. An honest soul, i’ faith, sir; bymy troth he is, as ever broke bread; but God is to be worshipped: all men arenot alike; alas! good neighbour.

LEONATO.
Indeed, neighbour, he comes too short of you.

DOGBERRY.
Gifts that God gives.

LEONATO.
I must leave you.

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

LEONATO.
Take their examination yourself, and bring it me: I am now in great haste, asmay appear unto you.

DOGBERRY.
It shall be suffigance.

LEONATO.
Drink some wine ere you go: fare you well.

Enter a Messenger.

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

LEONATO.
I’ll wait upon them: I am ready.

[Exeunt Leonato and Messenger.]

DOGBERRY.
Go, good partner, go get you to Francis Seacoal; bid him bring his pen andinkhorn to the gaol: we are now to examination these men.

VERGES.
And we must do it wisely.

DOGBERRY.
We will spare for no wit, I warrant you; here’s that shall drive some ofthem to a non-come: only get the learned writer to set down ourexcommunication, and meet me at the gaol.

[Exeunt.]

ACT IV

SCENE I. The Inside of a Church.

Enter Don Pedro, Don John, Leonato, Friar Francis,Claudio, Benedick, Hero, Beatrice &c.

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

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

CLAUDIO.
No.

LEONATO.
To be married to her, friar; you come to marry her.

FRIAR.
Lady, you come hither to be married to this Count?

HERO.
I do.

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

CLAUDIO.
Know you any, Hero?

HERO.
None, my lord.

FRIAR.
Know you any, Count?

LEONATO.
I dare make his answer; none.

CLAUDIO.
O! what men dare do! what men may do! what men daily do, not knowing what theydo!

BENEDICK.
How now! Interjections? Why then, some be of laughing, as ah! ha! he!

CLAUDIO.
Stand thee by, Friar. Father, by your leave:
Will you with free and unconstrained soul
Give me this maid, your daughter?

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

CLAUDIO.
And what have I to give you back whose worth
May counterpoise this rich and precious gift?

DON PEDRO.
Nothing, unless you render her again.

CLAUDIO.
Sweet Prince, you learn me noble thankfulness.
There, Leonato, take her back again:
Give not this rotten orange to your friend;
She’s but the sign and semblance of her honour.
Behold! how like a maid she blushes here.
O! what authority and show of truth
Can cunning sin cover itself withal.
Comes not that blood as modest evidence
To witness simple virtue? Would you not swear,
All you that see her, that she were a maid,
By these exterior shows? But she is none:
She knows the heat of a luxurious bed;
Her blush is guiltiness, not modesty.

LEONATO.
What do you mean, my lord?

CLAUDIO.
Not to be married,
Not to knit my soul to an approved wanton.

LEONATO.
Dear my lord, if you, in your own proof,
Have vanquish’d the resistance of her youth,
And made defeat of her virginity,—

CLAUDIO.
I know what you would say: if I have known her,
You will say she did embrace me as a husband,
And so extenuate the forehand sin: No, Leonato,
I never tempted her with word too large;
But as a brother to his sister show’d
Bashful sincerity and comely love.

HERO.
And seem’d I ever otherwise to you?

CLAUDIO.
Out on thee! Seeming! I will write against it:
You seem to me as Dian in her orb,
As chaste as is the bud ere it be blown;
But you are more intemperate in your blood
Than Venus, or those pamper’d animals
That rage in savage sensuality.

HERO.
Is my lord well, that he doth speak so wide?

LEONATO.
Sweet Prince, why speak not you?

DON PEDRO.
What should I speak?
I stand dishonour’d, that have gone about
To link my dear friend to a common stale.

LEONATO.
Are these things spoken, or do I but dream?

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

BENEDICK.
This looks not like a nuptial.

HERO.
True! O God!

CLAUDIO.
Leonato, stand I here?
Is this the Prince? Is this the Prince’s brother?
Is this face Hero’s? Are our eyes our own?

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

CLAUDIO.
Let me but move one question to your daughter,
And by that fatherly and kindly power
That you have in her, bid her answer truly.

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

HERO.
O, God defend me! how am I beset!
What kind of catechizing call you this?

CLAUDIO.
To make you answer truly to your name.

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

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

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

DON PEDRO.
Why, then are you no maiden.
Leonato, I am sorry you must hear: upon my honour,
Myself, my brother, and this grieved Count,
Did see her, hear her, at that hour last night,
Talk with a ruffian at her chamber window;
Who hath indeed, most like a liberal villain,
Confess’d the vile encounters they have had
A thousand times in secret.

DON JOHN.
Fie, fie! they are not to be nam’d, my lord,
Not to be spoke of;
There is not chastity enough in language
Without offence to utter them. Thus, pretty lady,
I am sorry for thy much misgovernment.

