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 pennyworth.
Enter BALTHASAR with Music
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 Now, pray thee, come;
Or, if thou wilt hold longer argument,
Do it in notes.
BALTHASAR Note this before my notes;
There’s not a note of mine that’s worth the noting.
DON PEDRO Why, these are very crotchets that he speaks;
Note, notes, forsooth, and nothing.
Air
BENEDICK Now, divine air! now is his soul ravished! Is it
not strange that sheeps’ guts should hale souls out
of men’s bodies? Well, a horn for my money, when
all’s done.
The Song
BALTHASAR 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 moe,
Of dumps so dull and heavy;
The fraud of men was ever so,
Since summer first was leafy:
Then sigh not so, &c.
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 An he had been a dog that should have howled thus,
they would have hanged him: and I pray God his bad
voice bode no mischief. I had as lief have heard the
night-raven, come what plague could have come after
it.
DON PEDRO Yea, marry, dost thou hear, Balthasar? I pray thee,
get us some excellent music; for to-morrow night we
would have it at the Lady Hero’s chamber-window.
BALTHASAR The best I can, my lord.
DON PEDRO Do so: farewell.
Exit BALTHASAR
Come hither, Leonato. What was it you told me of
to-day, that your niece Beatrice was in love with
Signior Benedick?
CLAUDIO O, ay: stalk on. stalk on; the fowl sits. I did
never think that lady would have loved any man.
LEONATO No, nor I neither; but most wonderful that she
should so dote on Signior Benedick, whom she hath in
all outward behaviors seemed ever to abhor.
BENEDICK Is’t possible? Sits the wind in that corner?
LEONATO By my troth, my lord, I cannot tell what to think
of it but that she loves him with an enraged
affection: it is past the infinite of thought.
DON PEDRO May be she doth but counterfeit.
CLAUDIO Faith, like enough.
LEONATO O God, counterfeit! There was never counterfeit of
passion came so near the life of passion as she
discovers it.
DON PEDRO Why, what effects of passion shows she?
CLAUDIO Bait the hook well; this fish will bite.
LEONATO What effects, my lord? She will sit you, you heard
my daughter tell you how.
CLAUDIO She did, indeed.
DON PEDRO How, how, pray you? You amaze me: I would have I
thought her spirit had been invincible against all
assaults of affection.
LEONATO I would have sworn it had, my lord; especially
against Benedick.
BENEDICK I should think this a gull, but that the
white-bearded fellow speaks it: knavery cannot,
sure, hide himself in such reverence.
CLAUDIO 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,’ says she, ‘that have so oft encountered him
with scorn, write to him that I love him?’
LEONATO This says she now when she is beginning to write to
him; for she’ll be up twenty times a night, and
there will she sit in her smock till she have writ a
sheet of paper: my daughter tells us all.
CLAUDIO Now you talk of a sheet of paper, I remember a
pretty jest your daughter told us of.
LEONATO O, when she had writ it and was reading it over, she
found Benedick and Beatrice between the sheet?
CLAUDIO That.
LEONATO O, she tore the letter into a thousand halfpence;
railed at herself, that she should be so immodest
to write to one that she knew would flout her; ‘I
measure him,’ says she, ‘by my own spirit; for I
should flout him, if he writ to me; yea, though I
love him, I should.’
CLAUDIO Then down upon her knees she falls, weeps, sobs,
beats her heart, tears her hair, prays, curses; ‘O
sweet Benedick! God give me patience!’
LEONATO She doth indeed; my daughter says so: and the
ecstasy hath so much overborne her that my daughter
is sometime afeared she will do a desperate outrage
to herself: it is very true.
DON PEDRO It were good that Benedick knew of it by some
other, if she will not discover it.
CLAUDIO To what end? He would make but a sport of it and
torment the poor lady worse.
DON PEDRO An he should, it were an alms to hang him. She’s an
excellent sweet lady; and, out of all suspicion,
she is virtuous.
CLAUDIO And she is exceeding wise.
DON PEDRO In every thing but in loving Benedick.
LEONATO O, my lord, wisdom and blood combating in so tender
a body, we have ten proofs to one that blood hath
the victory. I am sorry for her, as I have just
cause, being her uncle and her guardian.
DON PEDRO I would she had bestowed this dotage on me: I would
have daffed all other respects and made her half
myself. I pray you, tell Benedick of it, and hear
what a’ 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 possible he’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 Before 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 is wise; for either he
avoids them with great discretion, or undertakes
them with a 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 by some large jests
he will make. Well I am sorry for your niece. Shall
we go seek Benedick, and tell him of her love?
CLAUDIO Never tell him, my lord: let her wear it out with
good counsel.
LEONATO Nay, that’s impossible: she may wear her heart out first.
DON PEDRO Well, we will hear further of it by your daughter:
let it cool the while. I love Benedick well; and I
could wish he would modestly examine himself, to see
how much he is unworthy so good a lady.
LEONATO My lord, will you walk? dinner is ready.
CLAUDIO If he do not dote on her upon this, I will never
trust my expectation.
DON PEDRO Let there be the same net spread for her; and that
must your daughter and her gentlewomen carry. The
sport will be, when they hold one an opinion of
another’s dotage, and no such matter: that’s the
scene that I would see, which will be merely a
dumb-show. Let us send her to call him in to dinner.
Exeunt DON PEDRO, CLAUDIO, and LEONATO
BENEDICK [Coming forward] This can be no trick: the
conference was sadly borne. They have the truth of
this from Hero. They seem to pity the lady: it
seems her affections have their full bent. Love me!
why, it must be requited. I hear how I am censured:
they say I will bear myself proudly, if I perceive
the love come from her; they say too that she will