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 loved 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,
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 quarreling,
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 forced 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, framed by thy villany!
CLAUDIO My villany?
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 practise,
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 loved 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 Antony,–
ANTONIO Hold you content.
What, man! I know them, yea,
And what they weigh, even to the utmost scruple,–
Scrambling, out-facing, fashion-monging boys,
That lie and cog and flout, deprave and slander,
Go anticly, 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 Antony,–
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 charged with nothing
But what was true and very full of proof.
LEONATO My lord, my lord,–
DON PEDRO I will not hear you.
LEONATO No?
Come, brother; away! I will be heard.
ANTONIO
And shall, or some of us will smart for it.
[Exeunt LEONATO and ANTONIO]
DON PEDRO See, see;
here comes the man we went to seek.
[Enter BENEDICK]
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 without teeth.
DON PEDRO Leonato and his brother.
What thinkest thou? Had we fought, I doubt we should
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 and would 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 thee draw,
as we do the minstrels; draw, to pleasure us.
DON PEDRO As I am an honest man, he looks pale.
Art thou sick, or angry?
CLAUDIO What, courage, man!
What though care killed a cat, thou hast mettle
enough in thee to kill care.
BENEDICK Sir, I shall meet your wit in the career,
and you charge it against me. I pray you 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 good how you dare, with
what you dare, and when you dare. Do me right,
or I will protest your cowardice. You have killed
a sweet lady, and her death shall fall heavy on you.
Let me hear from you.
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. Shall I 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, thou hadst a fine wit: ‘True,’
said she, ‘a fine little one.’ ‘No,’ said I, ‘a
great wit:’ ‘Right,’ says she, ‘a great gross one.’
‘Nay,’ said I, ‘a good wit:’ ‘Just,’ said she, ‘it
hurts nobody.’ ‘Nay,’ said I, ‘the gentleman
is wise:’ ‘Certain,’ said she, ‘a wise gentleman.’
‘Nay,’ said I, ‘he hath the tongues:’ ‘That I
believe,’ said she, ‘for he swore a thing to me on
Monday night, which he forswore on Tuesday morning;
there’s a double tongue; there’s two tongues.’ Thus
did she, an hour together, transshape thy particular
virtues: yet at last she concluded with a sigh, thou
wast the 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 sensible Benedick’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-like humour: you
break jests as braggarts do their blades, which God be
thanked, hurt not. My lord, for your many courtesies I
thank you: I must discontinue your company: your brother
the bastard is fled from Messina: you have among you
killed a sweet and innocent lady. For my Lord Lackbeard
there, he and I shall meet: and, till then, peace be with him.
[Exit]
DON PEDRO He is in earnest.
CLAUDIO In most profound earnest;
and, I’ll warrant you, for the love of Beatrice.
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 off his 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, my brother
was fled?
[Enter DOGBERRY, VERGES, and the
Watch, with CONRADE and BORACHIO]
DOGBERRY Come you, sir: if justice cannot tame you,
she shall ne’er weigh more reasons in her balance:
nay, an you be a cursing hypocrite once,
you must be looked to.
DON PEDRO How now?
two of my brother’s men bound! Borachio one!
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 spoken untruths; secondarily,
they are slanders; sixth and lastly, they have
belied a lady; thirdly, they have verified unjust
things; and, to conclude, they are lying knaves.
DON PEDRO First, I ask thee what they have done;
thirdly, I ask thee what’s their offence; sixth and lastly,
why they are committed; and, to conclude, what you lay
to their charge.
CLAUDIO Rightly reasoned, and in his own division:
and, by my troth, there’s one meaning well suited.
DON PEDRO Who have you offended, masters,
that you are thus bound to your answer? this learned
constable is too cunning to be understood: what’s
your offence?
BORACHIO Sweet prince, let me go no farther to mine
answer: do you hear me, and let this count kill me.
I have deceived even your very eyes: what your wisdoms
could not discover, these shallow fools have brought
to light: who in the night overheard me confessing
to this man how Don John your brother incensed me
to slander the Lady Hero, how you were brought into
the orchard and saw me court Margaret in Hero’s
garments, how you disgraced her, when you should
marry her: my villany they have upon record; which
I had rather seal with my death than repeat over
to my shame. The lady is dead upon mine and my
master’s false accusation; and, briefly, I desire
nothing but the reward of a villain.
DON PEDRO
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 practise of it.
DON PEDRO He is composed and framed of treachery:
And fled he is upon this villany.
CLAUDIO Sweet Hero! now thy image doth appear
In the rare semblance that I loved it first.
DOGBERRY Come, bring away the plaintiffs: by this
time our sexton hath reformed Signior Leonato of the
matter: and, masters, do not forget to specify, when time
and place shall serve, that I am an ass.
VERGES Here, here comes master Signior Leonato,
and the Sexton too.
[Re-enter LEONATO and
ANTONIO, with 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 ought in sad invention,
Hang her an epitaph upon her tomb
And sing it to her bones, sing it to-night:
To-morrow 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
To-morrow then I will expect your coming;
To-night 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,
Hired to it by your brother.
BORACHIO No, by my soul, she was not,
Nor knew not what she did when she spoke to me,
But always hath been just and virtuous
In any thing that I do know by her.
DOGBERRY Moreover, sir,
which indeed is not under white and black,
this plaintiff here, the offender, did call me ass:
I beseech you, let it be remembered in his
punishment. And also, the watch heard them talk
of one Deformed: they say be wears a key in his
ear and a lock hanging by it, and borrows money
in God’s name, the which he hath used so long and
never paid that now men grow 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 reverend youth; and I praise God for 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 to correct yourself, for the
example of others. God keep your worship! I wish
your worship well; God restore you to health! I
humbly give you leave to depart; and if a merry
meeting may be wished, God prohibit it! Come, neighbour.
[Exeunt DOGBERRY and VERGES]
LEONATO Until to-morrow morning, lords, farewell.
ANTONIO Farewell,
my lords: we look for you to-morrow.
DON PEDRO We will not fail.
CLAUDIO To-night I’ll mourn with Hero.
LEONATO [To the Watch] Bring you these fellows on.
We’ll talk with Margaret,
How her acquaintance grew with this lewd fellow.
[Exeunt, severally]
Act 4.2 | Act 5.2
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