That I crave death more willingly than mercy; Re-enter Provost, BARNARDINE, CLAUDIO, and Duke. Which is that Barnardine? that! Prov. This is another prisoner, that I sav'd, As like almost to Claudio as himself. [Unmuffles CLAUDIO, Duke. If he be like your brother, [To ISABELLA.] for his sake Is he pardon'd; and for your lovely sake, to the trick: If you will hang me for it, you may Duke. Whipp'd first, sir, and hang'd after.- Lucio. I beseech your highness, do not marry me Duke. Upon mine honor, thou shalt marry her. Lucio. Marrying a punk, my lord, is pressing to Duke Sland'ring a prince deserves it.- I have confess'd her, and I know her virtue.- Look that you love your wife; her worth, worth Forgive him, Angelo, that brought you home yours. I find an apt remission in myself: And yet here's one in place I cannot pardon: One all of luxury, an ass, a madman: Lucio. 'Faith, my lord, I spoke it but according The head of Ragozine for Claudio's; Thoughtless practice. SCENE I-Before Leonato's House. ACT I. Enter LEONATO, HERO, BEATRICE, and others. with a Messenger. Leonato. I learn in this letter, that don Pedro of Arragon comes this night to Messina. Mess. He is very near by this; he was not three leagues off, when I left him. Leon. How many gentlemen have you lost in this action? Mess. But few of any sort, and none of name. Leon. A victory is twice itself, when the achiever brings home full numbers. I find here that don Pedro hath bestowed much honor on a young Florentine, called Claudio. Mess. Much deserved on his part, and equally remembered by don Pedro: He hath borne himself beyond the promise of his age; doing, in the figure of a lamb, the feats of a lion: he hath, indeed, better bettered expectation, than you must expect of me to tell you how. Leon. He hath an uncle here in Messina will be very much glad of it. Mess. I have already delivered him letters, and there appears much joy in him; even so much, that joy could not show itself modest enough, without a badge of bitterness. Leon. Did he break out into tears? Leon. A kind overflow of kindness: There are no faces truer than those that are so washed. How much better is it to weep at joy, than to joy at weeping! Beat. I pray you, is signior Montanto returned from the wars, or no? Mess. I know none of that name, lady; there was none such in the army of any sort. Leon. What is he that you ask for, niece? Hero. My cousin means signior Benedick of Padua. Mess. O, he is returned; and as pleasant as ever he was. Beat. He set up his bills here in Messina, and 1 Abundance. challenged Cupid at the flight: and my uncle's fool, reading the challenge, subscribed for cupid, and challenged him at the bird-bolt.-I pray you, how many hath he killed and eaten in these wars? But how many hath he killed? for, indeed, I promised to eat all of his killing. Leon. Faith, niece, you tax signior Benedick too much; but he'll be meet with you, I doubt it not. Mess. He hath done good service, lady, in these wars. Beat. You had musty victual, and he hath holp to eat it: he is a very valuable trencher-man, he hath an excellent stomach. Mess. And a good soldier too, lady. Beat. And a good soldier to a lady:-But what is he to a lord? Mess. A lord to a lord, a man to a man; stuffed with all honorable virtues. Beat. It is so, indeed; he is no less than a stuffed man: but for the stuffing,-Well, we are all mortal. Leon. You must not, sir, mistake my niece: there is a kind of merry war betwixt signior Benedick and her: they never meet, but there is a skirmish of wit between them. Beat. Alas, he gets nothing by that. In our last conflict, four of his five wits went halting off, and now is the whole man governed with one: so that if he have wit enough to keep himself warm, let him bear it for a difference between himself and his horse: for it is all 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. Mess. He is most in the company of the right noble Claudio. Beat. O lord! he will hang upon him like a dis- Leon. You will never run mad, niece. Enter Don PEDRO attended by BALTHAZAR and D. Pedro. Good signior Leonato, you are come to meet your trouble: the fashion of the world is to avoid cost, and you encounter it. Leon. Never came trouble into my house in the likeness of your grace: for trouble being gone, comfort should remain: but, when you depart from me, sorrow abides, and happiness takes his leave. D. Pedro. You embrace your charge too willingly. I think, this is your daughter. Leon. Her mother hath many times told me so. Bene. Were you in doubt, sir, that you asked her? Leon. Signior Bencdick, no; for then were you a child. D. Pedro. You have it full. Benedick: we may guess by this what you are, being a man. Truly, the lady fathers herself: Be happy, lady! for you are like an honorable father. Bene. If signior Leonato be her father, she would not have his head on her shoulders, for all Messina, as like him as she is. Beat. I wonder that you will still be talking, signior Benedick; no body marks you. Bene. What my dear lady Disdain! are you yet living? Beat. Is it possible, disdain should die, while she hath such meet food to feed it, as signior Benedick! Courtesy itself must convert to disdain, if you come in her presence. Bene. Then is courtesy a turn-coat-But it is certain, I am loved of all ladies, only you excepted: and I would I could find in my heart that I had not a hard heart; for, truly, I love none. Beat. 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 humor for that; I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow, than a man swear he loves me. Bene. God keep your ladyship still in that mind! so some gentleman or other shall 'scape a predestinate scratched face. Beat. Scratching could not make it worse, an 'twere such a face as yours were. Bene. Well, you are a rare parrot-teacher. Beat. A bird of my tongue is better than a beast of yours. Bene. I would my horse had the speed of your tongue; and so good a continuer: But keep your way o' God's name; I have done. Beat. You always end with a jade's trick; I know you of old. D. Pedro. This is the sum of all: Don John. 