The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works

by William Shakespeare

  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.

  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 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 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 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?

  CONRAD To the death, my lord.

  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, 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 heartburned an hour after.

  HERO He is of a very melancholy disposition.

  BEATRICE He were an excellent man that were made just in the midway 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 Signor Benedick’s tongue in Count John’s mouth, and half Count John’s melancholy in Signor 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.

  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 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 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 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 sixpence in earnest of the bearherd 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, 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 fore the heavens. He shows me where the bachelors sit, and there live we as merry as the day is long.

  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 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 mettle than earth. Would it not grieve a woman to be overmastered 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 (to Hero) Daughter, remember what I told you. If the 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 so dance out the answer. For hear me, Hero, wooing, wedding, and repenting is as a Scotch jig, a measure, and a cinquepace. 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 ancientry. And then comes repentance, and with his bad legs falls into the cinquepace 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 daylight.

  LEONATO The revellers are entering, brother. Make good room.

  Enter Don Pedro, Claudio, Benedick, and Balthasar, all masked, Don John, and Borachio, ⌈with a drummer⌉

  DON PEDRO (to Hero) Lady, will you walk a bout with your friend?

  HERO So you walk softly, and look sweetly, and say nothing, I am yours for the walk; and especially when I walk away.

  DON PEDRO With me in your company?

  HERO I may say so when I please.

  DON PEDRO And when please you to say so?

  HERO When I like your favour; for God defend the lute should be like the case.

  DON PEDRO

  My visor is Philemon’s roof. Within the house is Jove.

  HERO

  Why, then, your visor should be thatched.

  DON PEDRO Speak low if you speak love. They move aside

  ⌈BALTHASAR⌉ (to Margaret) Well, I would you did like me.

  MARGARET So would not I, for your own sake, for I have many ill qualities.

  ⌈BALTHASAR⌉ Which is one?

  MARGARET I say my prayers aloud.

  ⌈BALTHASAR⌉ I love you the better—the hearers may cry amen.

  MARGARET God match me with a good dancer.

  BALTHASAR Amen.

  MARGARET And God keep him. out of my sight when the dance is done. Answer, clerk.

  BALTHASAR No more words. The clerk is answered. They move aside

  URSULA (to Antonio) I know you well enough, you are Signor Antonio.

  ANTONIO At a word, I am not.

  URSULA I know you by the waggling of your head.

  ANTONIO To tell you true, I counterfeit him.

  URSULA You could never do him so ill-well unless you were the very man. Here’s his dry hand up and down. You are he, you are he.

  ANTONIO At a word, I am not.

  URSULA Come, come, do you think I do not know you by your excellent wit? Can virtue hide itself? Go to, mum, you are he. Graces will appear, and there’s an end.

  They move aside

  BEATRICE (to Benedick) Will you not tell me who told you so? 115 BENEDICK No, you shall pardon me.

  BEATRICE Nor will you not tell me who you are?

  BENEDICK Not now.

  BEATRICE That I was disdainful, and that I had my good wit out of the Hundred Merry Tales—well, this was Signor Benedick that said so. BENEDICK What’s he?

  BEATRICE I am sure you know him well enough.

  BENEDICK Not I, believe me.

  BEATRICE Did he never make you laugh?

  BENEDICK I pray you, what is he?

  BEATRICE Why, he is the Prince’s jester, a very dull fool. Only his gift is in devising impossible slanders. None but libertines delight in him, and the commendation is not in his wit but in his villainy, for he both pleases men and angers them, and then they laugh at him, and beat him. I am sure he is in the fleet. I would he had boarded me.

  BENEDICK When I know the gentleman, I’ll tell him what you say.

  BEATRICE Do, do. He’ll but break a comparison or two on me, w
hich peradventure not marked, or not laughed at, strikes him into melancholy, and then there’s a partridge wing saved, for the fool will eat no supper that night.⌈Music⌉

  We must follow the leaders.

  BENEDICK In every good thing.

  BEATRICE Nay, if they lead to any ill I will leave them at the next turning.

  Dance. Exeunt all but Don John, Borachio, and Claudio

  DON JOHN (aside to Borachio) Sure my brother is amorous on Hero, and hath withdrawn her father to break with him about it. The ladies follow her, and but one visor remains.

  BORACHIO (aside to Don John) And that is Claudio. I know him by his bearing.

  DON JOHN Are not you Signor Benedick?

  CLAUDIO You know me well. I am he.

