Much Ado about nothing

ACT II

SCENE I. A hall in LEONATO'S house.

Enter LEONATO, ANTONIO, HERO, BEATRICE, and others

LEONATO

Was not Count John here at supper?

ANTONIO

I saw him not.

BEATRICE

How tartly that gentleman looks! I never can see

him but I am heart-burned an hour after.

HERO

He is of a very melancholy disposition.

BEATRICE

He were an excellent man that were made just in the

midway between him and Benedick: the one is too

like an image and says nothing, and the other too

like my lady's eldest son, evermore tattling.

LEONATO

Then half Signior Benedick's tongue in Count John's

mouth, and half Count John's melancholy in Signior

Benedick's face,--

BEATRICE

With a good leg and a good foot, uncle, and money

enough in his purse, such a man would win any woman

in the world, if a' could get her good-will.

LEONATO

By my troth, niece, thou wilt never get thee a

husband, if thou be so shrewd of thy tongue.

ANTONIO

In faith, she's too curst.

BEATRICE

Too curst is more than curst: I shall lessen God's

sending that way, for it is said, 'God sends a curst

cow short horns,' but to a cow too curst he sends none.

LEONATO

So, by being too curst, God will send you no horns.

BEATRICE

Just, if he send me no husband, for the which

blessing I am at him upon my knees every morning and

evening. Lord, I could not endure a husband with a

beard on his face: I had rather lie in the woollen.

LEONATO

You may light on a husband that hath no beard.

BEATRICE

What should I do with him? dress him in my apparel

and make him my waiting-gentlewoman? He that hath a

beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no

beard is less than a man: and he that is more than

a youth is not for me, and he that is less than a

man, I am not for him: therefore, I will even take

sixpence in earnest of the bear-ward, and lead his

apes into hell.

LEONATO

Well, then, go you into hell?

BEATRICE

No, but to the gate, and there will the devil meet

me, like an old cuckold, with horns on his head, and

say 'Get you to heaven, Beatrice, get you to

heaven, here's no place for you maids:' so deliver

I up my apes, and away to Saint Peter for the

heavens, he shows me where the bachelors sit, and

there live we as merry as the day is long.

ANTONIO

[To HERO] Well, niece, I trust you will be ruled

by your father.

BEATRICE

Yes, faith, it is my cousin's duty to make curtsy

and say 'Father, as it please you.' But yet for all

that, cousin, let him be a handsome fellow, or else

make another curtsy and say 'Father, as it please

me.'

LEONATO

Well, niece, I hope to see you one day fitted with a husband.

BEATRICE

Not till God make men of some other metal than

earth. Would it not grieve a woman to be

overmastered with a pierce of valiant dust? to make

an account of her life to a clod of wayward marl?

No, uncle, I'll none: Adam's sons are my brethren,

and, truly, I hold it a sin to match in my kindred.

LEONATO

Daughter, remember what I told you: if the prince

do solicit you in that kind, you know your answer.

BEATRICE

The fault will be in the music, cousin, if you be

not wooed in good time: if the prince be too

important, tell him there is measure in every thing

and so dance out the answer. For, hear me, Hero:

wooing, wedding, and repenting, is as a Scotch jig,

a measure, and a cinque pace: the first suit is hot

and hasty, like a Scotch jig, and full as

fantastical, the wedding, mannerly-modest, as a

measure, full of state and ancientry, and then comes

repentance and, with his bad legs, falls into the

cinque pace faster and faster, till he sink into his grave.

LEONATO

Cousin, you apprehend passing shrewdly.

BEATRICE

I have a good eye, uncle, I can see a church by daylight.

LEONATO

The revellers are entering, brother: make good room.

All put on their masks

Enter DON PEDRO, CLAUDIO, BENEDICK, BALTHASAR, DON JOHN, BORACHIO, MARGARET, URSULA and others, masked

DON PEDRO

Lady, will you walk about with your friend?

HERO

So you walk softly and look sweetly and say nothing,

I am yours for the walk, and especially when I walk away.

DON PEDRO

With me in your company?

HERO

I may say so, when I please.

DON PEDRO

And when please you to say so?

HERO

When I like your favour, for God defend the lute

should be like the case!

DON PEDRO

My visor is Philemon's roof, within the house is Jove.

HERO

Why, then, your visor should be thatched.

DON PEDRO

Speak low, if you speak love.

Drawing her aside

BALTHASAR

Well, I would you did like me.

MARGARET

So would not I, for your own sake, for I have many

ill-qualities.

BALTHASAR

Which is one?

MARGARET

I say my prayers aloud.

BALTHASAR

I love you the better: the hearers may cry, Amen.

MARGARET

God match me with a good dancer!

BALTHASAR

Amen.

MARGARET

And God keep him out of my sight when the dance is

done! Answer, clerk.

BALTHASAR

No more words: the clerk is answered.

URSULA

I know you well enough, you are Signior Antonio.

ANTONIO

At a word, I am not.

URSULA

I know you by the waggling of your head.

ANTONIO

To tell you true, I counterfeit him.

