[Enter LEONATO, HERO, and BEATRICE, with a
Messenger]
LEONATO: I learn in this letter that Don Pedro of Arragon
comes this night to Messina.
Messenger: He is very near by this: he was not three leagues off
when I left him.
LEONATO: How many gentlemen have you lost in this action? [5]
Messenger: But few of any sort, and none of name.
LEONATO: A victory is twice itself when the achiever brings
home full numbers. I find here that Don Peter hath
bestowed much honour on a young Florentine called Claudio.
Messenger: Much deserved on his part and equally remembered by [10]
Don Pedro: he hath borne himself beyond the
promise of his age, doing, in the figure of a lamb,
the feats of a lion: he hath indeed better
bettered expectation than you must expect of me to
tell you how. [15]
LEONATO: He hath an uncle here in Messina will be very much
glad of it.
Messenger: I have already delivered him letters, and there
appears much joy in him; even so much that joy could
not show itself modest enough without a badge of [20]
bitterness.
LEONATO: Did he break out into tears?
Messenger: In great measure.
LEONATO: A kind overflow of kindness: there are no faces
truer than those that are so washed. How much [25]
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. [30]
LEONATO: What is he that you ask for, niece?
HERO: My cousin means Signior Benedick of Padua.
Messenger: O, he's returned; and as pleasant as ever he was.
BEATRICE: He set up his bills here in Messina and challenged
Cupid at the flight; and my uncle's fool, reading [35]
the challenge, subscribed for Cupid, and challenged
him at the bird-bolt. I pray you, how many hath he
killed and eaten in these wars? But how many hath
he killed? for indeed I promised to eat all of his killing.
LEONATO: Faith, niece, you tax Signior Benedick too much; [40]
but he'll be meet with you, I doubt it not.
Messenger: He hath done good service, lady, in these wars.
BEATRICE: You had musty victual, and he hath holp to eat it:
he is a very valiant trencherman; he hath an
excellent stomach. [45]
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: [50]
but for the stuffing,--well, we are all mortal.
LEONATO: You must not, sir, mistake my niece. There is a
kind of merry war betwixt Signior Benedick and her:
they never meet but there's a skirmish of wit
between them. [55]
BEATRICE: Alas! he gets nothing by that. In our last
conflict four of his five wits went halting off, and
now is the whole man governed with one: so that if
he have wit enough to keep himself warm, let him
bear it for a difference between himself and his [60]
horse; for it is all the wealth that he hath left,
to be known a reasonable creature. Who is his
companion now? He hath every month a new sworn brother.
Messenger: Is't possible?
BEATRICE: Very easily possible: he wears his faith but as [65]
the fashion of his hat; it ever changes with the
next block.
Messenger: I see, lady, the gentleman is not in your books.
BEATRICE: No; an he were, I would burn my study. But, I pray
you, who is his companion? Is there no young [70]
squarer now that will make a voyage with him to the devil?
Messenger: He is most in the company of the right noble Claudio.
BEATRICE: O Lord, he will hang upon him like a disease: he
is sooner caught than the pestilence, and the taker
runs presently mad. God help the noble Claudio! if [75]
he have caught the Benedick, it will cost him a
thousand pound ere a' be cured.
Messenger: I will hold friends with you, lady.
BEATRICE: Do, good friend.
LEONATO: You will never run mad, niece. [80]
BEATRICE: No, not till a hot January.
Messenger: Don Pedro is approached.
[Enter DON PEDRO, DON JOHN, CLAUDIO, BENEDICK,
and BALTHASAR]
DON PEDRO: Good Signior Leonato, you are come to meet your
trouble: the fashion of the world is to avoid
cost, and you encounter it. [85]
LEONATO: Never came trouble to my house in the likeness of
your grace: for trouble being gone, comfort should
remain; but when you depart from me, sorrow abides
and happiness takes his leave.
DON PEDRO: You embrace your charge too willingly. I think this [90]
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 [95]
what you are, being a man. Truly, the lady fathers
herself. Be happy, lady; for you are like an
honourable father.
