A hall in LEONATO\u2019S house.<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n
[Enter LEONATO, ANTONIO, HERO, BEATRICE, and others]\n\n\n\n
Leonato. <\/strong>Was not Count John here at supper?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Antonio.\u00a0<\/strong>I saw him not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Beatrice. <\/strong>How tartly that gentleman looks! I never can see Hero. <\/strong>He is of a very melancholy disposition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Beatrice.\u00a0<\/strong>He were an excellent man that were made just in the\u00a0 Leonato.\u00a0<\/strong>Then half Signior Benedick’s tongue in Count John’s\u00a0 Beatrice. <\/strong>With a good leg and a good foot, uncle, and money Leonato.\u00a0<\/strong>By my troth, niece, thou wilt never get thee a\u00a0 Antonio. <\/strong>In faith, she’s too curst.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Beatrice. <\/strong>Too curst is more than curst: I shall lessen God’s Leonato.\u00a0<\/strong>So, by being too curst, God will send you no horns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Beatrice. <\/strong>Just, if he send me no husband; for the which Leonato.\u00a0<\/strong>You may light on a husband that hath no beard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Beatrice.\u00a0<\/strong>What should I do with him? dress him in my apparel\u00a0 Leonato. <\/strong>Well, then, go you into hell?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Beatrice.\u00a0<\/strong>No, but to the gate; and there will the devil meet Antonio. <\/strong>[To HERO]<\/em> Well, niece, I trust you will be ruled Beatrice.\u00a0<\/strong>Yes, faith; it is my cousin’s duty to make curtsy\u00a0 Leonato. <\/strong>Well, niece, I hope to see you one day fitted with a husband.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Beatrice.\u00a0<\/strong>Not till God make men of some other metal than Leonato. <\/strong>Daughter, remember what I told you: if the prince Beatrice.\u00a0<\/strong>The fault will be in the music, cousin, if you be\u00a0 Leonato. <\/strong>Cousin, you apprehend passing shrewdly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Beatrice.\u00a0<\/strong>I have a good eye, uncle; I can see a church by daylight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Leonato. <\/strong>The revellers are entering, brother: make good room. Don Pedro.\u00a0<\/strong>Lady, will you walk about with your friend?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hero. <\/strong>So you walk softly and look sweetly and say nothing, Don Pedro. <\/strong>With me in your company?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hero. <\/strong>I may say so, when I please.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Don Pedro.\u00a0<\/strong>And when please you to say so?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hero. <\/strong>When I like your favour; for God defend the lute Don Pedro. <\/strong>My visor is Philemon’s roof; within the house is Jove.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hero. <\/strong>Why, then, your visor should be thatched.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Don Pedro.\u00a0<\/strong>Speak low, if you speak love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [Drawing her aside]\n\n\n\n Balthasar. <\/strong>Well, I would you did like me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Margaret. <\/strong>So would not I, for your own sake; for I have many Balthasar.\u00a0<\/strong>Which is one?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Margaret. <\/strong>I say my prayers aloud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Balthasar. <\/strong>I love you the better: the hearers may cry, Amen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Margaret. <\/strong>God match me with a good dancer!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Balthasar. <\/strong>Amen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Margaret.\u00a0<\/strong>And God keep him out of my sight when the dance is Balthasar. <\/strong>No more words: the clerk is answered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ursula. <\/strong>I know you well enough; you are Signior Antonio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Antonio. <\/strong>At a word, I am not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ursula.\u00a0<\/strong>I know you by the waggling of your head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Antonio. <\/strong>To tell you true, I counterfeit him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ursula. <\/strong>You could never do him so ill-well, unless you were Antonio.\u00a0<\/strong>At a word, I am not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ursula. <\/strong>Come, come, do you think I do not know you by your Beatrice.\u00a0<\/strong>Will you not tell me who told you so?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Benedick. <\/strong>No, you shall pardon me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Beatrice. <\/strong>Nor will you not tell me who you are?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Benedick. <\/strong>Not now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Beatrice.\u00a0<\/strong>That I was disdainful, and that I had my good wit\u00a0 Benedick. <\/strong>What’s he?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Beatrice. <\/strong>I am sure you know him well enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Benedick. <\/strong>Not I, believe me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Beatrice.\u00a0<\/strong>Did he never make you laugh?