with a sad brow? or do you play the flouting Jack,
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.
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 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
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.’
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.
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. The body of your
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.
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
Scene 2
A room in LEONATO’s house.
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 you yet 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 mine
orchard, were thus much overheard by a man of mine:
the prince discovered to Claudio that he loved my
niece your daughter and meant to acknowledge it
this night in a dance: and if he found her
accordant, he meant to take the present time by the
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 acquaint my daughter withal,
that she may be the better prepared for an answer,
if peradventure this be true. Go you and tell her of it.
Enter Attendants
Cousins, you know what you have to do. O, I cry you
mercy, friend; go you with me, and I will use your
skill. Good cousin, have a care this busy time.
Exeunt
Scene 3
The same.
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 is without limit.
CONRADE You should hear reason.
DON JOHN And when I have heard it, what blessing brings it?
CONRADE If not a present remedy, at least a patient