The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works

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The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 400

by William Shakespeare


  the wealth that he hath left, to be known a reasonable

  creature. Who is his companion now? He hath every

  month a new sworn brother.

  MESSENGER Is’t possible?

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  BEATRICE Very easily possible: he wears his faith but as

  the fashion of his hat, it ever changes with the next

  block.

  MESSENGER I see, lady, the gentleman is not in your

  books.

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  BEATRICE No; and he were, I would burn my study. But

  I pray you, who is his companion? Is there no young

  squarer now that will make a voyage with him to the

  devil?

  MESSENGER He is most in the company of the right

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  noble Claudio.

  BEATRICE O Lord, he will hang upon him like a disease;

  he is sooner caught than the pestilence, and the taker

  runs presently mad. God help the noble Claudio! If he

  have caught the Benedick, it will cost him a thousand

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  pound ere a be cured.

  MESSENGER I will hold friends with you, lady.

  BEATRICE Do, good friend.

  LEONATO You will never run mad, niece.

  BEATRICE No, not till a hot January.

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  MESSENGER Don Pedro is approached.

  Enter DON PEDRO, CLAUDIO, BENEDICK, BALTHASAR and

  DON JOHN the Bastard.

  DON PEDRO Good Signior Leonato, are you come to

  meet your trouble? The fashion of the world is to avoid

  cost, and you encounter it.

  LEONATO Never came trouble to my house in the

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  likeness of your Grace, for trouble being gone,

  comfort should remain; but when you depart from me,

  sorrow abides, and happiness takes his leave.

  DON PEDRO You embrace your charge too willingly. I

  think this is your daughter.

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  LEONATO Her mother hath many times told me so.

  BENEDICK Were you in doubt, sir, that you asked her?

  LEONATO Signior Benedick, no, for then were you a child.

  DON PEDRO You have it full, Benedick; we may guess by

  this what you are, being a man. Truly the lady

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  fathers herself. Be happy, lady, for you are like an

  honourable father.

  BENEDICK If Signior Leonato be her father, she would

  not have his head on her shoulders for all Messina, as

  like him as she is. [Don Pedro and Leonato talk aside.]

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  BEATRICE I wonder that you will still be talking, Signior

  Benedick: nobody marks you.

  BENEDICK What, my dear Lady Disdain! Are you yet

  living?

  BEATRICE Is it possible disdain should die, while she

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  hath such meet food to feed it as Signior Benedick?

  Courtesy itself must convert to disdain, if you come in

  her presence.

  BENEDICK Then is courtesy a turncoat. But it is certain

  I am loved of all ladies, only you excepted; and I would

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  I could find in my heart that I had not a hard heart, for

  truly I love none.

  BEATRICE A dear happiness to women, they would else

  have been troubled with a pernicious suitor. I thank

  God and my cold blood, I am of your humour for that;

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  I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man

  swear he loves me.

  BENEDICK God keep your ladyship still in that mind, so

  some gentleman or other shall scape a predestinate

  scratched face.

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  BEATRICE Scratching could not make it worse, and

  ’twere such a face as yours were.

  BENEDICK Well, you are a rare parrot-teacher.

  BEATRICE A bird of my tongue is better than a beast of

  yours.

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  BENEDICK I would my horse had the speed of your

  tongue, and so good a continuer. But keep your way, a

  God’s name, I have done.

  BEATRICE You always end with a jade’s trick, I know you

  of old.

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  DON PEDRO That is the sum of all, Leonato. [turning to

  the company] Signior Claudio and Signior Benedick,

  my dear friend Leonato hath invited you all. I tell him

  we shall stay here at the least a month, and he heartily

  prays some occasion may detain us longer: I dare

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  swear he is no hypocrite, but prays from his heart.

  LEONATO If you swear, my lord, you shall not be

  forsworn. [to Don John] Let me bid you welcome, my

  lord, being reconciled to the Prince your brother: I

  owe you all duty.

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  DON JOHN I thank you: I am not of many words, but I thank you.

  LEONATO Please it your Grace lead on?

  DON PEDRO Your hand, Leonato, we will go together.

  Exeunt all but Benedick and Claudio.

  CLAUDIO Benedick, didst thou note the daughter of

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  Signior Leonato?

  BENEDICK I noted her not, but I looked on her.

  CLAUDIO Is she not a modest young lady?

  BENEDICK Do you question me as an honest man

  should do, for my simple true judgement, or would

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  you have me speak after my custom, as being a

  professed tyrant to their sex?

  CLAUDIO No, I pray thee speak in sober judgement.

  BENEDICK Why, i’faith, methinks she’s too low for a

  high praise, too brown for a fair praise, and too little

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  for a great praise: only this commendation I can afford

  her, that were she other than she is, she were

  unhandsome, and being no other but as she is, I do

  not like her.

  CLAUDIO Thou thinkest I am in sport: I pray thee tell

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  me truly how thou lik’st her.

  BENEDICK Would you buy her, that you inquire after her?

  CLAUDIO Can the world buy such a jewel?

  BENEDICK Yea, and a case to put it into. But speak you

  this with a sad brow, or do you play the flouting Jack,

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  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.

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  BENEDICK I can see yet without spectacles, and I see no

  such matter: there’s her cousin, and 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?

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  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 threescore again? Go to, i’

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  faith, and 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.

  Enter DON PEDRO.

  DON PEDRO What secret hath held you here, that you

  followed not to Leonato’s?

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  BENEDICK I would your Grace would constrain me to tell.

  DON PED
RO 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

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  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

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  ’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.

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  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.

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  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.

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  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:

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  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

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  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

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  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,

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  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

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  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

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  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

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  in Venice, thou wilt quake for this shortly.

  BENEDICK I look for an earthquake too, then.

  DON PEDRO Well, you will temporize with the hours. In

  the meantime, good Signior Benedick, repair to

  Leonato’s, commend me to him, and tell him I will

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  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

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  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

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  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

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  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,

 

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