CLAUDIO.
O Hero! what a Hero hadst thou been,
If half thy outward graces had been plac’d
About thy thoughts and counsels of thy heart!
But fare thee well, most foul, most fair! farewell,
Thou pure impiety, and impious purity!
For thee I’ll lock up all the gates of love,
And on my eyelids shall conjecture hang,
To turn all beauty into thoughts of harm,
And never shall it more be gracious.

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

[Hero swoons.]

BEATRICE.
Why, how now, cousin! wherefore sink you down?

DON JOHN.
Come, let us go. These things, come thus to light,
Smother her spirits up.

[Exeunt Don Pedro, Don John and Claudio.]

BENEDICK.
How doth the lady?

BEATRICE.
Dead, I think! Help, uncle! Hero! why, Hero! Uncle! Signior Benedick! Friar!

LEONATO.
O Fate! take not away thy heavy hand:
Death is the fairest cover for her shame
That may be wish’d for.

BEATRICE.
How now, cousin Hero?

FRIAR.
Have comfort, lady.

LEONATO.
Dost thou look up?

FRIAR.
Yea; wherefore should she not?

LEONATO.
Wherefore! Why, doth not every earthly thing
Cry shame upon her? Could she here deny
The story that is printed in her blood?
Do not live, Hero; do not ope thine eyes;
For, did I think thou wouldst not quickly die,
Thought I thy spirits were stronger than thy shames,
Myself would, on the rearward of reproaches,
Strike at thy life. Griev’d I, I had but one?
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 smirched thus, and mir’d with infamy,
I might have said, ‘No part of it is mine;
This shame derives itself from unknown loins?’
But mine, and mine I lov’d, and mine I prais’d,
And mine that I was proud on, mine so much
That I myself was to myself not mine,
Valuing of her; why, she—O! she is fallen
Into a pit of ink, that the wide sea
Hath drops too few to wash her clean again,
And salt too little which may season give
To her foul tainted flesh.

BENEDICK.
Sir, sir, be patient.
For my part, I am so attir’d in wonder,
I know not what to say.

BEATRICE.
O! on my soul, my cousin is belied!

BENEDICK.
Lady, were you her bedfellow last night?

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

LEONATO.
Confirm’d, confirm’d! O! that is stronger made,
Which was before barr’d up with ribs of iron.
Would the two princes lie? and Claudio lie,
Who lov’d her so, that, speaking of her foulness,
Wash’d it with tears? Hence from her! let her die.

FRIAR.
Hear me a little;
For I have only been silent so long,
And given way unto this course of fortune,
By noting of the lady: I have mark’d
A thousand blushing apparitions
To start into her face; a thousand innocent shames
In angel whiteness bear away those blushes;
And in her eye there hath appear’d a fire,
To burn the errors that these princes hold
Against her maiden truth. Call me a fool;
Trust not my reading nor my observations,
Which with experimental seal doth warrant
The tenure of my book; trust not my age,
My reverence, calling, nor divinity,
If this sweet lady lie not guiltless here
Under some biting error.

LEONATO.
Friar, it cannot be.
Thou seest that all the grace that she hath left
Is that she will not add to her damnation
A sin of perjury: she not denies it.
Why seek’st thou then to cover with excuse
That which appears in proper nakedness?

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

HERO.
They know that do accuse me, I know none;
If I know more of any man alive
Than that which maiden modesty doth warrant,
Let all my sins lack mercy! O, my father!
Prove you that any man with me convers’d
At hours unmeet, or that I yesternight
Maintain’d the change of words with any creature,
Refuse me, hate me, torture me to death.

FRIAR.
There is some strange misprision in the princes.

BENEDICK.
Two of them have the very bent of honour;
And if their wisdoms be misled in this,
The practice of it lives in John the bastard,
Whose spirits toil in frame of villainies.

LEONATO.
I know not. If they speak but truth of her,
These hands shall tear her; if they wrong her honour,
The proudest of them shall well hear of it.
Time hath not yet so dried this blood of mine,
Nor age so eat up my invention,
Nor fortune made such havoc of my means,
Nor my bad life reft me so much of friends,
But they shall find, awak’d in such a kind,
Both strength of limb and policy of mind,
Ability in means and choice of friends,
To quit me of them throughly.

