Before LEONATO’S house.
[Enter LEONATO, HERO, and
BEATRICE, with a Messenger]
LEONATO
I learn in this letter that Don Peter of
Arragon comes this night to Messina.
Messenger
He is very near by this: he was not three
leagues off when I left him.
LEONATO
How many gentlemen have you lost in this action?
Messenger But few of any sort, and none of name.
LEONATO A victory is twice itself when the achiever
brings home full numbers. I find here that Don Peter
hath bestowed much honour on a young Florentine
called Claudio.
Messenger Much deserved on his part and equally
remembered by Don Pedro: he hath borne himself
beyond the promise of his age, doing, in the figure
of a lamb, the feats of a lion.
BEATRICE I pray you, is Signior Mountanto returned
from the wars or no?
Messenger I know none of that name, lady: there was
none such in the army of any sort.
LEONATO What is he that you ask for, niece?
HERO My cousin means Signior Benedick of Padua.
Messenger
O, he’s returned; and as pleasant as ever he was.
BEATRICE I pray you, how many hath he
killed and eaten in these wars? But how many hath
he killed? for indeed I promised to eat all of his killing.
LEONATO Faith, niece, you tax Signior Benedick too
much; but he’ll be meet with you, I doubt it not.
Messenger
He hath done good service, lady, in these wars.
BEATRICE You had musty victual,
and he hath holp to eat it: he is a very valiant
trencherman; he hath an excellent stomach.
Messenger And a good soldier too, lady.
BEATRICE And a good soldier to a lady:
but what is he to a lord?
Messenger A lord to a lord, a man to a man;
stuffed with all honourable virtues.
BEATRICE It is so, indeed;
he is no less than a stuffed man: but for the stuffing,
–well, we are all mortal.
LEONATO You must not, sir, mistake my niece.
There is a kind of merry war betwixt Signior Benedick
and her: they never meet but there’s a skirmish of wit
between them.
BEATRICE Alas! he gets nothing by that. In our last
conflict four of his five wits went halting off, and
now is the whole man governed with one: so that if
he have wit enough to keep himself warm, let him
bear it for a difference between himself and his
horse; for it is all the wealth that he hath left,
to be known a reasonable creature. Who is his
companion now? He hath every month a new
sworn brother.
Messenger Is’t possible?
BEATRICE Very easily possible: he wears his faith
but as the fashion of his hat; it ever changes with the
next block.
Messenger I see, lady,
the gentleman is not in your books.
BEATRICE No; an he were, I would burn my study.
But, I pray you, who is his companion? Is there no
young squarer now that will make a voyage with him
to the devil?
Messenger
He is most in the company of the right noble Claudio.
BEATRICE O Lord, he will hang upon him like a disease:
he is sooner caught than the pestilence, and the taker
runs presently mad. God help the noble Claudio! if
he have caught the Benedick, it will cost him a
thousand pound ere a’ be cured.
Messenger I will hold friends with you, lady.
BEATRICE Do, good friend.
LEONATO You will never run mad, niece.
BEATRICE No, not till a hot January.
Messenger Don Pedro is approached.
[Enter DON PEDRO, DON JOHN, CLAUDIO,
BENEDICK, and BALTHASAR]
DON PEDRO Good Signior Leonato, you are come
to meet your trouble: the fashion of the world is to
avoid cost, and you encounter it.
LEONATO Never came trouble to my house in the
likeness of your grace: for trouble being gone, comfort
should remain; but when you depart from me, sorrow
abides and happiness takes his leave.
DON PEDRO You embrace your charge too willingly.
I think this is your daughter.
LEONATO Her mother hath many times told me so.
BENEDICK Were you in doubt, sir, that you asked her?
LEONATO
Signior Benedick, no; for then were you a child.
DON PEDRO You have it full, Benedick: Truly,
the lady fathers herself. Be happy, lady; for you are
like an honourable father.
BENEDICK If Signior Leonato be her father, she would
not have his head on her shoulders for all Messina, as
like him as she is.
BEATRICE I wonder that you will still be talking, Signior
Benedick: nobody marks you.
