DON JOHN Signior, you are very near my brother in his love. He
is enamoured on Hero. I pray you dissuade him from her, she
is no equal for his birth. You may do the part of an honest
man in it.
CLAUDIO How know you he loves her?
DON JOHN I heard him swear his affection.
BORACHIO So did I too, and he swore he would marry her
tonight.
DON JOHN Come, let us to the banquet
Exeunt [Don John and Borachio]
CLAUDIO Thus answer I in the name of Benedick,
But hear these ill news with the ears of Claudio.
’Tis certain so, the prince woos for himself.
Friendship is constant in all other things
Save in the office and affairs of love.
Therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues,
Let every eye negotiate for itself
And trust no agent, for beauty is a witch
Against whose charms faith melteth into blood.
This is an accident of hourly proof,
Which I mistrusted not. Farewell, therefore, Hero!
Enter Benedick
BENEDICK Count Claudio?
CLAUDIO Yea, the same.
BENEDICK Come, will you go with me?
CLAUDIO Whither?
BENEDICK Even to the next willow, about your own business,
count. What fashion will you wear the garland of? About
your neck, like an usurer’s chain? Or under your arm, like a
lieutenant’s scarf? You must wear it one way, for the prince
hath got your Hero.
CLAUDIO I wish him joy of her.
BENEDICK Why, that’s spoken like an honest drover, so they sell
bullocks. But did you think the prince would have served you
thus?
CLAUDIO I pray you leave me.
BENEDICK Ho, now you strike like the blind man: ’twas the boy
that stole your meat, and you’ll beat the post
CLAUDIO If it will not be, I’ll leave you.
Exit
BENEDICK Alas, poor hurt fowl, now will he creep into sedges.
But that my Lady Beatrice should know me and not know
me! The prince’s fool! Ha? It may be I go under that title
because I am merry. Yea, but so I am apt to do myself wrong.
I am not so reputed: it is the base, though bitter, disposition
of Beatrice that puts the world into her person and so gives
me out. Well, I’ll be revenged as I may.
Enter the Prince [Don Pedro]
DON PEDRO Now, signior, where’s the count? Did you see him?
BENEDICK Troth, my lord, I have played the part of Lady Fame.
I found him here as melancholy as a lodge in a warren. I told
him, and I think I told him true, that your grace had got the
good will of this young lady, and I offered him my company
to a willow-tree, either to make him a garland, as being
forsaken, or to bind him a rod, as being worthy to be
whipped.
DON PEDRO To be whipped? What’s his fault?
BENEDICK The flat transgression of a schoolboy, who, being
overjoyed with finding a bird’s nest, shows it his companion,
and he steals it.
DON PEDRO Wilt thou make a trust a transgression? The
transgression is in the stealer.
BENEDICK Yet it had not been amiss the rod had been made,
and the garland too: for the garland he might have worn
himself and the rod he might have bestowed on you, who, as
I take it, have stolen his bird’s nest.
DON PEDRO I will but teach them to sing, and restore them to
the owner.
BENEDICK If their singing answer your saying, by my faith you
say honestly.
DON PEDRO The Lady Beatrice hath a quarrel to you: the
gentleman that danced with her told her she is much
wronged by you.
BENEDICK O, she misused me past the endurance of a block!
An oak but with one green leaf on it would have answered
her. My very visor began to assume life and scold with her.
She told me—not thinking I had been myself—that I was
the prince’s jester, and that I was duller than a great thaw,
huddling jest upon jest with such impossible conveyance
upon me that I stood like a man at a mark, with a whole
army shooting at me. She speaks poniards, and every word
stabs. If her breath were as terrible as her terminations,
there were no living near her, she would infect to the North
Star. I would not marry her, though she were endowed with
all that Adam had left him before he transgressed. She would
have made Hercules have turned spit, yea, and have cleft his
club to make the fire too. Come, talk not of her, you shall find
her the infernal Ate in good apparel. I would to God some
scholar would conjure her, for certainly, while she is here, a
man may live as quiet in hell as in a sanctuary, and people
sin upon purpose, because they would go thither: so indeed
all disquiet, horror and perturbation follows her.
Enter Claudio and Beatrice, Leonato[and] Hero
DON PEDRO Look, here she comes.
BENEDICK Will your grace command me any service to the
world’s end? I will go on the slightest errand now to the
Antipodes that you can devise to send me on: I will fetch you
a tooth-picker now from the furthest inch of Asia, bring you
the length of Prester John’s foot, fetch you a hair off the
great Cham’s beard, do you any embassage to the Pygmies,
rather than hold three words’ conference with this harpy.
