The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works
Page 409
me, so think of me. Go comfort your cousin; I must
say she is dead: and so farewell. Exeunt.
4.2 Enter the constables, DOGBERRY and VERGES, and the SEXTON as town clerk in gowns, BORACHIO, CONRADE and the WATCH.
DOGBERRY Is our whole dissembly appeared?
VERGES O, a stool and a cushion for the sexton.
SEXTON Which be the malefactors?
DOGBERRY Marry, that am I and my partner.
VERGES Nay, that’s certain, we have the exhibition to
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examine.
SEXTON But which are the offenders that are to be
examined? Let them come before Master Constable.
DOGBERRY Yea, marry, let them come before me. What
is your name, friend?
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BORACHIO Borachio.
DOGBERRY Pray write down ‘Borachio’. Yours, sirrah?
CONRADE I am a gentleman, sir, and my name is Conrade.
DOGBERRY Write down ‘Master gentleman Conrade’.
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Masters, do you serve God?
CONRADE, BORACHIO Yea, sir, we hope.
DOGBERRY Write down that they hope they serve God:
and write ‘God’ first, for God defend but God should
go before such villains! Masters, it is proved already
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that you are little better than false knaves, and it will
go near to be thought so shortly. How answer you for
yourselves?
CONRADE Marry, sir, we say we are none.
DOGBERRY A marvellous witty fellow, I assure you, but
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I will go about with him. Come you hither, sirrah, a
word in your ear, sir; I say to you, it is thought you are
false knaves.
BORACHIO Sir, I say to you we are none.
DOGBERRY Well, stand aside. ’Fore God, they are both
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in a tale. Have you writ down that they are none?
SEXTON Master Constable, you go not the way to
examine; you must call forth the watch that are their
accusers.
DOGBERRY Yea, marry, that’s the eftest way. Let the
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watch come forth. Masters, I charge you in the
Prince’s name, accuse these men.
1 WATCHMAN This man said, sir, that Don John the
Prince’s brother was a villain.
DOGBERRY Write down ‘Prince John a villain’. Why, this
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is flat perjury, to call a prince’s brother villain.
BORACHIO Master Constable –
DOGBERRY Pray thee, fellow, peace, I do not like thy
look, I promise thee.
SEXTON What heard you him say else?
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2 WATCHMAN Marry, that he had received a thousand
ducats of Don John for accusing the Lady Hero
wrongfully.
DOGBERRY Flat burglary as ever was committed.
VERGES Yea, by mass, that it is.
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SEXTON What else, fellow?
1 WATCHMAN And that Count Claudio did mean, upon
his words, to disgrace Hero before the whole
assembly, and not marry her.
DOGBERRY O villain! Thou wilt be condemned into
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everlasting redemption for this.
SEXTON What else?
A WATCHMAN This is all.
SEXTON And this is more, masters, than you can deny.
Prince John is this morning secretly stolen away:
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Hero was in this manner accused, in this very
manner refused, and upon the grief of this suddenly
died. Master Constable, let these men be bound and
brought to Leonato’s; I will go before and show him
their examination. Exit.
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DOGBERRY Come, let them be opinioned.
VERGES Let them be in the hands –
CONRADE Off, coxcomb!
DOGBERRY God’s my life, where’s the sexton? Let him
write down ‘the Prince’s officer coxcomb’. Come, bind
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them. Thou naughty varlet!
CONRADE Away! You are an ass, you are an ass.
DOGBERRY Dost thou not suspect my place? Dost thou
not suspect my years? O that he were here to write me
down an ass! But masters, remember that I am an
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ass: though it be not written down, yet forget not
that I am an ass. No, thou villain, thou art full of piety,
as shall be proved upon thee by good witness. I am a
wise fellow, and which is more, an officer, and which is
more, a householder, and which is more, as pretty a
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piece of flesh as any is in Messina, and one that knows
the law, go to, and a rich fellow enough, go to, and a
fellow that hath had losses, and one that hath two
gowns, and everything handsome about him. Bring
him away! O that I had been writ down an ass!
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Exeunt.
5.1 Enter LEONATO and ANTONIO.
ANTONIO If you go on thus, you will kill yourself,
And ’tis not wisdom thus to second grief
Against yourself.
LEONATO I pray thee cease thy counsel,
Which falls into mine ears as profitless
As water in a sieve. Give not me counsel,
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Nor let no comforter delight mine ear
But such a one whose wrongs do suit with mine.
Bring me a father that so lov’d his child,
Whose joy of her is overwhelm’d like mine,
And bid him speak of patience;
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Measure his woe the length and breadth of mine,
And let it answer every strain for strain,
As thus for thus, and such a grief for such,
In every lineament, branch, shape, and form.
If such a one will smile and stroke his beard,
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Bid sorrow wag, cry ‘Hem!’ when he should groan,
Patch grief with proverbs, make misfortune drunk
With candle-wasters, bring him yet to me,
And I of him will gather patience.