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 swear he is no hypocrite, but prays from his heart. Leon. If you swear, my lord, you shall not be forsworn: Let me bid you welcome, my lord: being reconciled to the prince your brother, I owe you all duty. D. John. I thank you: I am not of many words, but I thank you. Leon. Please it your grace lead on? D. Pedro. Your hand. Leonato: we will go together. Exeunt all but BENEDICK and CLAUDIO. Bene. Why, i'faith, methinks she is too low for a high praise, too brown for a fair praise, and too little 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. Claud. Thou thinkest I am in sport; I pray thee, tell me truly how thou likest her. Bene. Would you buy her, that you inquire after her? Claud. Can the world buy such a jewel? Bene. Yea, and a case to put it into. But speak you this with a sad brow? or do you play the flouting Jack; 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? Claud. In mine eye, she is the sweetest lady hat ever I look'd on. Bene. I can see yet without spectacles, and I see no such matter: there's her cousin, an 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! Claud. I would scarce trust myself, though I had sworn the contrary, if Hero would be my wife. Bene. Is it come to this, i'faith? Hath not the world one man, but he will wear his cap with sus picion Shall I never see a bachelor of three-score again? Go to, i'faith; an 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. D. Pedro. I charge thee, on thy allegiance. Bene. 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 love. With who? now that is your With Hero, Leonato's short daughter. grace's part.-Mark, how short his answer is: Cland. If this were so, so were it uttered. Bene. Like the old tale, my lord: it is not so, or 'twas not so; but, indeed, God forbid it should be so. forbid it should be otherwise. D. Pedro. Amen, if you love her; for the lady is very well worthy. Cland. You speak this to fetch me in, my lord. D. Pedro. By my troth, I speak my thought. Claud. And, in faith, my lord, I spoke mine. Bene. And, by my two faiths and troths, my lord, I spoke mine. Claud. That I love her, I feel. D. Pedro. That she is worthy, I know Bene. 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. D. Pedro. Thou wast ever an obstinate heretic in the despite of beauty. Claud. And never could maintain his part, but in the force of his will. Bene. That a woman conceived me, I thank her; that she brought me up, I likewise give her most humble thanks: but that I will have a recheats winded in my forehead, or hang my bugle in an cause I will not do them the wrong to mistrust invisible baldrie, all women shall pardon me. Beany. I will do myself the right to trust none; and the fine is, (for the which I may go the finer,) I will live a bachelor. D. Pedro. I shall see thee, ere I die, look pale with love. Claud. Benedick, didst thou note the daughter my lord! not with love: prove, that ever 1 lose more Bene. With anger, with sickness, or with hunger, of signior Leonato? Bene. I noted her not; but I looked on her. Claud. Is she not a modest young lady? Bene. Do you question me, as an honest man should do, for my simple, true judgment; or would you have me speak after my custom, as being a professed tyrant to their sex? Claud. No, I pray thee, speak in sober judgment. 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. D. Pedro. Well, if ever thou dost fall from this faith, thou wilt prove a notable argument, 4 The tune sounded to call off the dogs. Bene. If I do, hang me in a bottle like a cat, and shoot at me; and he that hit's me, let him be clapped on the shoulder, and called Adam.s D. Pedro. Well, as time shall try: Bene. 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 horse to hire, let them signify under my sign, Here you may see Benedick, the married man. Claud. If this should ever happen, thou wouldst be horn-mad. D. Pedro. Nay, if Cupid have not spent all his quiver in Venice, thou wilt quake for this shortly. Bene. I look for an earthquake too then. D. 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 not fail him at supper; for, indeed, he hath made great preparation. Bene. I have almost matter enough in me for such an embassage; and so I commit youClaud. To the tuition of God: From my house, (if I had it,)— D. Pedro. The sixth of July: Your loving friend, Benedick. Bene. 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 flout old ends any further, examine your conscience; and so I leave you. [Exit BENEDICK. Claud. My liege, your highness now may do me good. D. Pedro. My love is thine to teach; teach it but how, And thou shalt see how apt it is to learn alley in my orchard, were thus much overheard by a man of nine: The prince discovered to Claudio, that he loved 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. Leon. Hath the fellow any wit, that told you this? Ant. A good sharp fellow; I will send for him, and question him yourself. Leon. 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 peradventure this be true. Go you, and tell her of it. Several persons cross the stuge.] Cousins, you know what you have to do.-6, I cry you mercy, friend; you go with me, and I will use your skill:- Good cousins, have a care this busy time. [Exeunt. SCENE III.