BENEDICK
What, my dear Lady Disdain! are you yet living?
BEATRICE Is it possible disdain should die while she
hath such meet food to feed it as Signior Benedick?
Courtesy itself must convert to disdain, if you come
in her presence.
BENEDICK Then is courtesy a turncoat. But it is certain
I am loved of all ladies, only you excepted: and I
would I could find in my heart that I had not a hard
heart; for, truly, I love none.
BEATRICE A dear happiness to women: they would
else have been troubled with a pernicious suitor. I thank
God and my cold blood, I am of your humour for that: I
had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man
swear he loves me.
BENEDICK God keep your ladyship still in that mind!
so some gentleman or other shall ‘scape a predestinate
scratched face.
BEATRICE Scratching could not make it worse,
an ’twere such a face as yours were.
BENEDICK Well, you are a rare parrot-teacher.
BEATRICE A bird of my tongue is better than a
beast of yours.
BENEDICK I would my horse had the speed of your
tongue, and so good a continuer. But keep your way,
i’ God’s name; I have done.
BEATRICE You always end with a jade’s trick:
I know you of old.
DON PEDRO That is the sum of all, Leonato.
Signior Claudio and Signior Benedick, my dear friend
Leonato hath invited you all. I tell him we shall stay here
at the least a month; and he heartily prays some
occasion may detain us longer. I dare swear he is no
hypocrite, but prays from his heart.
LEONATO If you swear,
my lord, you shall not be forsworn.
[To DON JOHN]
Let me bid you welcome, my lord: being reconciled
to the prince your brother, I owe you all duty.
DON JOHN I thank you: I am not of many words,
but I thank you.
LEONATO Please it your grace lead on?
DON PEDRO Your hand, Leonato; we will go together.
[Exeunt all except BENEDICK and CLAUDIO]
CLAUDIO Benedick, didst thou note the daughter
of Signior Leonato?
BENEDICK I noted her not; but I looked on her.
CLAUDIO Is she not a modest young lady?
BENEDICK Do you question me, as an honest man
should do, for my simple true judgment; or would
you have me speak after my custom, as being a
professed tyrant to their sex?
CLAUDIO No; I pray thee speak in sober judgment.
BENEDICK Why, i’ faith, methinks she’s too low for
a high praise, too brown for a fair praise and too little
for a great praise: only this commendation I can
afford her, that were she other than she is, she
were unhandsome; and being no other but as she is,
I do not like her.
CLAUDIO Thou thinkest I am in sport: I pray thee
tell me truly how thou likest her.
BENEDICK Would you buy her,
that you inquire after her?
CLAUDIO Can the world buy such a jewel?
In mine eye she is the sweetest lady that ever
I looked on.
BENEDICK I can see yet without spectacles and
I see no such matter: there’s her cousin, an she were
not possessed with a fury, exceeds her as much in
beauty as the first of May doth the last of December.
But I hope you have no intent to turn husband,
have you?
CLAUDIO I would scarce trust myself, though I had
sworn the contrary, if Hero would be my wife.
BENEDICK Is’t come to this? In faith, hath not the world
one man but he will wear his cap with suspicion?
Shall I never see a bachelor of three-score again?
Go to, i’ faith; an thou wilt needs thrust thy neck
into a yoke, wear the print of it and sigh away
Sundays. Look Don Pedro is returned to seek you.
[Re-enter DON PEDRO]
DON PEDRO What secret hath held you here,
that you followed not to Leonato’s?
BENEDICK
I would your grace would constrain me to tell.
DON PEDRO I charge thee on thy allegiance.
BENEDICK You hear, Count Claudio:
I can be secret as a dumb man; I would have you
think so; but, on my allegiance, mark you this, on
my allegiance. He is in love. With who? now that is
your grace’s part. Mark how short his answer is;
–With Hero, Leonato’s short daughter.
CLAUDIO If this were so, so were it uttered.
BENEDICK Like the old tale, my lord: ‘it is not so, nor
’twas not so, but, indeed, God forbid it should be so.’
CLAUDIO If my passion change not shortly, God forbid
it should be otherwise.
DON PEDRO Amen,
if you love her; for the lady is very well worthy.