You have no employment for me?
DON PEDRO None, but to desire your good company.
BENEDICK O God, sir, here’s a dish I love not: I cannot endure
this Lady Tongue.
Exit
DON PEDRO Come, lady, come, you have lost the heart of Signior
Benedick.
BEATRICE Indeed, my lord, he lent it me awhile, and I gave him
use for it, a double heart for his single one: marry, once
before he won it of me with false dice, therefore your Grace
may well say I have lost it.
DON PEDRO You have put him
down, lady, you have put him down.
BEATRICE So I would not he should do me, my lord, lest I
should prove the mother of fools. I have brought Count
Claudio, whom you sent me to seek.
DON PEDRO Why, how now, count? Wherefore are you sad?
CLAUDIO Not sad, my lord.
DON PEDRO How then? Sick?
CLAUDIO Neither, my lord.
BEATRICE The count is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor
well: but civil count, civil as an orange, and something of a
jealous complexion.
DON PEDRO I’faith, lady, I think your blazon to be true, though
I’ll be sworn, if he be so, his conceit is false. Here, Claudio, I
have wooed in thy name, and fair Hero is won: I have broke
with her father, and his good will obtained. Name the day of
marriage, and God give thee joy!
LEONATO Count, take of me my daughter, and with her my
fortunes. His grace hath made the match, and all grace say
‘Amen’ to it.
BEATRICE Speak, count, ’tis your cue.
CLAUDIO Silence is the perfectest herald of joy. I were but little
happy, if I could say how much. Lady, as you are mine, I am
yours. I give away myself
for you and dote upon the
exchange.
BEATRICE Speak, cousin, or, if you cannot, stop
his mouth with a kiss, and let not him speak
Claudio and Hero kiss?
neither.
DON PEDRO In faith, lady, you have a merry heart.
BEATRICE Yea, my lord, I thank it, poor fool, it keeps on the
windy side of care. My cousin tells him in his ear that he is in
her heart.
CLAUDIO And so she doth, cousin.
BEATRICE Good lord, for alliance! Thus goes everyone to the
world but I, and I am sunburnt. I may sit in a corner and cry
‘Hey-ho for a husband!’
DON PEDRO Lady Beatrice, I will get you one.
BEATRICE I would rather have one of your father’s getting.
Hath your grace ne’er a brother like you? Your father got
excellent husbands, if a maid could come by them.
DON PEDRO Will you have me, lady?
BEATRICE No, my lord, unless I might have another for
working days: your grace is too costly to wear every day. But
I beseech your grace pardon me. I was born to speak all
mirth and no matter.
DON PEDRO Your silence most offends me, and to be merry best
becomes you, for out of question, you were born in a merry
hour.
BEATRICE No, sure, my lord, my mother cried, but then there
was a star danced, and under that was I born. Cousins, God
give you joy!
LEONATO Niece, will you look to those things I told you of?
BEATRICE I cry you mercy, uncle.— By your
To Don Pedro
grace’s pardon.
Exit
DON PEDRO By my troth, a pleasant-spirited lady.
LEONATO There’s little of the melancholy element in her, my
lord: she is never sad but when she sleeps, and not ever sad
then, for I have heard my daughter say, she hath often
dreamt of unhappiness and waked herself with laughing.
DON PEDRO She cannot endure to hear tell of a husband.
LEONATO O, by no means: she mocks all her wooers out of
suit.
DON PEDRO She were an excellent wife for Benedick.
LEONATO O lord, my lord, if they were but a week married,
they would talk themselves mad.
DON PEDRO Count Claudio, when mean you to go to church?
CLAUDIO Tomorrow, my lord. Time goes on crutches till love
have all his rites.
LEONATO Not till Monday, my dear son, which is hence a just
seven-night, and a time too brief, too, to have all things
answer my mind.
DON PEDRO Come, you shake the head at so long a breathing.
But I warrant thee, Claudio, the time shall not go dully by us.
I will in the interim undertake one of Hercules’ labours,
which is to bring Signior Benedick and the Lady Beatrice into
a mountain of affection, th’one with th’other. I would fain
have it a match, and I doubt not but to fashion it, if you three
will but minister such assistance as I shall give you direction.
LEONATO My lord, I am for you, though it cost me ten nights’
watchings.
CLAUDIO And I, my lord.
DON PEDRO And you too, gentle Hero?
HERO I will do any modest office, my lord, to help my
cousin to a good husband.