  DON JOHN Signor, you are very near my brother in his love. He is enamoured on Hero. I pray you dissuade him from her. She is no equal for his birth. You may do the part of an honest man in it.

  CLAUDIO How know you he loves her?

  DON JOHN I heard him swear his affection.

  BORACHIO So did I, too, and he swore he would marry her tonight.

  DON JOHN Come, let us to the banquet. Exeunt all but Claudio

  CLAUDIO

  Thus answer I in name of Benedick,

  But hear these ill news with the ears of Claudio.

  ’Tis certain so, the Prince woos for himself.

  Friendship is constant in all other things

  Save in the office and affairs of love.

  Therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues.

  Let every eye negotiate for itself,

  And trust no agent; for beauty is a witch

  Against whose charms faith melteth into blood.

  This is an accident of hourly proof,

  Which I mistrusted not. Farewell, therefore, Hero.

  Enter Benedick

  BENEDICK Count Claudio?

  CLAUDIO Yea, the same.

  BENEDICK Come, will you go with me?

  CLAUDIO Whither?

  BENEDICK Even to the next willow, about your own business, County. What fashion will you wear the garland of? About your neck, like an usurer’s chain? Or under your arm, like a lieutenant’s scarf? You must wear it one way, for the Prince hath got your Hero.

  CLAUDIO I wish him joy of her.

  BENEDICK Why, that’s spoken like an honest drover; so they sell bullocks. But did you think the Prince would have served you thus?

  CLAUDIO I pray you leave me.

  BENEDICK Ho, now you strike like the blind man—’twas the boy that stole your meat, and you’ll beat the post.

  CLAUDIO If it will not be, I’ll leave you. Exit

  BENEDICK Alas, poor hurt fowl, now will he creep into sedges. But that my Lady Beatrice should know me, and not know me! The Prince’s fool! Ha, it may be I go under that title because I am merry. Yea, but so I am apt to do myself wrong. I am not so reputed. It is the base, though bitter, disposition of Beatrice that puts the world into her person, and so gives me out. Well, I’ll be revenged as I may. Enter Don Pedro the Prince

  DON PEDRO Now, signor, where’s the Count? Did you see him?

  BENEDICK Troth, my lord, I have played the part of Lady Fame. I found him here as melancholy as a lodge in a warren. I told him—and I think I told him true—that your grace had got the good will of this young lady, and I offered him my company to a willow tree, either to make him a garland, as being forsaken, or to bind him up a rod, as being worthy to be whipped.

  DON PEDRO To be whipped—what’s his fault?

  BENEDICK The flat transgression of a schoolboy who, being overjoyed with finding a bird’s nest, shows it his companion, and he steals it.

  DON PEDRO Wilt thou make a trust a transgression? The transgression is in the stealer.

  BENEDICK Yet it had not been amiss the rod had been made, and the garland too, for the garland he might have worn himself, and the rod he might have bestowed on you, who, as I take it, have stolen his bird’s nest.

  DON PEDRO I will but teach them to sing, and restore them to the owner.

  BENEDICK If their singing answer your saying, by my faith you say honestly.

  DON PEDRO The Lady Beatrice hath a quarrel to you. The gentleman that danced with her told her she is much wronged by you.

  BENEDICK O, she misused me past the endurance of a block. An oak but with one green leaf on it would have answered her. My very visor began to assume life and scold with her. She told me—not thinking I had been myself—that I was the Prince’s jester, that I was duller than a great thaw, huddling jest upon jest with such impossible conveyance upon me that I stood like a man at a mark, with a whole army shooting at me. She speaks poniards, and every word stabs. If her breath were as terrible as her terminations, there were no living near her, she would infect to the North Star. I would not marry her though she were endowed with all that Adam had left him before he transgressed. She would have made Hercules have turned spit, yea, and have cleft his club to make the fire, too. Come, talk not of her. You shall find her the infernal Ate in good apparel. I would to God some scholar would conjure her, for certainly, while she is here a man may live as quiet in hell as in a sanctuary, and people sin upon purpose because they would go thither, so indeed all disquiet, horror, and perturbation follows her. Enter Claudio and Beatrice, ⌈and Leonato with Hero⌉

  DON PEDRO Look, here she comes.

  BENEDICK Will your grace command me any service to the world’s end? I will go on the slightest errand now to the Antipodes that you can devise to send me on. I will fetch you a tooth-picker now from the furthest inch of Asia, bring you the length of Prester John’s foot, fetch you a hair off the Great Cham’s beard, do you any embassage to the pigmies, rather than hold three words’ conference with this harpy. You have no employment for me?