BENEDICK: If Signior Leonato be her father, she would not
have his head on her shoulders for all Messina, as [100]
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 [105]
such meet food to feed it as Signior Benedick?
Courtesy itself must convert to disdain, if you come
in her presence.
BENEDICK: Then is courtesy a turncoat. But it is certain I
am loved of all ladies, only you excepted: and I [110]
would I could find in my heart that I had not a hard
heart; for, truly, I love none.
BEATRICE: A dear happiness to women: they would else have
been troubled with a pernicious suitor. I thank God
and my cold blood, I am of your humour for that: I [115]
had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man
swear he loves me.
BENEDICK: God keep your ladyship still in that mind! so some
gentleman or other shall 'scape a predestinate
scratched face. [120]
BEATRICE: Scratching could not make it worse, an 'twere such
a face as yours were.
BENEDICK: Well, you are a rare parrot-teacher.
BEATRICE: A bird of my tongue is better than a beast of yours.
BENEDICK: I would my horse had the speed of your tongue, and [125]
so good a continuer. But keep your way, i' God's
name; I have done.
BEATRICE: You always end with a jade's trick: I know you of old.
DON PEDRO: That is the sum of all, Leonato. Signior Claudio
and Signior Benedick, my dear friend Leonato hath [130]
invited you all. I tell him we shall stay here at
the least a month; and he heartily prays some
occasion may detain us longer. I dare swear he is no
hypocrite, but prays from his heart.
LEONATO: If you swear, my lord, you shall not be forsworn. [135]
[To DON JOHN]
Let me bid you welcome, my lord: being reconciled to
the prince your brother, I owe you all duty.
DON JOHN: I thank you: I am not of many words, but I thank
you.
LEONATO: Please it your grace lead on? [140]
DON PEDRO: Your hand, Leonato; we will go together.
[Exeunt all except BENEDICK and CLAUDIO]
CLAUDIO: Benedick, didst thou note the daughter of Signior Leonato?
BENEDICK: I noted her not; but I looked on her.
CLAUDIO: Is she not a modest young lady?
BENEDICK: Do you question me, as an honest man should do, for [145]
my simple true judgment; or would you have me speak
after my custom, as being a professed tyrant to their sex?
CLAUDIO: No; I pray thee speak in sober judgment.
BENEDICK: Why, i' faith, methinks she's too low for a high
praise, too brown for a fair praise and too little [150]
for a great praise: only this commendation I can
afford her, that were she other than she is, she
were unhandsome; and being no other but as she is, I
do not like her.
CLAUDIO: Thou thinkest I am in sport: I pray thee tell me [155]
truly how thou likest her.
BENEDICK: Would you buy her, that you inquire after her?
CLAUDIO: Can the world buy such a jewel?
BENEDICK: Yea, and a case to put it into. But speak you this
with a sad brow? or do you play the flouting Jack, [160]
to tell us Cupid is a good hare-finder and Vulcan a
rare carpenter? Come, in what key shall a man take
you, to go in the song?
CLAUDIO: In mine eye she is the sweetest lady that ever I
looked on. [165]
BENEDICK: I can see yet without spectacles and I see no such
matter: there's her cousin, an she were not
possessed with a fury, exceeds her as much in beauty
as the first of May doth the last of December. But I
hope you have no intent to turn husband, have you? [170]
CLAUDIO: I would scarce trust myself, though I had sworn the
contrary, if Hero would be my wife.
BENEDICK: Is't come to this? In faith, hath not the world
one man but he will wear his cap with suspicion?
Shall I never see a bachelor of three-score again? [175]
Go to, i' faith; an thou wilt needs thrust thy neck
into a yoke, wear the print of it and sigh away
Sundays. Look Don Pedro is returned to seek you.
[Re-enter DON PEDRO]
DON PEDRO: What secret hath held you here, that you followed
not to Leonato's? [180]
BENEDICK: I would your grace would constrain me to tell.
