When you went onward on this ended action,
280
I look’d upon her with a soldier’s eye,
That lik’d, but had a rougher task in hand
Than to drive liking to the name of love:
But now I am return’d, and that war-thoughts
Have left their places vacant, in their rooms
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Come thronging soft and delicate desires,
All prompting me how fair young Hero is,
Saying I lik’d her ere I went to wars.
DON PEDRO Thou wilt be like a lover presently,
And tire the hearer with a book of words.
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If thou dost love fair Hero, cherish it,
And I will break with her, and with her father,
And thou shalt have her. Was’t not to this end
That thou began’st to twist so fine a story?
CLAUDIO How sweetly you do minister to love
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That know love’s grief by his complexion!
But lest my liking might too sudden seem,
I would have salv’d it with a longer treatise.
DON PEDRO
What need the bridge much broader than the flood?
The fairest grant is the necessity.
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Look what will serve is fit: ’tis once, thou lovest,
And I will fit thee with the remedy.
I know we shall have revelling tonight:
I will assume thy part in some disguise,
And tell fair Hero I am Claudio,
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And in her bosom I’ll unclasp my heart,
And take her hearing prisoner with the force
And strong encounter of my amorous tale:
Then after to her father will I break,
And the conclusion is, she shall be thine.
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In practice let us put it presently. Exeunt.
1.2 Enter LEONATO and an old man, ANTONIO, brother
to Leonato, meeting.
LEONATO How now, brother, where is my cousin, your
son? Hath he provided this music?
ANTONIO He is very busy about it. But brother, I can
tell you strange news that you yet dreamt not of.
LEONATO Are they good?
5
ANTONIO As the event stamps them, but they have a
good cover; they show well outward. The Prince and
Count Claudio, walking in a thick-pleached alley in
mine orchard, were thus much overheard by a man of
mine: the Prince discovered to Claudio that he loved
10
my niece your daughter, and meant to acknowledge it
this night in a dance; and if he found her accordant, he
meant to take the present time by the top and instantly
break with you of it.
LEONATO Hath the fellow any wit that told you this?
15
ANTONIO A good sharp fellow; I will send for him, and
question him yourself.
LEONATO No, no, we will hold it as a dream till it appear
itself: but I will acquaint my daughter withal, that
she may be the better prepared for an answer, if
20
peradventure this be true. Go you and tell her of it.
Exit Antonio.
Enter Antonio’s Son, with a Musician and others.
Cousins, you know what you have to do. [to the
musician] O, I cry you mercy, friend, go you with me
and I will use your skill. Good cousin, have a care this
busy time. Exeunt.
25
1.3 Enter DON JOHN the Bastard and CONRADE, his
companion.
CONRADE What the good-year, my lord, why are you
thus out of measure sad?
DON JOHN There is no measure in the occasion that
breeds, therefore the sadness is without limit.
CONRADE You should hear reason.
5
DON JOHN And when I have heard it, what blessing
brings it?
CONRADE If not a present remedy, at least a patient
sufferance.
DON JOHN I wonder that thou – being, as thou say’st
10
thou art, born under Saturn – goest about to apply a
moral medicine to a mortifying mischief. I cannot
hide what I am: I must be sad when I have cause,
and smile at no man’s jests; eat when I have stomach,
and wait for no man’s leisure; sleep when I am drowsy,
15
and tend on no man’s business; laugh when I am
merry, and claw no man in his humour.
CONRADE Yea, but you must not make the full show of
this till you may do it without controlment. You have
of late stood out against your brother, and he hath
20
ta’en you newly into his grace, where it is impossible
you should take true root but by the fair weather that
you make yourself. It is needful that you frame the
season for your own harvest.
DON JOHN I had rather be a canker in a hedge than a rose
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in his grace, and it better fits my blood to be disdained
of all than to fashion a carriage to rob love from any: in
this, though I cannot be said to be a flattering honest
man, it must not be denied but I am a plain-dealing
villain. I am trusted with a muzzle and enfranchised
30
with a clog; therefore I have decreed not to sing in my
cage. If I had my mouth I would bite; if I had my
liberty I would do my liking: in the meantime, let me
be that I am, and seek not to alter me.
CONRADE Can you make no use of your discontent?
35
DON JOHN I make all use of it, for I use it only. Who comes here?
Enter BORACHIO.
What news, Borachio?
BORACHIO I came yonder from a great supper. The
Prince your brother is royally entertained by Leonato;
40
and I can give you intelligence of an intended marriage.
DON JOHN Will it serve for any model to build mischief
on? What is he for a fool that betroths himself to
unquietness?
BORACHIO Marry, it is your brother’s right hand.
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DON JOHN Who, the most exquisite Claudio?
BORACHIO Even he.
DON JOHN A proper squire! And who, and who? Which
way looks he?
BORACHIO Marry, on Hero, the daughter and heir of
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Leonato.
DON JOHN A very forward March-chick! How came you to this?
BORACHIO Being entertained for a perfumer, as I was
smoking a musty room, comes me the Prince and
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Claudio, hand in hand in sad conference. I whipped
me behind the arras, and there heard it agreed upon
that the Prince should woo Hero for himself, and
having obtained her, give her to Count Claudio.
DON JOHN Come, come, let us thither; this may prove
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food to my displeasure; that young start-up hath all
the glory of my overthrow. If I can cross him any
way, I bless myself every way. You are both sure, and
will assist me?
CONRADE To the death, my lord.
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DON JOHN Let us to the great supper; their cheer is the
greater that I am subdued. Would the cook were o’ my
mind! Shall we go prove what’s to be done?
BORACHIO We’ll wait upon your lordship. Exeunt.
2.1 Enter LEONATO, ANTONIO, his brother
, HERO, his
daughter, and BEATRICE, his niece, MARGARET and URSULA.
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.
5
BEATRICE He were an excellent man that were made just
in the mid-way 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
10
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.
15
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
20
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
25
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
30
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
35
sixpence in earnest of the bearward 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,
40
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.
45
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
50
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 over-
55
mastered with a piece 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
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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 everything, and
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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
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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
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daylight.
LEONATO The revellers are entering, brother; make
good room. [Leonato and the men of his company mask.]
Enter DON PEDRO, CLAUDIO, BENEDICK, BALTHASAR,
BORACHIO, DON JOHN and others, masked, with a drum.
DON PEDRO Lady, will you walk a bout with your friend?
HERO So you walk softly, and look sweetly, and say
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nothing, I am yours for the walk; and especially when I walk away.
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 401