FRIAR.
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.
Marry, this well carried shall on her behalf
Change slander to remorse; that is some good.
But not for that dream I on this strange course,
But on this travail look for greater birth.
She dying, as it must be so maintain’d,
Upon the instant that she was accus’d,
Shall be lamented, pitied and excus’d
Of every hearer; for it so falls out
That what we have we prize not to the worth
Whiles we enjoy it, but being lack’d and lost,
Why, then we rack the value, then we find
The virtue that possession would not show us
Whiles it was ours. So will it fare with Claudio:
When he shall hear she died upon his words,
The idea of her life shall sweetly creep
Into his study of imagination,
And every lovely organ of her life
Shall come apparell’d in more precious habit,
More moving, delicate, and full of life
Into the eye and prospect of his soul,
Than when she liv’d indeed: then shall he mourn,—
If ever love had interest in his liver,—
And wish he had not so accused her,
No, though he thought his accusation true.
Let this be so, and doubt not but success
Will fashion the event in better shape
Than I can lay it down in likelihood.
But if all aim but this be levell’d false,
The supposition of the lady’s death
Will quench the wonder of her infamy:
And if it sort not well, you may conceal her,—
As best befits her wounded reputation,—
In some reclusive and religious life,
Out of all eyes, tongues, minds, and injuries.

BENEDICK.
Signior Leonato, let the friar advise you:
And though you know my inwardness and love
Is very much unto the Prince and Claudio,
Yet, by mine honour, I will deal in this
As secretly and justly as your soul
Should with your body.

LEONATO.
Being that I flow in grief,
The smallest twine may lead me.

FRIAR.
’Tis well consented: presently away;
For to strange sores strangely they strain the cure.
Come, lady, die to live: this wedding day
Perhaps is but prolong’d: have patience and endure.

[Exeunt Friar, Hero and Leonato.]

BENEDICK.
Lady Beatrice, have you wept all this while?

BEATRICE.
Yea, and I will weep a while longer.

BENEDICK.
I will not desire that.

BEATRICE.
You have no reason; I do it freely.

BENEDICK.
Surely I do believe your fair cousin is wronged.

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

BENEDICK.
Is there any way to show such friendship?

BEATRICE.
A very even way, but no such friend.

BENEDICK.
May a man do it?

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

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

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

BENEDICK.
By my sword, Beatrice, thou lovest me.

BEATRICE.
Do not swear by it, and eat it.

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

BEATRICE.
Will you not eat your word?

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

BEATRICE.
Why then, God forgive me!

BENEDICK.
What offence, sweet Beatrice?

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

BENEDICK.
And do it with all thy heart.

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

BENEDICK.
Come, bid me do anything for thee.

BEATRICE.
Kill Claudio.

BENEDICK.
Ha! not for the wide world.

BEATRICE.
You kill me to deny it. Farewell.

BENEDICK.
Tarry, sweet Beatrice.

BEATRICE.
I am gone, though I am here: there is no love in you: nay, I pray you, let mego.

BENEDICK.
Beatrice,—

BEATRICE.
In faith, I will go.

BENEDICK.
We’ll be friends first.

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

BENEDICK.
Is Claudio thine enemy?

BEATRICE.
Is he not approved in the height a villain, that hath slandered, scorned,dishonoured my kinswoman? O! that I were a man. What! bear her in hand untilthey come to take hands, and then, with public accusation, uncovered slander,unmitigated rancour,—O God, that I were a man! I would eat his heart in themarket-place.

BENEDICK.
Hear me, Beatrice,—

BEATRICE.
Talk with a man out at a window! a proper saying!

BENEDICK.
Nay, but Beatrice,—

BEATRICE.
Sweet Hero! she is wronged, she is slandered, she is undone.

BENEDICK.
Beat—

BEATRICE.
Princes and Counties! Surely, a princely testimony, a goodly Count Comfect; asweet gallant, surely! O! that I were a man for his sake, or that I had anyfriend would be a man for my sake! But manhood is melted into curtsies, valourinto compliment, and men are only turned into tongue, and trim ones too: he isnow as valiant as Hercules, that only tells a lie and swears it. I cannot be aman with wishing, therefore I will die a woman with grieving.

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

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

BENEDICK.
Think you in your soul the Count Claudio hath wronged Hero?

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

BENEDICK.
Enough! I am engaged, I will challenge him. I will kiss your hand, and so leaveyou. By this hand, Claudio shall render me a dear account. As you hear of me,so think of me. Go, comfort your cousin: I must say she is dead; and so,farewell.

[Exeunt.]

Scene II. A Prison.

Enter Dogberry, Verges, and Sexton, in gowns; and the Watch, with Conrade and Borachio.

DOGBERRY.
Is our whole dissembly appeared?

VERGES.
O! a stool and a cushion for the sexton.

SEXTON.
Which be the malefactors?

DOGBERRY.
Marry, that am I and my partner.

VERGES.
Nay, that’s certain: we have the exhibition to examine.

SEXTON.
But which are the offenders that are to be examined? let them come beforeMaster Constable.

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

BORACHIO.
Borachio.

DOGBERRY.
Pray write down Borachio. Yours, sirrah?

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

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

BOTH.
Yea, sir, we hope.

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

CONRADE.
Marry, sir, we say we are none.

DOGBERRY.
A marvellous witty fellow, I assure you; but I will go about with him. Come youhither, sirrah; a word in your ear: sir, I say to you, it is thought you arefalse 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, thatthey are none?