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Benedick. <\/strong>I pray you, what is he?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Beatrice.\u00a0<\/strong>Why, he is the prince’s jester: a very dull fool;\u00a0 Benedick. <\/strong>When I know the gentleman, I’ll tell him what you say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Beatrice.\u00a0<\/strong>Do, do: he’ll but break a comparison or two on me; Benedick. <\/strong>In every good thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Beatrice. <\/strong>Nay, if they lead to any ill, I will leave them at [Dance. Then exeunt all except DON JOHN, BORACHIO, and CLAUDIO]\n\n\n\n Don John.\u00a0<\/strong>Sure my brother is amorous on Hero and hath\u00a0 Borachio.\u00a0<\/strong>And that is Claudio: I know him by his bearing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Don John.\u00a0<\/strong>Are not you Signior Benedick?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Claudio.\u00a0<\/strong>You know me well; I am he.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Don John.\u00a0<\/strong>Signior, you are very near my brother in his love:\u00a0 Claudio.\u00a0<\/strong>How know you he loves her?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Don John.\u00a0<\/strong>I heard him swear his affection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Borachio.\u00a0<\/strong>So did I too; and he swore he would marry her to-night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Don John.\u00a0<\/strong>Come, let us to the banquet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [Exeunt DON JOHN and BORACHIO]\n\n\n\n Claudio.\u00a0<\/strong>Thus answer I in the name of Benedick,\u00a0 [Re-enter BENEDICK]\n\n\n\n Benedick.\u00a0<\/strong>Count Claudio?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Claudio.\u00a0<\/strong>Yea, the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Benedick.\u00a0<\/strong>Come, will you go with me?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Claudio.\u00a0<\/strong>Whither?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Benedick.\u00a0<\/strong>Even to the next willow, about your own business,\u00a0 Claudio.\u00a0<\/strong>I wish him joy of her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Benedick.\u00a0<\/strong>Why, that’s spoken like an honest drovier: so they\u00a0 Claudio.\u00a0<\/strong>I pray you, leave me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Benedick.\u00a0<\/strong>Ho! now you strike like the blind man: ’twas the\u00a0 Claudio.\u00a0<\/strong>If it will not be, I’ll leave you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [Exit]\n\n\n\n Benedick.\u00a0<\/strong>Alas, poor hurt fowl! now will he creep into sedges.\u00a0 [Re-enter DON PEDRO]\n\n\n\n Don Pedro. <\/strong>Now, signior, where’s the count? did you see him?595<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Benedick.\u00a0<\/strong>Troth, my lord, I have played the part of Lady Fame.\u00a0 Don Pedro. <\/strong>To be whipped! What’s his fault?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Benedick.\u00a0<\/strong>The flat transgression of a schoolboy, who, being\u00a0 Don Pedro. <\/strong>Wilt thou make a trust a transgression? The Benedick.\u00a0<\/strong>Yet it had not been amiss the rod had been made,\u00a0 Don Pedro. <\/strong>I will but teach them to sing, and restore them to Benedick.\u00a0<\/strong>If their singing answer your saying, by my faith, Don Pedro. <\/strong>The Lady Beatrice hath a quarrel to you: the Benedick.\u00a0<\/strong>O, she misused me past the endurance of a block! Don Pedro. <\/strong>Look, here she comes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [Enter CLAUDIO, BEATRICE, HERO, and LEONATO]\n\n\n\n Benedick.\u00a0<\/strong>Will your grace command me any service to the\u00a0 Don Pedro. <\/strong>None, but to desire your good company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Benedick.\u00a0<\/strong>O God, sir, here’s a dish I love not: I cannot\u00a0 [Exit]\n\n\n\n Don Pedro. <\/strong>Come, lady, come; you have lost the heart of Beatrice.\u00a0<\/strong>Indeed, my lord, he lent it me awhile; and I gave\u00a0 Don Pedro. <\/strong>You have put him down, lady, you have put him down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Beatrice.\u00a0<\/strong>So I would not he should do me, my lord, lest I\u00a0 Don Pedro. <\/strong>Why, how now, count! wherefore are you sad?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Claudio. <\/strong>Not sad, my lord.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Don Pedro. <\/strong>How then? sick?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Claudio.\u00a0<\/strong>Neither, my lord.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Beatrice. <\/strong>The count is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor Don Pedro.\u00a0<\/strong>I’ faith, lady, I think your blazon to be true;\u00a0 Leonato.\u00a0<\/strong>Count, take of me my daughter, and with her my Beatrice. <\/strong>Speak, count, ’tis your cue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Claudio.\u00a0<\/strong>Silence is the perfectest herald of joy: I were\u00a0 Beatrice. <\/strong>Speak, cousin; or, if you cannot, stop his mouth Don Pedro.\u00a0<\/strong>In faith, lady, you have a merry heart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Beatrice. <\/strong>Yea, my lord; I thank it, poor fool, it keeps on Claudio. <\/strong>And so she doth, cousin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Beatrice.\u00a0<\/strong>Good Lord, for alliance! Thus goes every one to the\u00a0=<\/strong> Don Pedro. <\/strong>Lady Beatrice, I will get you one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Beatrice.\u00a0<\/strong>I would rather have one of your father’s getting.\u00a0 Don Pedro. <\/strong>Will you have me, lady?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Beatrice.\u00a0<\/strong>No, my lord, unless I might have another for\u00a0