But there is no such man: for, brother, men
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Can counsel and speak comfort to that grief
Which they themselves not feel; but tasting it,
Their counsel turns to passion, which before
Would give preceptial medicine to rage,
Fetter strong madness in a silken thread,
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Charm ache with air, and agony with words.
No, no, ’tis all men’s office to speak patience
To those that wring under the load of sorrow,
But no man’s virtue nor sufficiency
To be so moral when he shall endure
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The like himself. Therefore give me no counsel:
My griefs cry louder than advertisement.
ANTONIO
Therein do men from children nothing differ.
LEONATO I pray thee peace, I will be flesh and blood;
For there was never yet philosopher
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That could endure the toothache patiently,
However they have writ the style of gods,
And made a push at chance and sufferance.
ANTONIO Yet bend not all the harm upon yourself;
Make those that do offend you suffer too.
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LEONATO There thou speak’st reason: nay, I will do so.
My soul doth tell me Hero is belied;
And that shall Claudio know, so shall the Prince,
And all of them that thus dishonour her.
Enter DON PEDRO
and CLAUDIO.
ANTONIO Here comes the Prince and Claudio hastily.
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DON PEDRO Good den, good den.
CLAUDIO Good day to both of you.
LEONATO Hear you, my lords –
DON PEDRO We have some haste, Leonato.
LEONATO
Some haste, my lord? Well, fare you well, my lord!
Are you so hasty now? Well, all is one.
DON PEDRO
Nay, do not quarrel with us, good old man.
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ANTONIO If he could right himself with quarrelling,
Some of us would lie low.
CLAUDIO Who wrongs him?
LEONATO
Marry, thou dost wrong me, thou dissembler, thou!
Nay, never lay thy hand upon thy sword,
I fear thee not.
CLAUDIO Marry, beshrew my hand
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If it should give your age such cause of fear.
In faith, my hand meant nothing to my sword.
LEONATO Tush, tush, man, never fleer and jest at me!
I speak not like a dotard nor a fool,
As under privilege of age to brag
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What I have done being young, or what would do
Were I not old. Know, Claudio, to thy head,
Thou hast so wrong’d mine innocent child and me,
That I am forc’d to lay my reverence by,
And with grey hairs and bruise of many days
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Do challenge thee to trial of a man.
I say thou hast belied mine innocent child;
Thy slander hath gone through and through her heart,
And she lies buried with her ancestors –
O, in a tomb where never scandal slept,
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Save this of hers, fram’d by thy villainy!
CLAUDIO My villainy?
LEONATO Thine, Claudio; thine, I say.
DON PEDRO You say not right, old man.
LEONATO My lord, my lord,
I’ll prove it on his body if he dare,
Despite his nice fence and his active practice,
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His May of youth and bloom of lustihood.
CLAUDIO Away! I will not have to do with you.
LEONATO
Canst thou so daff me? Thou hast kill’d my child;
If thou kill’st me, boy, thou shalt kill a man.
ANTONIO He shall kill two of us, and men indeed:
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But that’s no matter, let him kill one first.
Win me and wear me, let him answer me.
Come follow me, boy, come, sir boy, come follow me,
Sir boy, I’ll whip you from your foining fence,
Nay, as I am a gentleman, I will.
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LEONATO Brother –
ANTONIO
Content yourself. God knows I lov’d my niece,
And she is dead, slander’d to death by villains,
That dare as well answer a man indeed
As I dare take a serpent by the tongue.
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Boys, apes, braggarts, Jacks, milksops!
LEONATO Brother Antony –
ANTONIO
Hold you content. What, man! I know them, yea,
And what they weigh, even to the utmost scruple,
Scambling, outfacing, fashion-monging boys,
That lie, and cog, and flout, deprave, and slander,
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Go anticly, and show outward hideousness,
And speak off half a dozen dang’rous words,
How they might hurt their enemies, if they durst,
And this is all.
LEONATO But brother Antony –
ANTONIO Come, ’tis no matter;
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Do not you meddle, let me deal in this.
DON PEDRO
Gentlemen both, we will not wake your patience.
My heart is sorry for your daughter’s death;
But on my honour she was charg’d with nothing
But what was true, and very full of proof.
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LEONATO My lord, my lord –
DON PEDRO I will not hear you.
LEONATO No? Come, brother, away! I will be heard.
ANTONIO And shall, or some of us will smart for it.
Exeunt Leonato and Antonio.
Enter BENEDICK.
DON PEDRO See, see! Here comes the man we went to seek.
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CLAUDIO Now, signior, what news?
BENEDICK Good day, my lord.
DON PEDRO Welcome, signior; you are almost come to
part almost a fray.
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CLAUDIO We had like to have had our two noses
snapped off with two old men without teeth.
DON PEDRO Leonato and his brother. What think’st