SEXTON.
Master Constable, you go not the way to examine: you must call forth the watchthat are their accusers.

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

FIRST WATCH.
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 aPrince’s brother villain.

BORACHIO.
Master Constable,—

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

SEXTON.
What heard you him say else?

SECOND WATCH.
Marry, that he had received a thousand ducats of Don John for accusing the LadyHero wrongfully.

DOGBERRY.
Flat burglary as ever was committed.

VERGES.
Yea, by the mass, that it is.

SEXTON.
What else, fellow?

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

DOGBERRY.
O villain! thou wilt be condemned into everlasting redemption for this.

SEXTON.
What else?

SECOND WATCH.
This is all.

SEXTON.
And this is more, masters, than you can deny. Prince John is this morningsecretly stolen away: Hero was in this manner accused, in this manner refused,and, upon the grief of this, suddenly died. Master Constable, let these men bebound, and brought to Leonato’s: I will go before and show him theirexamination.

[Exit.]

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 thePrince’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 werehere to write me down an ass! but, masters, remember that I am an ass; thoughit be not written down, yet forget not that I am an ass. No, thou villain, thouart full of piety, as shall be proved upon thee by good witness. I am a wisefellow; and, which is more, an officer; and, which is more, a householder; and,which is more, as pretty a piece of flesh as any in Messina; and one that knowsthe law, go to; and a rich fellow enough, go to; and a fellow that hath hadlosses; and one that hath two gowns, and everything handsome about him. Bringhim away. O that I had been writ down an ass!

[Exeunt.]

ACT V

SCENE I. Before Leonato’s House.

Enter Leonato and Antonio.

ANTONIO.
If you go on thus, you will kill yourself
And ’tis not wisdom thus to second grief
Against yourself.

LEONATO.
I pray thee, cease thy counsel,
Which falls into mine ears as profitless
As water in a sieve: give not me counsel;
Nor let no comforter delight mine ear
But such a one whose wrongs do suit with mine:
Bring me a father that so lov’d his child,
Whose joy of her is overwhelm’d like mine,
And bid him speak of patience;
Measure his woe the length and breadth of mine,
And let it answer every strain for strain,
As thus for thus and such a grief for such,
In every lineament, branch, shape, and form:
If such a one will smile, and stroke his beard;
Bid sorrow wag, cry ‘hem’ when he should groan,
Patch grief with proverbs; make misfortune drunk
With candle-wasters; bring him yet to me,
And I of him will gather patience.
But there is no such man; for, brother, men
Can counsel and speak comfort to that grief
Which they themselves not feel; but, tasting it,
Their counsel turns to passion, which before
Would give preceptial medicine to rage,
Fetter strong madness in a silken thread,
Charm ache with air and agony with words.
No, no; ’tis all men’s office to speak patience
To those that wring under the load of sorrow,
But no man’s virtue nor sufficiency
To be so moral when he shall endure
The like himself. Therefore give me no counsel:
My griefs cry louder than advertisement.

ANTONIO.
Therein do men from children nothing differ.

LEONATO.
I pray thee peace! I will be flesh and blood;
For there was never yet philosopher
That could endure the toothache patiently,
However they have writ the style of gods
And made a push at chance and sufferance.

ANTONIO.
Yet bend not all the harm upon yourself;
Make those that do offend you suffer too.

LEONATO.
There thou speak’st reason: nay, I will do so.
My soul doth tell me Hero is belied;
And that shall Claudio know; so shall the Prince,
And all of them that thus dishonour her.

ANTONIO.
Here comes the Prince and Claudio hastily.

Enter Don Pedro and Claudio.

DON PEDRO.
Good den, good den.

CLAUDIO.
Good day to both of you.

LEONATO.
Hear you, my lords,—

DON PEDRO.
We have some haste, Leonato.

LEONATO.
Some haste, my lord! well, fare you well, my lord:
Are you so hasty now?—well, all is one.

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

ANTONIO.
If he could right himself with quarrelling,
Some of us would lie low.

CLAUDIO.
Who wrongs him?

LEONATO.
Marry, thou dost wrong me; thou dissembler, thou.
Nay, never lay thy hand upon thy sword;
I fear thee not.

CLAUDIO.
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 wrong’d mine innocent child and me
That I am forc’d to lay my reverence by,
And, with grey hairs and bruise of many days,
Do challenge thee to trial of a man.
I say thou hast belied mine innocent child:
Thy slander hath gone through and through her heart,
And she lies buried with her ancestors;
O! in a tomb where never scandal slept,
Save this of hers, fram’d by thy villainy!

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.

CLAUDIO.
Away! I will not have to do with you.

LEONATO.
Canst thou so daff me? Thou hast kill’d my child;
If thou kill’st me, boy, thou shalt kill a man.