him but I am heart-burned an hour after.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
midway between him and Benedick: the one is too
like an image and says nothing, and the other too\u00a0
like my lady’s eldest son, evermore tattling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
mouth, and half Count John’s melancholy in Signior\u00a0
Benedick’s face,\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n
enough in his purse, such a man would win any woman
in the world, if a’ could get her good-will.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
husband, if thou be so shrewd of thy tongue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
sending that way; for it is said, ‘God sends a curst
cow short horns;’ but to a cow too curst he sends none.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
and make him my waiting-gentlewoman? He that hath a\u00a0
beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no\u00a0
beard is less than a man: and he that is more than\u00a0
a youth is not for me, and he that is less than a
man, I am not for him: therefore, I will even take\u00a0
sixpence in earnest of the bear-ward, and lead his\u00a0
apes into hell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
me, like an old cuckold, with horns on his head, and\u00a0
say ‘Get you to heaven, Beatrice, get you to\u00a0
heaven; here’s no place for you maids:’ so deliver\u00a0
I up my apes, and away to Saint Peter for the\u00a0
heavens; he shows me where the bachelors sit, and
there live we as merry as the day is long.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
by your father.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
and say ‘Father, as it please you.’ But yet for all
that, cousin, let him be a handsome fellow, or else\u00a0
make another curtsy and say ‘Father, as it please\u00a0
me.’<\/p>\n\n\n\n
earth. Would it not grieve a woman to be\u00a0
overmastered with a pierce of valiant dust? to make\u00a0
an account of her life to a clod of wayward marl?\u00a0
No, uncle, I’ll none: Adam’s sons are my brethren;\u00a0
and, truly, I hold it a sin to match in my kindred.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
do solicit you in that kind, you know your answer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
not wooed in good time: if the prince be too\u00a0
important, tell him there is measure in every thing
and so dance out the answer. For, hear me, Hero:\u00a0
wooing, wedding, and repenting, is as a Scotch jig,\u00a0
a measure, and a cinque pace: the first suit is hot\u00a0
and hasty, like a Scotch jig, and full as\u00a0
fantastical; the wedding, mannerly-modest, as a
measure, full of state and ancientry; and then comes\u00a0
repentance and, with his bad legs, falls into the\u00a0
cinque pace faster and faster, till he sink into his grave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
[All put on their masks]<\/em>
[Enter DON PEDRO, CLAUDIO, BENEDICK, BALTHASAR,]<\/em>
DON JOHN, BORACHIO, MARGARET, URSULA and others, masked]\n\n\n\n
I am yours for the walk; and especially when I walk away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
should be like the case!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
ill-qualities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
done! Answer, clerk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
the very man. Here’s his dry hand up and down: you
are he, you are he.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
excellent wit? can virtue hide itself? Go to,
mum, you are he: graces will appear, and there’s an
end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
out of the ‘Hundred Merry Tales:’\u2014well this was
Signior Benedick that said so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
only his gift is in devising impossible slanders:\u00a0
none but libertines delight in him; and the\u00a0
commendation is not in his wit, but in his villany;
for he both pleases men and angers them, and then\u00a0
they laugh at him and beat him. I am sure he is in\u00a0
the fleet: I would he had boarded me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
which, peradventure not marked or not laughed at,\u00a0
strikes him into melancholy; and then there’s a\u00a0
partridge wing saved, for the fool will eat no\u00a0
supper that night.\u00a0
[Music]<\/em>\u00a0535<\/strong>
We must follow the leaders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
the next turning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
withdrawn her father to break with him about it.\u00a0
The ladies follow her and but one visor remains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
he is enamoured on Hero; I pray you, dissuade him\u00a0
from her: she is no equal for his birth: you may\u00a0
do the part of an honest man in it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But hear these ill news with the ears of Claudio.\u00a0
‘Tis certain so; the prince wooes for himself.\u00a0
Friendship is constant in all other things\u00a0
Save in the office and affairs of love:
Therefore, all hearts in love use their own tongues;\u00a0
Let every eye negotiate for itself\u00a0
And trust no agent; for beauty is a witch\u00a0
Against whose charms faith melteth into blood.\u00a0
This is an accident of hourly proof,
Which I mistrusted not. Farewell, therefore, Hero!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
