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Enter LEONATO, [ANTONIO]
his brother, HERO his daughter,
and BEATRICE his niece, [MARGARET,
URSULA,] and a KINSMAN.
LEONATO
1 Was not Count John here at supper?
BEATRICE
3 How tartly that gentleman looks! I never can
4 see him but I am heart-burn'd an hour after.
HERO
5 He is of a very melancholy disposition.
BEATRICE
6 He were an excellent man that were made
7 just in the midway between him and Benedick:
8 the one is too like an image and says nothing,
9 and the other too like my lady's eldest son,
10 evermore tattling.
LEONATO
11 Then half Signior Benedick's tongue in
12 Count John's mouth, and half Count John's
13 melancholy in Signior Benedick's face,—
BEATRICE
14 With a good leg and a good foot, uncle,
15 and money enough in his purse, such a
16 man would win any woman in the world,
17 if a' could get her good will.
LEONATO
18 By my troth, niece, thou wilt never get thee a
19 husband, if thou be so shrewd of thy tongue.
ANTONIO
20 In faith, she's too curst.
BEATRICE
21 Too curst is more than curst: I shall lessen
22 God's sending that way; for it is said, 'God
23 sends a curst cow short horns'; but to a cow
24 too curst he sends none.
LEONATO
25 So, by being too curst, God will send you
26 no horns.
BEATRICE
27 Just, if he send me no husband; for the
28 which blessing I am at him upon my knees
29 every morning and evening. Lord, I could
30 not endure a husband with a beard on his
31 face: I had rather lie in the woollen.
LEONATO
32 You may light on a husband that hath no
33 beard.
BEATRICE
34 What should I do with him? dress him in my
35 apparel and make him my waiting-gentlewoman?
36 He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he
37 that hath no beard is less than a man: and he that
38 is more than a youth is not for me, and he that is
39 less than a man, I am not for him: therefore, I will
40 even take sixpence in earnest of the berrord, and
41 lead his apes into hell.
LEONATO
42 Well, then, go you into hell?
BEATRICE
43 No, but to the gate; and there will the devil meet
44 me, like an old cuckold, with horns on his head,
45 and say 'Get you to heaven, Beatrice, get you to
46 heaven; here's no place for you maids': so deliver
47 I up my apes, and away to Saint Peter
48 for the heavens; he shows me where the bachelors
49 sit, and there live we as merry as the day is long.
ANTONIO [To Hero.]
50 Well, niece, I trust you will be ruled
51 by your father.
BEATRICE
52 Yes, faith; it is my cousin's duty to make cur'sy
53 and say 'Father, as it please you'. But yet for all
54 that, cousin, let him be a handsome fellow, or
55 else make another curtsy and say 'Father, as it
56 please me'.
LEONATO
57 Well, niece, I hope to see you one day fitted
58 with a husband.
BEATRICE
59 Not till God make men of some other metal
60 than earth. Would it not grieve a woman to be
61 overmastered with a piece of valiant dust? to
62 make an account of her life to a clod of wayward
63 marl? No, uncle, I'll none: Adam's sons are my
64 brethren; and, truly, I hold it a sin to match in
65 my kindred.
LEONATO
66 Daughter, remember what I told you: if the
67 prince do solicit you in that kind, you know
68 your answer.
BEATRICE
69 The fault will be in the music, cousin, if you
70 be not wooed in good time: if the prince be
71 too important, tell him there is measure in
72 every thing and so dance out the answer. For,
73 hear me, Hero: wooing, wedding, and repenting,
74 is as a Scotch jig, a measure, and a cinquepace:
75 the first suit is hot and hasty, like a Scotch jig, and
76 full as fantastical; the wedding, mannerly-modest,
77 as a measure, full of state and ancientry; and then
78 comes repentance and, with his bad legs, falls into
79 the cinque pace faster and faster, till he sink into
80 his grave.
LEONATO
81 Cousin, you apprehend passing shrewdly.
BEATRICE
82 I have a good eye, uncle; I can see a church
83 by daylight.
LEONATO
84 The revellers are entering, brother: make
85 good room.
** Enter [as maskers] Prince [Don] Pedro,
Claudio, and Benedick, and Balthasar,
[Borachio,] and Don John.
DON PEDRO
86 Lady, will you walk about with your
87 friend?
HERO
88 So you walk softly and look sweetly and
89 say nothing, I am yours for the walk; and
90 especially when I walk away.