ANTONIO.
He shall kill two of us, and men indeed:
But that’s no matter; let him kill one first:
Win me and wear me; let him answer me.
Come, follow me, boy; come, sir boy, come, follow me.
Sir boy, I’ll whip you from your foining fence;
Nay, as I am a gentleman, I will.

LEONATO.
Brother,—

ANTONIO.
Content yourself. God knows I lov’d my niece;
And she is dead, slander’d to death by villains,
That dare as well answer a man indeed
As I dare take a serpent by the tongue.
Boys, apes, braggarts, Jacks, milksops!

LEONATO.
Brother Anthony,—

ANTONIO.
Hold you content. What, man! I know them, yea,
And what they weigh, even to the utmost scruple,
Scambling, out-facing, fashion-monging boys,
That lie and cog and flout, deprave and slander,
Go antickly, show outward hideousness,
And speak off half a dozen dangerous words,
How they might hurt their enemies, if they durst;
And this is all!

LEONATO.
But, brother Anthony,—

ANTONIO.
Come, ’tis no matter:
Do not you meddle, let me deal in this.

DON PEDRO.
Gentlemen both, we will not wake your patience.
My heart is sorry for your daughter’s death;
But, on my honour, she was charg’d with nothing
But what was true and very full of proof.

LEONATO.
My lord, my lord—

DON PEDRO.
I will not hear you.

LEONATO.
No? Come, brother, away. I will be heard.—

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

[Exeunt Leonato and Antonio.]

Enter Benedick.

DON PEDRO.
See, see; here comes the man we went to seek.

CLAUDIO.
Now, signior, what news?

BENEDICK.
Good day, my lord.

DON PEDRO.
Welcome, signior: you are almost come to part almost a fray.

CLAUDIO.
We had like to have had our two noses snapped off with two old men withoutteeth.

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

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

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

BENEDICK.
It is in my scabbard; shall I draw it?

DON PEDRO.
Dost thou wear thy wit by thy side?

CLAUDIO.
Never any did so, though very many have been beside their wit. I will bid theedraw, 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?

CLAUDIO.
What, courage, man! What though care killed a cat, thou hast mettle enough inthee to kill care.

BENEDICK.
Sir, I shall meet your wit in the career, and you charge it against me. I prayyou choose another subject.

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

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

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

BENEDICK.
Shall I speak a word in your ear?

CLAUDIO.
God bless me from a challenge!

BENEDICK.
[Aside to Claudio.] You are a villain, I jest not: I will make it goodhow you dare, with what you dare, and when you dare. Do me right, or I willprotest your cowardice. You have killed a sweet lady, and her death shall fallheavy on you. Let me hear from you.

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

DON PEDRO.
What, a feast, a feast?

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

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, thouhadst a fine wit. ‘True,’ says she, ‘a fine littleone.’ ‘No,’ said I, ‘a great wit.’‘Right,’ said she, ‘a great gross one.’‘Nay,’ said I, ‘a good wit.’ ‘Just,’ saidshe, ‘it hurts nobody.’ ‘Nay,’ said I, ‘thegentleman is wise.’ ‘Certain,’ said she, ‘a wisegentleman.’ ‘Nay,’ said I, ‘he hath the tongues.’‘That I believe’ said she, ‘for he swore a thing to me onMonday night, which he forswore on Tuesday morning: there’s a doubletongue; there’s two tongues.’ Thus did she, an hour together,trans-shape thy particular virtues; yet at last she concluded with a sigh, thouwast the properest man in Italy.

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

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

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

DON PEDRO.
But when shall we set the savage bull’s horns on the sensibleBenedick’s head?

CLAUDIO.
Yea, and text underneath, ‘Here dwells Benedick the married man!’

BENEDICK.
Fare you well, boy: you know my mind. I will leave you now to your gossip-likehumour; 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 discontinueyour company. Your brother the bastard is fled from Messina: you have, amongyou, killed a sweet and innocent lady. For my Lord Lack-beard there, he and Ishall meet; and till then, peace be with him.

[Exit.]

DON PEDRO.
He is in earnest.

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

DON PEDRO.
And hath challenged thee?

CLAUDIO.
Most sincerely.

DON PEDRO.
What a pretty thing man is when he goes in his doublet and hose and leaves offhis wit!

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 mybrother was fled?

Enter Dogberry, Verges, and the Watch, withConrade and Borachio.

DOGBERRY.
Come you, sir: if justice cannot tame you, she shall ne’er weigh morereasons in her balance. Nay, an you be a cursing hypocrite once, you must belooked to.

DON PEDRO.
How now! two of my brother’s men bound! Borachio, one!

CLAUDIO.
Hearken after their offence, my lord.

DON PEDRO.
Officers, what offence have these men done?