DON PEDRO And Benedick is not the unhopefullest husband
that I know. Thus far can I praise him: he is of a noble strain,
of approved valour and confirmed honesty. I will teach you
how to humour your cousin that she shall fall in love with
Benedick, and I, with your two helps, will so
To Leonato and Claudio
practise on Benedick that, in despite of his
quick wit and his queasy stomach, he shall fall in love with
Beatrice. If we can do this, Cupid is no longer an archer: his
glory shall be ours, for we are the only love-gods. Go in with
me, and I will tell you my drift.
Exeunt
[Act 2 Scene 2]
running scene 4 continues
Enter [Don] John and Borachio
DON JOHN It is so: the Count Claudio shall marry the daughter
of Leonato.
BORACHIO Yea, my lord, but I can cross it.
DON JOHN Any bar, any cross, any impediment will be
medicinable to me: I am sick in displeasure to him, and
whatsoever comes athwart his affection ranges evenly with
mine. How canst thou cross this marriage?
BORACHIO Not honestly, my lord, but so covertly that no
dishonesty shall appear in me.
DON JOHN Show me briefly how.
BORACHIO I think I told your lordship a year since, how much I
am in the favour of Margaret, the waiting gentlewoman to
Hero.
DON JOHN I remember.
BORACHIO I can at any unseasonable instant of the night
appoint her to look out at her lady’s chamber window.
DON JOHN What life is in that, to be the death of this marriage?
BORACHIO The poison of that lies in you to temper. Go you
to the prince your brother, spare not to tell him that he
hath wronged his honour in marrying the renowned
Claudio — whose estimation do you mightily hold up — to
a contaminated stale, such a one as Hero.
DON JOHN What proof shall I make of that?
BORACHIO Proof enough to misuse the prince, to vex Claudio,
DON JOHN Only to despite them, I will endeavour anything.
BORACHIO Go, then, find me a meet hour to draw Don Pedro
and the Count Claudio alone. Tell them that you know that
Hero loves me, intend a kind of zeal both to the prince and
Claudio — as in a love of your brother’s honour, who hath
made this match, and his friend’s reputation, who is thus like
to be cozened with the semblance of a maid — that you have
discovered thus. They will scarcely believe this without trial:
offer them instances, which shall bear no less likelihood
than to see me at her chamber window, hear me call
Margaret Hero, hear Margaret term me Claudio, and bring
them to see this the very night before the intended wedding
— for in the meantime I will so fashion the matter that Hero
shall be absent — and there shall appear such seeming
truths of Hero’s disloyalty that jealousy shall be called
assurance and all the preparation overthrown.
DON JOHN Grow this to what adverse issue it can, I will put it in
practice. Be cunning in the working this, and thy fee is a
thousand ducats.
BORACHIO Be thou constant in the accusation, and my
cunning shall not shame me.
DON JOHN I will presently go learn their day of marriage.
Exeunt
[Act 2 Scene 3]
running scene 5
Enter Benedick, alone
BENEDICK Boy!
[Enter Boy]
BOY Signior?
BENEDICK In my chamber-window lies a book: bring it hither
to me in the orchard.
BOY I am here already, sir.
BENEDICK I know that, but I would have thee hence and here
again.
Exit [Boy]
I do much wonder that one man, seeing how much another
man is a fool when he dedicates his behaviours to love, will,
after he hath l
aughed at such shallow follies in others,
become the argument of his own scorn by falling in love: and
such a man is Claudio. I have known when there was no
music with him but the drum and the fife, and now had he
rather hear the tabor and the pipe. I have known when he
would have walked ten mile afoot to see a good armour, and
now will he lie ten nights awake carving the fashion of a new
doublet. He was wont to speak plain and to the purpose —
like an honest man and a soldier — and now is he turned
orthography, his words are a very fantastical banquet, just
so many strange dishes. May I be so converted and see with
these eyes? I cannot tell: I think not. I will not be sworn, but
love may transform me to an oyster, but I’ll take my oath on
it, till he have made an oyster of me, he shall never make me
such a fool. One woman is fair,
yet I am well: another is wise, yet I am well: another virtuous, yet I am well: but till all
graces be in one woman, one woman shall not come in my
grace. Rich she shall be, that’s certain: wise, or I’ll none:
virtuous, or I’ll never cheapen her: fair, or I’ll never look on
her: mild, or come not near me: noble, or not I for an angel:
of good discourse, an excellent musician, and her hair shall
be of what colour it please God. Ha! The prince and Monsieur
Love! I will hide me in the arbour.
He hides in the arbor
Enter[Don Pedro], Leonato, Claudio and [Balthasar]
DON PEDRO Come, shall we hear this music?
CLAUDIO Yea, my good lord. How still the evening is,
As hushed 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.
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 woos,