DON PEDRO
91 With me in your company?
HERO
92 I may say so, when I please.
DON PEDRO
93 And when please you to say so?
HERO
94 When I like your favor; for God defend the lute
95 should be like the case!
DON PEDRO
96 My visor is Philemon's roof; within
97 the house is Jove.
HERO
98 Why, then, your visor should be thatched.
DON PEDRO
99 Speak low, if you speak love.
BALTHASAR
100 Well, I would you did like me.
MARGARET
101 So would not I, for your own sake; for I have
102 many ill qualities.
MARGARET
104 I say my prayers aloud.
BALTHASAR
105 I love you the better: the hearers may
106 cry, Amen.
MARGARET
107 God match me with a good dancer!
MARGARET
109 And God keep him out of my sight when the dance
110 is done! Answer, clerk.
BALTHASAR
111 No more words: the clerk is answered.
URSULA
112 I know you well enough; you are Signior
113 Antonio.
ANTONIO
114 At a word, I am not.
URSULA
115 I know you by the waggling of your head.
ANTONIO
116 To tell you true, I counterfeit him.
URSULA
117 You could never do him so ill-well, unless you were
118 the very man. Here's his dry hand up and down: you
119 are he, you are he.
ANTONIO
120 At a word, I am not.
URSULA
121 Come, come, do you think I do not know you by your
122 excellent wit? can virtue hide itself? Go to,
123 mum, you are he: graces will appear, and
124 there's an end.
BEATRICE
125 Will you not tell me who told you so?
BENEDICK
126 No, you shall pardon me.
BEATRICE
127 Nor will you not tell me who you are?
BEATRICE
129 That I was disdainful, and that I had my good wit
130 out of the 'Hundred Merry Tales':—well this was
131 Signior Benedick that said so.
BEATRICE
133 I am sure you know him well enough.
BENEDICK
134 Not I, believe me.
BEATRICE
135 Did he never make you laugh?
BENEDICK
136 I pray you, what is he?
BEATRICE
137 Why, he is the prince's jester: a very dull fool;
138 only his gift is in devising impossible slanders:
139 none but libertines delight in him; and the
140 commendation is not in his wit, but in his villany;
141 for he both pleases men and angers them, and then
142 they laugh at him and beat him. I am sure he is in
143 the fleet: I would he had boarded me.
BENEDICK
144 When I know the gentleman, I'll tell him
145 what you say.
BEATRICE
146 Do, do: he'll but break a comparison or two on me;
147 which, peradventure not marked or not laughed at,
148 strikes him into melancholy; and then there's a
149 partridge wing saved, for the fool will eat no
150 supper that night.
151 We must follow the leaders.
BENEDICK
152 In every good thing.
BEATRICE
153 Nay, if they lead to any ill, I will leave them at
154 the next turning.
Dance. [Then] exeunt [all but DON JOHN,
BORACHIO, and CLAUDIO].
DON JOHN
155 Sure my brother is amorous on Hero and hath
156 withdrawn her father to break with him about
157 it. The ladies follow her and but one visor
158 remains.
BORACHIO
159 And that is Claudio: I know him by his
160 bearing.
DON JOHN
161 Are not you Signior Benedick?
CLAUDIO
162 You know me well; I am he.
DON JOHN
163 Signior, you are very near my brother in his love:
164 he is enamoured on Hero; I pray you, dissuade
165 him from her: she is no equal for his birth:
166 you may do the part of an honest man in it.
CLAUDIO
167 How know you he loves her?
DON JOHN
168 I heard him swear his affection.
BORACHIO
169 So did I too; and he swore he would marry
170 her tonight.
DON JOHN
171 Come, let us to the banquet.
CLAUDIO
172 Thus answer I in the name of Benedick,
173 But hear these ill news with the ears of Claudio.
174 'Tis certain so; the prince woos for himself.
175 Friendship is constant in all other things
176 Save in the office and affairs of love:
177 Therefore, all hearts in love use their own tongues;
178 Let every eye negotiate for itself
179 And trust no agent; for beauty is a witch
180 Against whose charms faith melteth into blood.
181 This is an accident of hourly proof,
182 Which I mistrusted not. Farewell, therefore, Hero!
BENEDICK
185 Come, will you go with me?
BENEDICK
187 Even to the next willow, about your own
188 business, county. What fashion will you
189 wear the garland of? about your neck, like
190 an usurer's chain? or under your arm, like
191 a lieutenant's scarf? You must wear it
192 one way, for the prince hath got your Hero.
CLAUDIO
193 I wish him joy of her.
BENEDICK
194 Why, that's spoken like an honest drovier: so
195 they sell bullocks. But did you think the prince
196 would have served you thus?
