LEONATO’S orchard.
[Enter BENEDICK]
BENEDICK Boy!
[Enter Boy]
Boy Signior?
BENEDICK In my chamber-window lies a book:
bring it hither to me in the orchard.
Boy I am here already, sir.
BENEDICK I know that;
but I would have thee hence, and here again.
[Exit Boy]
I do much wonder that one man, seeing how much
another man is a fool when he dedicates his
behaviors to love, will, after he hath laughed at
such shallow follies in others, become the argument
of his own scorn by failing in love: and such a man
is Claudio. I have known when there was no music
with him but the drum and the fife; and now had he
rather hear the tabour and the pipe: I have known
when he would have walked ten mile a-foot to see a
good armour; and now will he lie ten nights awake,
carving the fashion of a new doublet. He was wont to
speak plain and to the purpose, like an honest man
and a soldier; and now is he turned orthography; his
words are a very fantastical banquet, just so many
strange dishes. May I be so converted and see with
these eyes? I cannot tell; I think not: I will not
be sworn, but love may transform me to an oyster; but
I’ll take my oath on it, till he have made an oyster
of me, he shall never make me such a fool. One woman
is fair, yet I am well; another is wise, yet I am
well; another virtuous, yet I am well; but till all
graces be in one woman, one woman shall not come in
my grace. Rich she shall be, that’s certain; wise,
or I’ll none; virtuous, or I’ll never cheapen her;
fair, or I’ll never look on her; mild, or come not
near me; noble, or not I for an angel; of good
discourse, an excellent musician, and her hair shall
be of what colour it please God. Ha! the prince and
Monsieur Love! I will hide me in the arbour.
[Withdraws]
[Enter DON PEDRO,
CLAUDIO, and LEONATO]
DON PEDRO Come, shall we hear this music?
CLAUDIO Yea,
my good lord. How still the evening is,
As hush’d on purpose to grace harmony!
DON PEDRO See you where Benedick hath hid himself?
CLAUDIO O, very well, my lord: the music ended,
We’ll fit the kid-fox with a pennyworth.
[Enter BALTHASAR with Music]
DON PEDRO Come, Balthasar, we’ll hear that song again.
BALTHASAR O, good my lord, tax not so bad a voice
To slander music any more than once.
DON PEDRO It is the witness still of excellency
To put a strange face on his own perfection.
I pray thee, sing, and let me woo no more.
There’s not a note of mine that’s worth the noting.
BENEDICK Now, divine air! now is his soul ravished!
Is it not strange that sheeps’ guts should hale souls out
of men’s bodies? Well, a horn for my money, when
all’s done.
[The Song]
BALTHASAR
Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,
Men were deceivers ever,
One foot in sea and one on shore,
To one thing constant never:
Then sigh not so, but let them go,
And be you blithe and bonny,
Converting all your sounds of woe
Into Hey nonny, nonny.
Sing no more ditties, sing no moe,
Of dumps so dull and heavy;
The fraud of men was ever so,
Since summer first was leafy:
Then sigh not so, &c.
DON PEDRO By my troth, a good song.
BALTHASAR And an ill singer, my lord.
DON PEDRO Ha, no, no, faith;
thou singest well enough for a shift.
BENEDICK An he had been a dog that should have
howled thus, they would have hanged him: and I pray
God his bad voice bode no mischief. I had as lief have
heard the night-raven, come what plague could have
come after it.
DON PEDRO Yea, marry, dost thou hear, Balthasar?
I pray thee, get us some excellent music; for to-morrow
night we would have it at the Lady Hero’s
chamber-window.
BALTHASAR The best I can, my lord.
DON PEDRO Do so: farewell.
[Exit BALTHASAR]
Come hither, Leonato. What was it you told me of
to-day, that your niece Beatrice was in love with
Signior Benedick?
CLAUDIO O, ay: stalk on. stalk on; the fowl sits.
I did never think that lady would have
loved any man.
LEONATO No, nor I neither; but most wonderful that
she should so dote on Signior Benedick, whom she
hath in all outward behaviors seemed ever to abhor.
BENEDICK Is’t possible? Sits the wind in that corner?
LEONATO By my troth, my lord, I cannot tell what to
think of it but that she loves him with an enraged
affection: it is past the infinite of thought.
DON PEDRO May be she doth but counterfeit.
CLAUDIO Faith, like enough.
LEONATO O God, counterfeit! There was never
counterfeit of passion came so near the life of passion
as she discovers it.
DON PEDRO Why, what effects of passion shows she?
CLAUDIO Bait the hook well; this fish will bite.
LEONATO What effects, my lord? She will sit you,
you heard my daughter tell you how.
CLAUDIO She did, indeed.
DON PEDRO How, how, pray you? You amaze me:
I would have I thought her spirit had been invincible
against all assaults of affection.
LEONATO I would have sworn it had, my lord;
especially against Benedick.
BENEDICK I should think this a gull, but that the
white-bearded fellow speaks it: knavery cannot,
sure, hide himself in such reverence.
CLAUDIO He hath ta’en the infection: hold it up.
DON PEDRO
Hath she made her affection known to Benedick?
LEONATO No;
and swears she never will: that’s her torment.
CLAUDIO ‘Tis true, indeed; so your daughter says:
‘Shall I,’ says she, ‘that have so oft encountered him
with scorn, write to him that I love him?’
