Complete Plays, The (396 page)

Don Pedro

Look, here she comes.

Enter Claudio, Beatrice, Hero, and Leonato

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
Signior Benedick.

Beatrice

Indeed, my lord, he lent it me awhile; 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 an 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. Lady, as you are mine, I am yours: I give away myself for you and dote upon the exchange.

Beatrice

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 every one 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 of 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. Cousins, God give you joy!

Leonato

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

Beatrice

I cry you mercy, uncle. By your grace’s pardon.

Exit

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 dreamed 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 Benedict.

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

To-morrow, my lord: time goes on crutches till love have all his rites.

Leonato

Not till Monday, my dear son, which is hence a just seven-night; 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 Signior Benedick and the Lady Beatrice into a mountain of affection the one with the 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.

Claudio

And I, my lord.

Don Pedro

And you too, gentle Hero?

Hero

I will do any modest office, my lord, to help my cousin to a good husband.

Don Pedro

And Benedick is not the unhopefullest husband that I know. Thus far can I praise him; he is of a noble strain, of approved valour and confirmed honesty. I will teach you how to humour your cousin, that she shall fall in love with Benedick; and I, with your two helps, will so practise on Benedick that, in despite of his quick wit and his queasy stomach, he shall fall in love with Beatrice. If we can do this, Cupid is no longer an archer: hi s glory shall be ours, for we are the only love-gods. Go in with me, and I will tell you my drift.

Exeunt

S
CENE
II. T
HE
SAME
.

Enter Don John and Borachio

Don John

It is so; the Count Claudio shall marry the daughter of Leonato.

Borachio

Yea, my lord; but I can cross it.

Don John

Any bar, any cross, any impediment will be medicinable to me: I am sick in displeasure to him, and whatsoever comes athwart his affection ranges evenly with mine. How canst thou cross this marriage?

Borachio

Not honestly, my lord; but so covertly that no dishonesty shall appear in me.

Don John

Show me briefly how.

Borachio

I think I told your lordship a year since, how much I am in the favour of Margaret, the waiting gentlewoman to Hero.

Don John

I remember.

Borachio

I can, at any unseasonable instant of the night, appoint her to look out at her lady’s chamber window.

Don John

What life is in that, to be the death of this marriage?

Borachio

The poison of that lies in you to temper. Go you to the prince your brother; spare not to tell him that he hath wronged his honour in marrying the renowned Claudio — whose estimation do you mightily hold up — to a contaminated stale, such a one as Hero.

Don John

What proof shall I make of that?

Borachio

Proof enough to misuse the prince, to vex Claudio, to undo Hero and kill Leonato. Look you for any other issue?

Don John

Only to despite them, I will endeavour any thing.

Borachio

Go, then; find me a meet hour to draw Don Pedro and the Count Claudio alone: tell them that you know that Hero loves me; intend a kind of zeal both to the prince and Claudio, as,— in love of your brother’s honour, who hath made this match, and his friend’s reputation, who is thus like to be cozened with the semblance of a maid,— that you have discovered thus. They will scarcely believe this without trial: offer them instances; which shall bear no less likelihood than to see me at her chamber-window, hear me call Margaret Hero, hear Margaret term me Claudio; and bring them to see this the very night before the intended wedding,— for in the meantime I will so fashion the matter that Hero shall be absent,— and there shall appear such seeming truth of Hero’s disloyalty that jealousy shall be called assurance and all the preparation overthrown.

Don John

Grow this to what adverse issue it can, I will put it in practise. Be cunning in the working this, and thy fee is a thousand ducats.

Borachio

Be you constant in the accusation, and my cunning shall not shame me.

Don John

I will presently go learn their day of marriage.

Exeunt

S
CENE
III. L
EONATO
’
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.

Balthasar

Because you talk of wooing, I will sing;
Since many a wooer doth commence his suit
To her he thinks not worthy, yet he wooes,
Yet will he swear he loves.

Don Pedro

Now, pray thee, come;
Or, if thou wilt hold longer argument,
Do it in notes.

Balthasar

 
Note this before my notes;
There’s not a note of mine that’s worth the noting.

Don Pedro

Why, these are very crotchets that he speaks;
Note, notes, forsooth, and nothing.

Air

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.

Balthasar

[Sings]
 
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.