ACT I
Sc. I

BENE. Is't come to this? In faith, hath not the World one man but he will wear his cap with suspicion ?1 Shall I never see a bachelor of threescore 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 return'd to seek you.

Re-enter DON PEDRO and JOHN the Bastard.

D. PEDRO. What secret hath held you here that you
follow'd not to Leonato's?

BENE. I would your Grace would constrain me to tell.
D. PEDRO. I charge thee on thy allegiance.

188

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 Grace's part. Mark how short his answer is: with Hero, Leonato's short daughter.

CLAUD. If this were so, so were it utter'd.

BENE. Like the old tale, my Lord: It is not so, nor 'twas not so; but, indeed, God forbid it should be so.

CLAUD. If my passion change not shortly, God forbid it should be otherwise.

D. PEDRO. Amen, if you love her; for the lady is very well worthy.

CLAUD. 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.

201

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.

208

BENE. That I neither feel how she should be lov'd, 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 conceiv'd me, I thank her; that

1 that he is horned, for that another shares the wearing of it.

2

she brought me up, I likewise give her most humble thanks but that I will have a recheat1 winded in my forehead, or hang my bugle3 in an invisible baldrick, all women shall pardon me. Because I will not do them the wrong to mistrust any, 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.

223

D. PEDRO. I shall see thee, ere I die, look pale with
love.

BENE. With anger, with sickness, or with hunger, my
Lord; not with love: prove that ever I lose more
blood with love than I will get again with drinking—
pick out mine eyes with a
with a ballad-maker's pen, and
hang me up at the door of a brothel-house for the sign
of Blind Cupid!

230

D. PEDRO. Well, if ever thou dost fall from this faith, thou wilt prove a notable argument."

BENE. If I do, hang me in a bottle like a cat, and shoot at me; and he that hits me, let him be clapp'd on the shoulder, and call'd Adam.®

D. PEDRO. Well, as Time shall try:

In time the savage bull doth bear the yoke.

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.

243

CLAUD. If this should ever happen, thou would'st 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.

253

BENE. I have almost matters enough in me for such an embassage and so I commit you—

ACT I

Sc. I

ACT I
Sc. I

CLAUD. To the tuition of God: From my house (if I had it)

259

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

Any hard lesson that may do thee good.
CLAUD. Hath Leonato any son, my Lord?

D. PEDRO. No child but Hero, she's his only heir:
Dost thou affect her, Claudio?

CLAUD.

O my Lord,
When you went onward on this ended action,

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
Come thronging soft and delicate desires,
All prompting me how fair young Hero is,
Saying I lik'd her ere I went to wars.
D. PEDRO. Thou wilt be like a lover presently,
And tire the hearer with a book of words.
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 begann'st to twist so fine a story?
CLAUD. HOW Ssweetly do you minister to Love,
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.

270

280

290

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,3 thou lov'st,

1 trimmed.

2 tags from letters and scraps from plays. 3 settled once for all.

Enter LEONATO and ANTONIO his Brother.

LEON. How now, Brother? Where is my cousin, your son? Hath he provided this music?

ANT. He is very busy about it. But, Brother, I can tell you news that you yet dream'd not of.

LEON. Are they good?

ANT. As the event stamps them; but they have a good cover, they shew well outward. The Prince and Count Claudio, walking in a thick-pleach'd' alley in my orchard, were thus overheard by a man of mine: the Prince discover'd to Claudio that he lov'd 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.

14

LEON. Hath the fellow any wit2 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 prepar'd for an answer, if peradventure this be true. Go you, and tell her of it. [Several persons cross the stage.] Cousins, you know what you have to do. O, I cry you mercy, Friend; go you with me, and I will use your skill. Good Cousins, have a care this busy time.

1 close-hedged.

[exeunt.

2 brains.

ACT I
Sc. III

SCENE III. The Same.

Enter JOHN the Bastard and CONRADE his Companion. CON. What the good-year,1 my Lord! why are you thus out of measure sad?

D. JOHN. There is no measure in the occasion that breeds; 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, go'st 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
on no man's business; laugh when I am merry, and
claw2 no man in his humour.

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.

23

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 disdain'd 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 enfranchis'd 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.

CON. Can you make no use of your discontent?

34

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