CLAUDIO
197 I pray you, leave me.
BENEDICK
198 Ho! now you strike like the blind man:
199 'twas the boy that stole your meat, and
200 you'll beat the post.
CLAUDIO
201 If it will not be, I'll leave you.
BENEDICK
202 Alas, poor hurt fowl! now will he creep into
203 sedges. But that my Lady Beatrice should know
204 me, and not know me! The prince's fool! Ha? It
205 may be I go under that title because I am merry.
206 Yea, but so I am apt to do myself wrong; I am
207 not so reputed: it is the base, though bitter,
208 disposition of Beatrice that puts the world
209 into her person and so gives me out. Well,
210 I'll be revenged as I may.
DON PEDRO
211 Now, signior, where's the count? did
212 you see him?
BENEDICK
213 Troth, my lord, I have played the part of Lady
214 Fame. I found him here as melancholy as a
215 lodge in a warren: I told him, and I think I told
216 him true, that your grace had got the good will
217 of this young lady; and I offered him my company
218 to a willow-tree, either to make him a garland, as
219 being forsaken, or to bind him up a rod, as being
220 worthy to be whipped.
DON PEDRO
221 To be whipped! What's his fault?
BENEDICK
222 The flat transgression of a schoolboy, who, being
223 overjoyed with finding a birds' nest, shows it his
224 companion, and he steals it.
DON PEDRO
225 Wilt thou make a trust a transgression? The
226 transgression is in the stealer.
BENEDICK
227 Yet it had not been amiss the rod had been made,
228 and the garland too; for the garland he might have
229 worn himself, and the rod he might have bestowed
230 on you, who, as I take it, have stolen
231 his birds' nest.
DON PEDRO
232 I will but teach them to sing, and restore them to
233 the owner.
BENEDICK
234 If their singing answer your saying, by my faith,
235 you say honestly.
DON PEDRO
236 The Lady Beatrice hath a quarrel to you: the
237 gentleman that danced with her told her she
238 is much wronged by you.
BENEDICK
239 O, she misused me past the endurance of
240 a block! an oak but with one green leaf on
241 it would have answered her; my very visor
242 began to assume life and scold with her. She
243 told me, not thinking I had been myself, that
244 I was the prince's jester, that I was duller than
245 a great thaw; huddling jest upon jest with such
246 impossible conveyance upon me that I stood like
247 a man at a mark, with a whole army shooting at me.
248 She speaks poniards, and every word stabs: if her
249 breath were as terrible as her terminations, there
250 were no living near her; she would infect to the
251 north star. I would not marry her, though she were
252 endowed with all that Adam had left him before he
253 transgressed: she would have made Hercules have
254 turned spit, yea, and have cleft his club to make the
255 fire too. Come, talk not of her: you shall find her the
256 infernal Ate in good apparel. I would to God some
257 scholar would conjure her; for certainly, while she
258 is here, a man may live as quiet in hell as in a
259 sanctuary; and people sin upon purpose, because
260 they would go thither; so, indeed, all disquiet,
261 horror and perturbation follows her.
DON PEDRO
262 Look, here she comes.
Enter CLAUDIO and BEATRICE,
[LEONATO, and HERO].
BENEDICK
263 Will your grace command me any service to the
264 world's end? I will go on the slightest errand now
265 to the Antipodes that you can devise to send me
266 on; I will fetch you a tooth-picker now from the
267 furthest inch of Asia, bring you the length of
268 Prester John's foot, fetch you a hair off the great
269 Cham's beard, do you any embassage to the Pigmies,
270 rather than hold three words' conference with this
271 harpy. You have no employment for me?
DON PEDRO
272 None, but to desire your good
273 company.
BENEDICK
274 O God, sir, here's a dish I love not: I cannot
275 endure my Lady Tongue.
DON PEDRO
276 Come, lady, come; you have lost the heart of
277 Signior Benedick.
BEATRICE
278 Indeed, my lord, he lent it me awhile; and I
279 gave him use for it, a double heart for his single
280 one: marry, once before he won it of me with false
281 dice, therefore your grace may well say I have
282 lost it.
DON PEDRO
283 You have put him down, lady, you have
284 put him down.
BEATRICE
285 So I would not he should do me, my lord, lest I
286 should prove the mother of fools. I have brought
287 Count Claudio, whom you sent me to seek.
DON PEDRO
288 Why, how now, count! wherefore are
289 you sad?