CLAUDIO You speak this to fetch me in, my lord.
DON PEDRO By my troth, I speak my thought.
CLAUDIO And, in faith, my lord, I spoke mine.
BENEDICK And, by my two faiths and troths,
my lord, I spoke mine.
CLAUDIO That I love her, I feel.
DON PEDRO That she is worthy, I know.
BENEDICK That I neither feel how she should
be loved nor know how she should be worthy,
is the opinion that fire cannot melt out of me:
I will die in it at the stake.
DON PEDRO Thou wast ever an obstinate heretic
in the despite of beauty.
CLAUDIO And never could maintain his part but
in the force of his will.
BENEDICK That a woman conceived me, I thank her;
that she brought me up, I likewise give her most humble
thanks: but all women shall pardon me. Because I will
not do them the wrong to mistrust any, I will do myself the
right to trust none; and the fine is, for the which
I may go the finer, I will live a bachelor.
DON PEDRO
I shall see thee, ere I die, look pale with love.
BENEDICK With anger, with sickness, or with hunger,
my lord, not with love: prove that ever I lose more blood
with love than I will get again with drinking, pick
out mine eyes with a ballad-maker’s pen and hang me
up at the door of a brothel-house for the sign of
blind Cupid.
DON PEDRO Well, if ever thou dost fall from this faith,
thou wilt prove a notable argument.
BENEDICK If I do, hang me in a bottle like a cat and
shoot at me; and he that hits me, let him be clapped
on the shoulder, and called Adam.
DON PEDRO Well, as time shall try: ‘In time the savage
bull doth bear the yoke.’
BENEDICK The savage bull may; but if ever the sensible
Benedick bear it, pluck off the bull’s horns and set
them in my forehead: and let me be vilely painted,
and in such great letters as they write ‘Here is
good horse to hire,’ let them signify under my sign
‘Here you may see Benedick the married man.’
DON PEDRO Well, you temporize with the hours. In the
meantime, good Signior Benedick, repair to Leonato’s:
commend me to him and tell him I will not fail him at
supper; for indeed he hath made great preparation.
BENEDICK I have almost matter enough in me for such
an embassage; and so I commit you–
CLAUDIO
To the tuition of God: From my house, if I had it,–
DON PEDRO The sixth of July: Your loving friend, Benedick.
BENEDICK Nay, mock not, mock not. ere
you flout old ends any further, examine your
conscience: and so I leave you.
[Exit]
CLAUDIO My liege,
your highness now may do me good.
DON PEDRO My love is thine to teach: teach it but how,
And thou shalt see how apt it is to learn
Any hard lesson that may do thee good.
CLAUDIO Hath Leonato any son, my lord?
DON PEDRO No child but Hero; she’s his only heir.
Dost thou affect her, Claudio?
CLAUDIO O, my lord,
When you went onward on this ended action,
I look’d upon her with a soldier’s eye,
That liked, but had a rougher task in hand
Than to drive liking to the name of love:
But now I am return’d and that war-thoughts
Have left their places vacant, in their rooms
Come thronging soft and delicate desires,
All prompting me how fair young Hero is,
Saying, I liked her ere I went to wars.
DON PEDRO Thou wilt be like a lover presently
And tire the hearer with a book of words.
If thou dost love fair Hero, cherish it,
And I will break with her and with her father,
And thou shalt have her. Was’t not to this end
That thou began’st to twist so fine a story?
CLAUDIO How sweetly you do minister to love,
That know love’s grief by his complexion!
But lest my liking might too sudden seem,
I would have salved it with a longer treatise.
DON PEDRO
What need the bridge much broader than the flood?
The fairest grant is the necessity.
Look, what will serve is fit: ’tis once, thou lovest,
And I will fit thee with the remedy.
I know we shall have revelling to-night:
I will assume thy part in some disguise
And tell fair Hero I am Claudio,
And in her bosom I’ll unclasp my heart
And take her hearing prisoner with the force
And strong encounter of my amorous tale:
Then after to her father will I break;
And the conclusion is, she shall be thine.
In practise let us put it presently.
[Exeunt]
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