DOGBERRY.
Marry, sir, they have committed false report; moreover, they have spokenuntruths; secondarily, they are slanders; sixth and lastly, they have belied alady; thirdly, they have verified unjust things; and to conclude, they arelying knaves.

DON PEDRO.
First, I ask thee what they have done; thirdly, I ask thee what’s theiroffence; sixth and lastly, why they are committed; and, to conclude, what youlay to their charge?

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

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

BORACHIO.
Sweet Prince, let me go no farther to mine answer: do you hear me, and let thisCount kill me. I have deceived even your very eyes: what your wisdoms could notdiscover, these shallow fools have brought to light; who, in the nightoverheard me confessing to this man how Don John your brother incensed me toslander the Lady Hero; how you were brought into the orchard and saw me courtMargaret in Hero’s garments; how you disgraced her, when you should marryher. My villainy they have upon record; which I had rather seal with my deaththan repeat over to my shame. The lady is dead upon mine and my master’sfalse accusation; and, briefly, I desire nothing but the reward of a villain.

DON PEDRO.
Runs not this speech like iron through your blood?

CLAUDIO.
I have drunk poison whiles he utter’d it.

DON PEDRO.
But did my brother set thee on to this?

BORACHIO.
Yea; and paid me richly for the practice of it.

DON PEDRO.
He is compos’d and fram’d of treachery: And fled he is upon thisvillainy.

CLAUDIO.
Sweet Hero! now thy image doth appear
In the rare semblance that I lov’d it first.

DOGBERRY.
Come, bring away the plaintiffs: by this time our sexton hath reformed SigniorLeonato of the matter. And masters, do not forget to specify, when time andplace shall serve, that I am an ass.

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

Re-enter Leonato, Antonio and the Sexton.

LEONATO.
Which is the villain? Let me see his eyes,
That, when I note another man like him,
I may avoid him. Which of these is he?

BORACHIO.
If you would know your wronger, look on me.

LEONATO.
Art thou the slave that with thy breath hast kill’d
Mine innocent child?

BORACHIO.
Yea, even I alone.

LEONATO.
No, not so, villain; thou beliest thyself:
Here stand a pair of honourable men;
A third is fled, that had a hand in it.
I thank you, princes, for my daughter’s death:
Record it with your high and worthy deeds.
’Twas bravely done, if you bethink you of it.

CLAUDIO.
I know not how to pray your patience;
Yet I must speak. Choose your revenge yourself;
Impose me to what penance your invention
Can lay upon my sin: yet sinn’d I not
But in mistaking.

DON PEDRO.
By my soul, nor I:
And yet, to satisfy this good old man,
I would bend under any heavy weight
That he’ll enjoin me to.

LEONATO.
I cannot bid you bid my daughter live;
That were impossible; but, I pray you both,
Possess the people in Messina here
How innocent she died; and if your love
Can labour aught in sad invention,
Hang her an epitaph upon her tomb,
And sing it to her bones: sing it 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 given her cousin,
And so dies my revenge.

CLAUDIO.
O noble sir,
Your over-kindness doth wring tears from me!
I do embrace your offer; and dispose
For henceforth of poor Claudio.

LEONATO.
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 pack’d in all this wrong,
Hir’d to it by your brother.

BORACHIO.
No, by my soul she was not;
Nor knew not what she did when she spoke to me;
But always hath been just and virtuous
In anything that I do know by her.

DOGBERRY.
Moreover, sir,—which, indeed, is not under white and black,— this plaintiffhere, the offender, did call me ass: I beseech you, let it be remembered in hispunishment. And also, the watch heard them talk of one Deformed: they say hewears a key in his ear and a lock hanging by it, and borrows money inGod’s name, the which he hath used so long and never paid, that now mengrow hard-hearted, and will lend nothing for God’s sake. Pray you,examine him upon that point.

LEONATO.
I thank thee for thy care and honest pains.

DOGBERRY.
Your worship speaks like a most thankful and reverent youth, and I praise Godfor you.

LEONATO.
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 tocorrect yourself, for the example of others. God keep your worship! I wish yourworship well; God restore you to health! I humbly give you leave to depart, andif a merry meeting may be wished, God prohibit it! Come, neighbour.

[Exeunt Dogberry and Verges.]

LEONATO.
Until tomorrow morning, lords, farewell.

ANTONIO.
Farewell, my lords: we look for you tomorrow.

DON PEDRO.
We will not fail.

CLAUDIO.
Tonight I’ll mourn with Hero.

[Exeunt Don Pedro and Claudio.]

LEONATO.
[To the Watch.] Bring you these fellows on. We’ll talk withMargaret,
How her acquaintance grew with this lewd fellow.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE II. Leonato’sGarden.

Enter Benedick and Margaret, meeting.

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

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

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

MARGARET.
To have no man come over me! why, shall I always keep below stairs?

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

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

BENEDICK.
A most manly wit, Margaret; it will not hurt a woman: and so, I pray thee, callBeatrice. I give thee the bucklers.