URSULA

You could never do him so ill-well, unless you were

the very man. Here's his dry hand up and down: you

are he, you are he.

ANTONIO

At a word, I am not.

URSULA

Come, come, do you think I do not know you by your

excellent wit? can virtue hide itself? Go to,

mum, you are he: graces will appear, and there's an

end.

BEATRICE

Will you not tell me who told you so?

BENEDICK

No, you shall pardon me.

BEATRICE

Nor will you not tell me who you are?

BENEDICK

Not now.

BEATRICE

That I was disdainful, and that I had my good wit

out of the 'Hundred Merry Tales:'--well this was

Signior Benedick that said so.

BENEDICK

What's he?

BEATRICE

I am sure you know him well enough.

BENEDICK

Not I, believe me.

BEATRICE

Did he never make you laugh?

BENEDICK

I pray you, what is he?

BEATRICE

Why, he is the prince's jester: a very dull fool,

only his gift is in devising impossible slanders:

none but libertines delight in him, and the

commendation is not in his wit, but in his villany,

for he both pleases men and angers them, and then

they laugh at him and beat him. I am sure he is in

the fleet: I would he had boarded me.

BENEDICK

When I know the gentleman, I'll tell him what you say.

BEATRICE

Do, do: he'll but break a comparison or two on me,

which, peradventure not marked or not laughed at,

strikes him into melancholy, and then there's a

partridge wing saved, for the fool will eat no

supper that night.

Music

We must follow the leaders.

BENEDICK

In every good thing.

BEATRICE

Nay, if they lead to any ill, I will leave them at

the next turning.

Dance. Then exeunt all except DON JOHN, BORACHIO, and CLAUDIO

DON JOHN

Sure my brother is amorous on Hero and hath

withdrawn her father to break with him about it.

The ladies follow her and but one visor remains.

BORACHIO

And that is Claudio: I know him by his bearing.

DON JOHN

Are not you Signior Benedick?

CLAUDIO

You know me well, I am he.

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 to-night.

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 wooes 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!

Re-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,

county. 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 drovier: 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.

Re-enter 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 up 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 birds' 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 birds' 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, 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 bad 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.

DON PEDRO

Look, here she comes.

Enter CLAUDIO, BEATRICE, HERO, and LEONATO

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 Pigmies,

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 my 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 that 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 an

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 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 every one to the

world but I, and I am sunburnt, I may sit in a

corner and cry heigh-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 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 dreamed 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 Benedict.

LEONATO

O Lord, my lord, if they were but a week married,

they would talk themselves mad.

DON PEDRO

County Claudio, when mean you to go to church?

CLAUDIO

To-morrow, 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 the one with the 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 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: hi s glory shall be

ours, for we are the only love-gods. Go in with me,

and I will tell you my drift.

Exeunt

SCENE II. The same.

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,

to undo Hero and kill Leonato. Look you for any

other issue?

DON JOHN

Only to despite them, I will endeavour any thing.

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 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 truth

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 practise. Be cunning in the working this, and

thy fee is a thousand ducats.

BORACHIO

Be you constant in the accusation, and my cunning

shall not shame me.

DON JOHN

I will presently go learn their day of marriage.

Exeunt

SCENE III. LEONATO'S orchard.

Enter BENEDICK

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

behaviors to love, will, after he hath laughed at

such shallow follies in others, become the argument

of his own scorn by failing 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 tabour and the pipe: I have known

when he would have walked ten mile a-foot 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.

Withdraws

Enter DON PEDRO, CLAUDIO, and LEONATO

DON PEDRO

Come, shall we hear this music?

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, and 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

rather die than give any sign of affection. I did

never think to marry: I must not seem proud: happy

are they that hear their detractions and can put

them to mending. They say the lady is fair, 'tis a

truth, I can bear them witness, and virtuous, 'tis

so, I cannot reprove it, and wise, but for loving

me, by my troth, it is no addition to her wit, nor

no great argument of her folly, for I will be

horribly in love with her. I may chance have some

odd quirks and remnants of wit broken on me,

because I have railed so long against marriage: but

doth not the appetite alter? a man loves the meat

in his youth that he cannot endure in his age.

Shall quips and sentences and these paper bullets of

the brain awe a man from the career of his humour?

No, the world must be peopled. When I said I would

die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I

were married. Here comes Beatrice. By this day!

she's a fair lady: I do spy some marks of love in

her.

Enter BEATRICE

BEATRICE

Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner.

BENEDICK

Fair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains.

BEATRICE

I took no more pains for those thanks than you take

pains to thank me: if it had been painful, I would

not have come.

BENEDICK

You take pleasure then in the message?

BEATRICE

Yea, just so much as you may take upon a knife's

point and choke a daw withal. You have no stomach,

signior: fare you well.

Exit

BENEDICK

Ha! 'Against my will I am sent to bid you come in

to dinner,' there's a double meaning in that 'I took

no more pains for those thanks than you took pains

to thank me.' that's as much as to say, Any pains

that I take for you is as easy as thanks. If I do

not take pity of her, I am a villain, if I do not

love her, I am a Jew. I will go get her picture.

Exit