BEATRICE
293 The count is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry,
294 nor well; but civil count, civil as an orange,
295 and something of that jealous complexion.
DON PEDRO
296 I' faith, lady, I think your blazon to be true;
297 though, I'll be sworn, if he be so, his conceit is
298 false. Here, Claudio, I have wooed in thy name, and
299 fair Hero is won: I have broke with her father,
300 and his good will obtained: name the day of
301 marriage, and God give thee joy!
LEONATO
302 Count, take of me my daughter, and with her my
303 fortunes: his grace hath made the match, and all
304 grace say Amen to it.
BEATRICE
305 Speak, count, 'tis your cue.
CLAUDIO
306 Silence is the perfectest herald of joy: I were
307 but little happy, if I could say how much. Lady,
308 as you are mine, I am yours: I give away myself
309 for you and dote upon the exchange.
BEATRICE
310 Speak, cousin; or, if you cannot, stop his mouth
311 with a kiss, and let not him speak neither.
DON PEDRO
312 In faith, lady, you have a merry
313 heart.
BEATRICE
314 Yea, my lord; I thank it, poor fool, it keeps
315 on the windy side of care. My cousin tells
316 him in his ear that he is in her heart.
CLAUDIO
317 And so she doth, cousin.
BEATRICE
318 Good Lord, for alliance! Thus goes every one to
319 the world but I, and I am sunburnt; I may sit in a
320 corner and cry heigh-ho for a husband!
DON PEDRO
321 Lady Beatrice, I will get you one.
BEATRICE
322 I would rather have one of your father's getting.
323 Hath your grace ne'er a brother like you? Your
324 father got excellent husbands, if a maid could
325 come by them.
DON PEDRO
326 Will you have me, lady?
BEATRICE
327 No, my lord, unless I might have another for
328 working-days: your grace is too costly to wear
329 every day. But, I beseech your grace, pardon me: I
330 was born to speak all mirth and no matter.
DON PEDRO
331 Your silence most offends me, and to be merry best
332 becomes you; for, out of question, you were born in
333 a merry hour.
BEATRICE
334 No, sure, my lord, my mother cried; but then there
335 was a star danced, and under that was I born.
336 Cousins, God give you joy!
LEONATO
337 Niece, will you look to those things I told
338 you of?
BEATRICE
339 I cry you mercy, uncle. By your grace's
340 pardon.
DON PEDRO
341 By my troth, a pleasant-spirited lady.
LEONATO
342 There's little of the melancholy element in her, my
343 lord: she is never sad but when she sleeps, and
344 not ever sad then; for I have heard my daughter say,
345 she hath often dreamed of unhappiness and waked
346 herself with laughing.
DON PEDRO
347 She cannot endure to hear tell of a
348 husband.
LEONATO
349 O, by no means: she mocks all her wooers
350 out of suit.
DON PEDRO
351 She were an excellent wife for
352 Benedict.
LEONATO
353 O Lord, my lord, if they were but a week married,
354 they would talk themselves mad.
DON PEDRO
355 County Claudio, when mean you to go
356 to church?
CLAUDIO
357 Tomorrow, my lord: time goes on crutches till love
358 have all his rites.
LEONATO
359 Not till Monday, my dear son, which is hence a just
360 seven-night; and a time too brief, too, to have all
361 things answer my mind.
DON PEDRO
362 Come, you shake the head at so long a breathing:
363 but, I warrant thee, Claudio, the time shall not go
364 dully by us. I will in the interim undertake one of
365 Hercules' labours; which is, to bring Signior
366 Benedick and the Lady Beatrice into a mountain of
367 affection the one with the other. I would fain have
368 it a match, and I doubt not but to fashion it, if
369 you three will but minister such assistance as I
370 shall give you direction.
LEONATO
371 My lord, I am for you, though it cost me ten
372 nights' watchings.
DON PEDRO
374 And you too, gentle Hero?
HERO
375 I will do any modest office, my lord, to help my
376 cousin to a good husband.
DON PEDRO
377 And Benedick is not the unhopefullest husband that
378 I know. Thus far can I praise him; he is of a noble
379 strain, of approved valour and confirmed honesty. I
380 will teach you how to humour your cousin, that she
381 shall fall in love with Benedick; and I, with your
382 two helps, will so practice on Benedick that,
383 in despite of his quick wit and his queasy stomach, he
384 shall fall in love with Beatrice. If we can do this,
385 Cupid is no longer an archer: his glory shall be
386 ours, for we are the only love-gods. Go in with me,
387 and I will tell you my drift.
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