MARGARET.
Give us the swords, we have bucklers of our own.

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

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

BENEDICK.
And therefore will come.

[Exit Margaret.]

    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 firstemployer of panders, and a whole book full of these quondam carpet-mongers,whose names yet run smoothly in the even road of a blank verse, why, they werenever so truly turned over and over as my poor self in love. Marry, I cannotshow it in rime; I have tried: I can find out no rime to ‘lady’ but‘baby’, an innocent rime; for ‘scorn,’‘horn’, a hard rime; for ‘school’, ‘fool’,a babbling rime; very ominous endings: no, I was not born under a rimingplanet, 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.

BENEDICK.
O, stay but till then!

BEATRICE.
‘Then’ is spoken; fare you well now: and yet, ere I go, let me gowith that I came for; which is, with knowing what hath passed between you andClaudio.

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 breathis noisome; therefore I will depart unkissed.

BENEDICK.
Thou hast frighted the word out of his right sense, so forcible is thy wit. ButI must tell thee plainly, Claudio undergoes my challenge, and either I mustshortly 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 theywill not admit any good part to intermingle with them. But for which of my goodparts did you first suffer love for me?

BENEDICK.
‘Suffer love,’ a good epithet! I do suffer love indeed, for I lovethee against my will.

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

BENEDICK.
Thou and I are too wise to woo peaceably.

BEATRICE.
It appears not in this confession: there’s not one wise man among twentythat will praise himself.

BENEDICK.
An old, an old instance, Beatrice, that lived in the time of good neighbours.If a man do not erect in this age his own tomb ere he dies, he shall live nolonger in monument than the bell rings and the widow weeps.

BEATRICE.
And how long is that think you?

BENEDICK.
Question: why, an hour in clamour and a quarter in rheum: therefore is it mostexpedient for the wise,—if Don Worm, his conscience, find no impediment to thecontrary,—to be the trumpet of his own virtues, as I am to myself. So much forpraising myself, who, I myself will bear witness, is praiseworthy. And now tellme, how doth your cousin?

BEATRICE.
Very ill.

BENEDICK.
And how do you?

BEATRICE.
Very ill too.

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

Enter Ursula.

URSULA.
Madam, you must come to your uncle. Yonder’s old coil at home: it isproved, my Lady Hero hath been falsely accused, the Prince and Claudio mightilyabused; and Don John is the author of all, who is fled and gone. Will you comepresently?

BEATRICE.
Will you go hear this news, signior?

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

[Exeunt.]

SCENE III. The Inside of aChurch.

Enter Don Pedro, Claudio and Attendants, withmusic and tapers.

CLAUDIO.
Is this the monument of Leonato?

A LORD.
It is, my lord.

CLAUDIO.
[Reads from a scroll.]

Epitaph.

  Done to death by slanderous tongues
    Was the Hero that here lies:
  Death, in guerdon of her wrongs,
    Gives her fame which never dies.
  So the life that died with shame
  Lives in death with glorious fame.

Hang thou there upon the tomb,

Praising her when I am dumb.
Now, music, sound, and sing your solemn hymn.

Song.

 Pardon, goddess of the night,
  Those that slew thy virgin knight;
  For the which, with songs of woe,
  Round about her tomb they go.
     Midnight, assist our moan;
     Help us to sigh and groan,
        Heavily, heavily:
     Graves, yawn and yield your dead,
     Till death be uttered,
        Heavily, heavily.

CLAUDIO.
Now, unto thy bones good night!
Yearly will I do this rite.

DON PEDRO.
Good morrow, masters: put your torches out.
The wolves have prey’d; and look, the gentle day,
Before the wheels of Phoebus, round about
Dapples the drowsy East with spots of grey.
Thanks to you all, and leave us: fare you well.

CLAUDIO.
Good morrow, masters: each his several way.

DON PEDRO.
Come, let us hence, and put on other weeds;
And then to Leonato’s we will go.

CLAUDIO.
And Hymen now with luckier issue speed’s,
Than this for whom we rend’red up this woe!

[Exeunt.]

SCENE IV. A Room in Leonato’sHouse.

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

FRIAR.
Did I not tell you she was innocent?

LEONATO.
So are the Prince and Claudio, who accus’d her
Upon the error that you heard debated:
But Margaret was in some fault for this,
Although against her will, as it appears
In the true course of all the question.

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

BENEDICK.
And so am I, being else by faith enforc’d
To call young Claudio to a reckoning for it.

LEONATO.
Well, daughter, and you gentlewomen all,
Withdraw into a chamber by yourselves,
And when I send for you, come hither mask’d:
The Prince and Claudio promis’d by this hour
To visit me.

[Exeunt Ladies.]

You know your office, brother;
You must be father to your brother’s daughter,
And give her to young Claudio.