DON PEDRO: I charge thee on thy allegiance.
BENEDICK: You hear, Count Claudio: I can be secret as a dumb
man; I would have you think so; but, on my
allegiance, mark you this, on my allegiance. He is [185]
in love. With who? now that is your grace's part.
Mark how short his answer is;--With Hero, Leonato's
short daughter.
CLAUDIO: If this were so, so were it uttered.
BENEDICK: Like the old tale, my lord: 'it is not so, nor [190]
'twas not so, but, indeed, God forbid it should be
so.'
CLAUDIO: If my passion change not shortly, God forbid it
should be otherwise.
DON PEDRO: Amen, if you love her; for the lady is very well worthy. [195]
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. [200]
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 [205]
of beauty.
CLAUDIO: And never could maintain his part but in the force
of his will.
BENEDICK: That a woman conceived me, I thank her; that she
brought me up, I likewise give her most humble [210]
thanks: but that I will have a recheat winded in my
forehead, or hang my bugle in an invisible baldrick,
all women shall pardon me. Because I will not do
them the wrong to mistrust any, I will do myself the
right to trust none; and the fine is, for the which [215]
I may go the finer, I will live a bachelor.
DON PEDRO: I shall see thee, ere I die, look pale with love.
BENEDICK: With anger, with sickness, or with hunger, my lord,
not with love: prove that ever I lose more blood
with love than I will get again with drinking, pick [220]
out mine eyes with a ballad-maker's pen and hang me
up at the door of a brothel-house for the sign of
blind Cupid.
DON PEDRO: Well, if ever thou dost fall from this faith, thou
wilt prove a notable argument. [225]
BENEDICK: If I do, hang me in a bottle like a cat and shoot
at me; and he that hits me, let him be clapped on
the shoulder, and called Adam.
DON PEDRO: Well, as time shall try: 'In time the savage bull
doth bear the yoke.' [230]
BENEDICK: The savage bull may; but if ever the sensible
Benedick bear it, pluck off the bull's horns and set
them in my forehead: and let me be vilely painted,
and in such great letters as they write 'Here is
good horse to hire,' let them signify under my sign [235]
'Here you may see Benedick the married man.'
CLAUDIO: If this should ever happen, thou wouldst be horn-mad.
DON PEDRO: Nay, if Cupid have not spent all his quiver in
Venice, thou wilt quake for this shortly.
BENEDICK: I look for an earthquake too, then. [240]
DON PEDRO: Well, you temporize with the hours. In the
meantime, good Signior Benedick, repair to
Leonato's: commend me to him and tell him I will
not fail him at supper; for indeed he hath made
great preparation. [245]
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 [250]
discourse is sometime guarded with fragments, and
the guards are but slightly basted on neither: ere
you flout old ends any further, examine your
conscience: and so I leave you.
[Exit]
CLAUDIO: My liege, your highness now may do me good. [255]
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. [260]
Dost thou affect her, Claudio?
CLAUDIO: O, my lord,
When you went onward on this ended action,
I look'd upon her with a soldier's eye,
That liked, but had a rougher task in hand [265]
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, [270]
Saying, I liked her ere I went to wars.
DON PEDRO: Thou wilt be like a lover presently
And tire the hearer with a book of words.
If thou dost love fair Hero, cherish it,
And I will break with her and with her father, [275]
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, [280]
I would have salved it with a longer treatise.
DON PEDRO: What need the bridge much broader than the flood?
The fairest grant is the necessity.
Look, what will serve is fit: 'tis once, thou lovest,
And I will fit thee with the remedy. [285]
I know we shall have revelling to-night:
I will assume thy part in some disguise
And tell fair Hero I am Claudio,
And in her bosom I'll unclasp my heart
And take her hearing prisoner with the force [290]
And strong encounter of my amorous tale:
Then after to her father will I break;
And the conclusion is, she shall be thine.
In practise let us put it presently.
[Exeunt]