county. What fashion will you wear the garland of?\u00a0
about your neck, like an usurer’s chain? or under\u00a0
your arm, like a lieutenant’s scarf? You must wear
it one way, for the prince hath got your Hero.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
sell bullocks. But did you think the prince would\u00a0
have served you thus?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
boy that stole your meat, and you’ll beat the post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But that my Lady Beatrice should know me, and not\u00a0
know me! The prince’s fool! Ha? It may be I go\u00a0
under that title because I am merry. Yea, but so I\u00a0
am apt to do myself wrong; I am not so reputed: it
is the base, though bitter, disposition of Beatrice\u00a0
that puts the world into her person and so gives me\u00a0
out. Well, I’ll be revenged as I may.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I found him here as melancholy as a lodge in a\u00a0
warren: I told him, and I think I told him true,\u00a0
that your grace had got the good will of this young\u00a0
lady; and I offered him my company to a willow-tree,
either to make him a garland, as being forsaken, or\u00a0
to bind him up a rod, as being worthy to be whipped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
overjoyed with finding a birds’ nest, shows it his
companion, and he steals it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
transgression is in the stealer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
and the garland too; for the garland he might have
worn himself, and the rod he might have bestowed on\u00a0
you, who, as I take it, have stolen his birds’ nest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
the owner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
you say honestly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
gentleman that danced with her told her she is much
wronged by you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
an oak but with one green leaf on it would have\u00a0
answered her; my very visor began to assume life and\u00a0
scold with her. She told me, not thinking I had been\u00a0
myself, that I was the prince’s jester, that I was\u00a0
duller than a great thaw; huddling jest upon jest\u00a0625<\/strong>
with such impossible conveyance upon me that I stood\u00a0
like a man at a mark, with a whole army shooting at\u00a0
me. She speaks poniards, and every word stabs:\u00a0
if her breath were as terrible as her terminations,\u00a0
there were no living near her; she would infect to
the north star. I would not marry her, though she\u00a0
were endowed with all that Adam bad left him before\u00a0
he transgressed: she would have made Hercules have\u00a0
turned spit, yea, and have cleft his club to make\u00a0
the fire too. Come, talk not of her: you shall find\u00a0635<\/strong>
her the infernal Ate in good apparel. I would to God\u00a0
some scholar would conjure her; for certainly, while\u00a0
she is here, a man may live as quiet in hell as in a\u00a0
sanctuary; and people sin upon purpose, because they\u00a0
would go thither; so, indeed, all disquiet, horror
and perturbation follows her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
world’s end? I will go on the slightest errand now
to the Antipodes that you can devise to send me on;\u00a0
I will fetch you a tooth-picker now from the\u00a0
furthest inch of Asia, bring you the length of\u00a0
Prester John’s foot, fetch you a hair off the great\u00a0
Cham’s beard, do you any embassage to the Pigmies,
rather than hold three words’ conference with this\u00a0
harpy. You have no employment for me?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
endure my Lady Tongue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Signior Benedick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
him use for it, a double heart for his single one:
marry, once before he won it of me with false dice,\u00a0
therefore your grace may well say I have lost it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
should prove the mother of fools. I have brought
Count Claudio, whom you sent me to seek.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
well; but civil count, civil as an orange, and
something of that jealous complexion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
though, I’ll be sworn, if he be so, his conceit is
false. Here, Claudio, I have wooed in thy name, and\u00a0
fair Hero is won: I have broke with her father,\u00a0
and his good will obtained: name the day of\u00a0
marriage, and God give thee joy!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
fortunes: his grace hath made the match, and an\u00a0
grace say Amen to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
but little happy, if I could say how much. Lady, as
you are mine, I am yours: I give away myself for\u00a0
you and dote upon the exchange.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
with a kiss, and let not him speak neither.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
the windy side of care. My cousin tells him in his
ear that he is in her heart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
world but I, and I am sunburnt; I may sit in a\u00a0
corner and cry heigh-ho for a husband!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hath your grace ne’er a brother like you? Your
father got excellent husbands, if a maid could come by them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
working-days: your grace is too costly to wear\u00a0
every day. But, I beseech your grace, pardon me: I
was born to speak all mirth and no matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n