ANTONIO.
Which I will do with confirm’d countenance.

BENEDICK.
Friar, I must entreat your pains, I think.

FRIAR.
To do what, signior?

BENEDICK.
To bind me, or undo me; one of them.
Signior Leonato, truth it is, good signior,
Your niece regards me with an eye of favour.

LEONATO.
That eye my daughter lent her. ’Tis most true.

BENEDICK.
And I do with an eye of love requite her.

LEONATO.
The sight whereof I think, you had from me,
From Claudio, and the Prince. But what’s your will?

BENEDICK.
Your answer, sir, is enigmatical:
But, for my will, my will is your good will
May stand with ours, this day to be conjoin’d
In the state of honourable marriage:
In which, good friar, I shall desire your help.

LEONATO.
My heart is with your liking.

FRIAR.
And my help. Here comes the Prince and Claudio.

Enter Don Pedro and Claudio, with Attendants.

DON PEDRO.
Good morrow to this fair assembly.

LEONATO.
Good morrow, Prince; good morrow, Claudio:
We here attend you. Are you yet determin’d
Today to marry with my brother’s daughter?

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

LEONATO.
Call her forth, brother: here’s the friar ready.

[Exit Antonio.]

DON PEDRO.
Good morrow, Benedick. Why, what’s the matter,
That you have such a February face,
So full of frost, of storm and cloudiness?

CLAUDIO.
I think he thinks upon the savage bull.
Tush! fear not, man, we’ll tip thy horns with gold,
And all Europa shall rejoice at thee,
As once Europa did at lusty Jove,
When he would play the noble beast in love.

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

CLAUDIO.
For this I owe you: here comes other reckonings.

Re-enter Antonio, with the ladies masked.

Which is the lady I must seize upon?

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

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

LEONATO.
No, that you shall not, till you take her hand
Before this friar, and swear to marry her.

CLAUDIO.
Give me your hand: before this holy friar,
I am your husband, if you like of me.

HERO.
And when I liv’d, I was your other wife:
[Unmasking.] And when you lov’d, you were my other husband.

CLAUDIO.
Another Hero!

HERO.
Nothing certainer:
One Hero died defil’d, but I do live,
And surely as I live, I am a maid.

DON PEDRO.
The former Hero! Hero that is dead!

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

FRIAR.
All this amazement can I qualify:
When after that the holy rites are ended,
I’ll tell you largely of fair Hero’s death:
Meantime, let wonder seem familiar,
And to the chapel let us presently.

BENEDICK.
Soft and fair, friar. Which is Beatrice?

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

BENEDICK.
Do not you love me?

BEATRICE.
Why, no; no more than reason.

BENEDICK.
Why, then, your uncle and the Prince and Claudio
Have been deceived; for they swore you did.

BEATRICE.
Do not you love me?

BENEDICK.
Troth, no; no more than reason.

BEATRICE.
Why, then my cousin, Margaret, and Ursula,
Are much deceiv’d; for they did swear you did.

BENEDICK.
They swore that you were almost sick for me.

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

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

BEATRICE.
No, truly, but in friendly recompense.

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

CLAUDIO.
And I’ll be sworn upon ’t that he loves her;
For here’s a paper written in his hand,
A halting sonnet of his own pure brain,
Fashion’d to Beatrice.

HERO.
And here’s another,
Writ in my cousin’s hand, stolen from her pocket,
Containing her affection unto Benedick.

BENEDICK.
A miracle! here’s our own hands against our hearts. Come, I will havethee; 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, andpartly to save your life, for I was told you were in a consumption.

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

DON PEDRO.
How dost thou, Benedick, the married man?

BENEDICK.
I’ll tell thee what, Prince; a college of witcrackers cannot flout me out of myhumour. Dost thou think I care for a satire or an epigram? No; if man will bebeaten with brains, a’ shall wear nothing handsome about him. In brief, since Ido purpose to marry, I will think nothing to any purpose that the world can sayagainst 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, Idid think to have beaten thee; but, in that thou art like to be my kinsman,live unbruised, and love my cousin.

CLAUDIO.
I had well hoped thou wouldst have denied Beatrice, that I might have cudgelledthee out of thy single life, to make thee a double-dealer; which, out ofquestion, thou wilt be, if my cousin do not look exceeding narrowly to thee.

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

LEONATO.
We’ll have dancing afterward.

BENEDICK.
First, of my word; therefore play, music! Prince, thou art sad; get thee awife, get thee a wife: there is no staff more reverent than one tipped withhorn.

Enter Messenger.

MESSENGER.
My lord, your brother John is ta’en in flight,
And brought with armed men back to Messina.

BENEDICK.
Think not on him till tomorrow: I’ll devise thee brave punishments forhim. Strike up, pipers!

[Dance. Exeunt.]

• New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain.

Related articles