-Another Room in Leonato's House. Enter Don JOHN and CONRADE. Con. What the goujere, my lord! why are you thus out of measure sad? D. John. There is no measure in the occasion that breeds it, therefore the sadness is without limit. Con. You should hear reason. D. John. And when I have heard it, what blessing bringeth it? Con. If not a present remedy, yet a patient sufferance. D. John. I wonder that thou being (as thou say'st 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, and tend to no man's business: laugh when I am merry, and claw no man in his D. Pedro. No child but Hero, she's his only heir; humor. Dost thou affect her, Claudio? Claud. O my lord, D. Pedro. Thou wilt be like a lover presently, Claud. How sweetly do you minister to love, That know love's grief by his complexion! But lest my liking might too sudden seem, I would have salved it with a longer treatise. D. Pedro. What need the bridge much broader than the flood? The fairest grant is the necessity: Look, what will serve, is fit: 'tis once, thou lov'st; And I will fit thee with the remedy. I know, we shall have revelling to-night; I will assume thy part in some disguise, And tell fair Hero I am Claudio ; [Exeunt. Con. 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 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. D. John. I had rather be a canker in a hedge, than a rose 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 that I am a plain-dealing villain. I am trusted with a muzzle, and enfranchised 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 mean time, let me be that I am, and seek not to alter me. Con. Can you make no use of your discontent? D. John. I make all use of it, for I use it only. Who comes here? What news Borachio? Enter BORACHIO. Bora. I came yonder from a great supper; the prince, your brother, is royally entertained by Leonato; and I can give you intelligence of an intended marriage. D. John. Will it serve for any model to build mischief on? What is he for a fool, that betroths himself to unquietness? Bora. Marry, it is your brother's right hand. D. John. A proper squire! And who, and who? which way looks he? Bora. Marry, on Hero, the daughter and heir of Leonato. D. John. A very forward March-chick! How came you to this? Bora. 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 whipt 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. D. John. Cone, 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 The veneral disease. • Flatter. him any way, I bless myself every way: You are | is the greater, that I am subdued: Would the cook were of my mind!-Shall we go prove what's to be both sure, and will assist me? done? Bora. We'll wait upon your lordship. [Exeunt. Con. To the death, my lord. D. John. Let us to the great supper; their cheer ACT II. SCENE I-A Hall in Leonato's House. Enter LEONATO, ANTONIO, HERO, BEATRICE and others. Leon. Was not count John here at supper? Beat. 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. Beut. 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. Leon. Then half signior Benedick's tongue in count John's mouth, and half count John's melancholy in signior Benedick's face, Beat. 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 he could get her good will. Leon. By my troth, niece, thou wilt never get thee a husband, if thou be so shrewd of thy tongue. Ant. In faith, she is too curst. Beat. Too curst is more than curst: I shall lesson 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. Leon. So, by being too curst, God will send you no horns. Beat. 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; had rather lie in the woollen. Leon. You may light upon a husband that hath no beard. Beat. 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 bear-herd, and lead bis apes into hell. Leon. Well then, go you into hell? Beat. 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 mails: 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. Ant. Well, niece, [To HERO.] I trust you will be ruled by your father. Beat. Yes, it is my cousin's duty to make courtesy. and say, Father, as it please you:-but yet for all that, cousin, let him be a handsome fellow, or else make another, courtesy, and say, Father, as it please me. Leon. Well, niece, I hope to see you one day fitted with a husband. Beat. Not till God make men of some other metal than earth. Would it not grieve a woman to be overmaster'd 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. Leon. Daughter, remember what I told you: if the prince do solicit you in that kind, you know your answers. Beat. The fan!t will be in the music, cousin, if you be not woo'd in good time: if the Prince be too important tell him, there is measure in every For hear me, thing, and so dance out the answer. Hero; Wooing, wedding, and repenting, is as a Importunate. Scotch jig, a measure, and 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 ancientry; and then comes repentance, and, with his bad legs, falls into the cinque-pace faster and faster, till he sink into his grave. Leon. Cousin, you apprehend passing shrewdly. Beat. I have a good eye, uncle; I can see a church by day-light. Leon. The revellers are entering; brother, make good room. Enter Don PEDRO, CLAUDIO, BENEDICK, BAL- D. Pedro. Lady, will you walk about 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. D. Pedro. With me in your company? Hero. I may say so when I please. D. Pedro. And when please you to say so? Hero. When I like your favor; for God defend, the lute should be like the case! D. Pedro My visor is Philemon's roof; within the house is Jove. Hero. Why, then your visor should be thatch'd. Bene. Well, I would you did like me. Bene. Which is one! Marg. I say my prayers aloud. Bene. I love you the better; the hearers may cry Amen. Murg. God match me with a good dancer! Balth. Amen. Marg. And God keep him out of my sight, when the dance is done!-Answer, clerk. Balth. No more words; the clerk is answered. Urs. I know you well enough; you are signior Antonio. Ant. At a word, I am not. Urs. I know you by the waggling of your head, Urs. 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, Ant. At a word, I am not. Urs. 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. Beat. Will you not tell me who told you so? Beat. Nor will you not tell me who you are? Bene. What's he? Beat. I am sure, you know him well enough. Beat. Did he never make you laugh? Beat. Why, he is the prince's jester: a very dull 2 Accosted. |