LEONATO This says she now when she is beginning to
write to him; for she’ll be up twenty times a night, and
there will she sit in her smock till she have writ a
sheet of paper: my daughter tells us all.
CLAUDIO Now you talk of a sheet of paper, I remember
a pretty jest your daughter told us of.
LEONATO O, when she had writ it and was reading it
over, she found Benedick and Beatrice between the sheet?
CLAUDIO That.
LEONATO O, she tore the letter into a thousand halfpence;
railed at herself, that she should be so immodest
to write to one that she knew would flout her; ‘I
measure him,’ says she, ‘by my own spirit; for I
should flout him, if he writ to me; yea, though I
love him, I should.’
CLAUDIO Then down upon her knees she falls, weeps,
sobs, beats her heart, tears her hair, prays, curses; ‘O
sweet Benedick! God give me patience!’
LEONATO She doth indeed; my daughter says so:
and the ecstasy hath so much overborne her that my
daughter is sometime afeared she will do a desperate
outrage to herself: it is very true.
DON PEDRO It were good that Benedick knew of it by
some other, if she will not discover it.
CLAUDIO To what end? He would make but a sport of
it and torment the poor lady worse.
DON PEDRO An he should, it were an alms to hang him.
She’s an excellent sweet lady; and, out of all suspicion,
she is virtuous.
CLAUDIO And she is exceeding wise.
DON PEDRO In every thing but in loving Benedick.
LEONATO O, my lord, wisdom and blood combating
in so tender a body, we have ten proofs to one that
blood hath the victory. I am sorry for her, as I have just
cause, being her uncle and her guardian.
DON PEDRO I would she had bestowed this dotage on me:
I would have daffed all other respects and made her half
myself. I pray you, tell Benedick of it,
and hear what a’ will say.
LEONATO Were it good, think you?
CLAUDIO Hero thinks surely she will die; for she
says she will die, if he love her not, and she will die,
ere she make her love known, and she will die, if he
woo her, rather than she will bate one breath of her
accustomed crossness.
DON PEDRO She doth well: if she should make tender
of her love, ’tis very possible he’ll scorn it; for the
man, as you know all, hath a contemptible spirit.
CLAUDIO He is a very proper man.
DON PEDRO
He hath indeed a good outward happiness.
CLAUDIO Before God! and, in my mind, very wise.
DON PEDRO He doth indeed show some sparks that
are like wit.
DON PEDRO Well I am sorry for your niece. Shall
we go seek Benedick, and tell him of her love?
CLAUDIO Never tell him, my lord: let her wear it out
with good counsel.
LEONATO Nay, that’s impossible: she may wear
her heart out first.
DON PEDRO Well, we will hear further of it by
your daughter: let it cool the while. I love Benedick
well; and I could wish he would modestly examine
himself, to see how much he is unworthy so good a
lady.
LEONATO My lord, will you walk? dinner is ready.
CLAUDIO If he do not dote on her upon this,
I will never trust my expectation.
DON PEDRO Let there be the same net spread for her;
and that must your daughter and her gentlewomen carry.
The sport will be, when they hold one an opinion of
another’s dotage, and no such matter: that’s the
scene that I would see, which will be merely a
dumb-show. Let us send her to call him in to dinner.
[Exeunt DON PEDRO,
CLAUDIO, and LEONATO]
BENEDICK [Coming forward] This can be no trick: the
conference was sadly borne. They have the truth of
this from Hero. They seem to pity the lady: it
seems her affections have their full bent. Love me!
why, it must be requited. I hear how I am censured:
they say I will bear myself proudly, if I perceive
the love come from her; they say too that she will
rather die than give any sign of affection. I did
never think to marry: I must not seem proud: happy
are they that hear their detractions and can put
them to mending. They say the lady is fair; ’tis a
truth, I can bear them witness; and virtuous; ’tis
so, I cannot reprove it; and wise, but for loving
me; by my troth, it is no addition to her wit, nor
no great argument of her folly, for I will be
horribly in love with her. I may chance have some
odd quirks and remnants of wit broken on me,
because I have railed so long against marriage: but
doth not the appetite alter? a man loves the meat
in his youth that he cannot endure in his age.
Shall quips and sentences and these paper bullets of
the brain awe a man from the career of his humour?
No, the world must be peopled. When I said I would
die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I
were married. Here comes Beatrice. By this day!
she’s a fair lady: I do spy some marks of love in her.
[Enter BEATRICE]
BEATRICE Against my will I am sent to bid you
come in to dinner.
BENEDICK Fair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains.
BEATRICE I took no more pains for those thanks
than you take pains to thank me: if it had been painful,
I would not have come.
BENEDICK You take pleasure then in the message?
BEATRICE Yea,
just so much as you may take upon a knife’s
point and choke a daw withal. You have no
stomach, signior: fare you well.
[Exit]
BENEDICK Ha! ‘Against my will I am sent to bid you
come in to dinner;’ there’s a double meaning in that ‘I
took no more pains for those thanks than you took pains
to thank me.’ that’s as much as to say, Any pains
that I take for you is as easy as thanks. If I do
not take pity of her, I am a villain; if I do not
love her, I am a Jew. I will go get her picture.
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