  DON PEDRO None but to desire your good company.

  BENEDICK O God, sir, here’s a dish I love not. I cannot endure my Lady Tongue. Exit

  DON PEDRO Come, lady, come, you have lost the heart of Signor Benedick.

  BEATRICE Indeed, my lord, he lent it me a while, and I gave him use for it, a double heart for his single one. Marry, once before he won it of me, with false dice. Therefore your grace may well say I have lost it.

  DON PEDRO You have put him down, lady, you have put him down.

  BEATRICE So I would not he should do me, my lord, lest I should prove the mother of fools. I have brought Count Claudio, whom you sent me to seek.

  DON PEDRO Why, how now, Count, wherefore are you sad?

  CLAUDIO Not sad, my lord.

  DON PEDRO How then? Sick?

  CLAUDIO Neither, my lord.

  BEATRICE The Count is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor well, but civil count, civil as an orange, and something of that jealous complexion.

  DON PEDRO I’faith, lady, I think your blazon to be true, though I’ll be sworn, if he be so, his conceit is false. Here, Claudio, I have wooed in thy name, and fair Hero is won. I have broke with her father and his good will obtained. Name the day of marriage, and God give thee joy.

  LEONATO Count, take of me my daughter, and with her my fortunes. His grace hath made the match, and all grace say amen to it.

  BEATRICE Speak, Count, ’tis your cue.

  CLAUDIO Silence is the perfectest herald of joy. I were but little happy if I could say how much. (To Hero) Lady, as you are mine, I am yours. I give away myself for you, and dote upon the exchange.

  BEATRICE (to Hero) Speak, cousin. Or, if you cannot, stop his mouth with a kiss, and let not him speak, neither.

  DON PEDRO In faith, lady, you have a merry heart.

  BEATRICE Yea, my lord, I thank it. Poor fool, it keeps on the windy side of care.—My cousin tells him in his ear that he is in her heart.

  CLAUDIO And so she doth, cousin.

  BEATRICE Good Lord, for alliance! Thus goes everyone to the world but I, and I am sunburnt. I may sit in a corner and cry ‘Heigh-ho for a husband’.

  DON PEDRO Lady Beatrice, I will get
you one.

  BEATRICE I would rather have one of your father’s getting. Hath your grace ne’er a brother like you? Your father got excellent husbands if a maid could come by them.

  DON PEDRO Will you have me, lady?

  BEATRICE No, my lord, unless I might have another for working days. Your grace is too costly to wear every day. But I beseech your grace, pardon me. I was born to speak all mirth and no matter.

  DON PEDRO Your silence most offends me, and to be merry best becomes you; for out o’ question, you were born in a merry hour.

  BEATRICE No, sure, my lord, my mother cried. But then there was a star danced, and under that was I born. (To Hero and Claudio) Cousins, God give you joy.

  LEONATO Niece, will you look to those things I told you of?

  BEATRICE I cry you mercy, uncle. (To Don Pedro) By your grace’s pardon. Exit Beatrice

  DON PEDRO By my troth, a pleasant-spirited lady.

  LEONATO There’s little of the melancholy element in her, my lord. She is never sad but when she sleeps, and not ever sad then; for I have heard my daughter say she hath often dreamt of unhappiness and waked herself with laughing.

  DON PEDRO She cannot endure to hear tell of a husband.

  LEONATO O, by no means. She mocks all her wooers out of suit.

  DON PEDRO She were an excellent wife for Benedick.

  LEONATO O Lord, my lord, if they were but a week married they would talk themselves mad.

  DON PEDRO County Claudio, when mean you to go to church?

  CLAUDIO Tomorrow, my lord. Time goes on crutches till love have all his rites.

  LEONATO Not till Monday, my dear son, which is hence a just sevennight, and a time too brief, too, to have all things answer my mind.

  DON PEDRO Come, you shake the head at so long a breathing, but I warrant thee, Claudio, the time shall not go dully by us. I will in the interim undertake one of Hercules’ labours, which is to bring Signor Benedick and the Lady Beatrice into a mountain of affection th‘one with th’other. I would fain have it a match, and I doubt not but to fashion it, if you three will but minister such assistance as I shall give you direction.

  LEONATO My lord, I am for you, though it cost me ten nights’ watchings.