The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works

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The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 401

by William Shakespeare


  When you went onward on this ended action,

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  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

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  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?

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  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

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  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.

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  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

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  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

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  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

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  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?

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  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;

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  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.

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  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

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  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

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  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

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  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

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  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,

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  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.

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  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

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  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-

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  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.

 

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