Complete Plays, The (397 page)

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.

Claudio

And I take him to be valiant.

Don Pedro

As Hector, I assure you: and in the managing of quarrels you may say he is wise; for either he avoids them with great discretion, or undertakes them with a most Christian-like fear.

Leonato

If he do fear God, a’ must necessarily keep peace: if he break the peace, he ought to enter into a quarrel with fear and trembling.

Don Pedro

And so will he do; for the man doth fear God, howsoever it seems not in him by some large jests he will make. 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.

Exit

A
CT
III

S
CENE
I. L
EONATO
’
S
GARDEN
.

Enter Hero, Margaret, and Ursula

Hero

Good Margaret, run thee to the parlor;
There shalt thou find my cousin Beatrice
Proposing with the prince and Claudio:
Whisper her ear and tell her, I and Ursula
Walk in the orchard and our whole discourse
Is all of her; say that thou overheard’st us;
And bid her steal into the pleached bower,
Where honeysuckles, ripen’d by the sun,
Forbid the sun to enter, like favourites,
Made proud by princes, that advance their pride
Against that power that bred it: there will she hide her,
To listen our purpose. This is thy office;
Bear thee well in it and leave us alone.

Margaret

I’ll make her come, I warrant you, presently.

Exit

Hero

Now, Ursula, when Beatrice doth come,
As we do trace this alley up and down,
Our talk must only be of Benedick.
When I do name him, let it be thy part
To praise him more than ever man did merit:
My talk to thee must be how Benedick
Is sick in love with Beatrice. Of this matter
Is little Cupid’s crafty arrow made,
That only wounds by hearsay.

Enter Beatrice, behind

Now begin;
For look where Beatrice, like a lapwing, runs
Close by the ground, to hear our conference.

Ursula

The pleasant’st angling is to see the fish
Cut with her golden oars the silver stream,
And greedily devour the treacherous bait:
So angle we for Beatrice; who even now
Is couched in the woodbine coverture.
Fear you not my part of the dialogue.

Hero

Then go we near her, that her ear lose nothing
Of the false sweet bait that we lay for it.

Approaching the bower

No, truly, Ursula, she is too disdainful;
I know her spirits are as coy and wild
As haggerds of the rock.

Ursula

But are you sure
That Benedick loves Beatrice so entirely?

Hero

So says the prince and my new-trothed lord.

Ursula

And did they bid you tell her of it, madam?

Hero

They did entreat me to acquaint her of it;
But I persuaded them, if they loved Benedick,
To wish him wrestle with affection,
And never to let Beatrice know of it.

Ursula

Why did you so? Doth not the gentleman
Deserve as full as fortunate a bed
As ever Beatrice shall couch upon?

Hero

O god of love! I know he doth deserve
As much as may be yielded to a man:
But Nature never framed a woman’s heart
Of prouder stuff than that of Beatrice;
Disdain and scorn ride sparkling in her eyes,
Misprising what they look on, and her wit
Values itself so highly that to her
All matter else seems weak: she cannot love,
Nor take no shape nor project of affection,
She is so self-endeared.

Ursula

Sure, I think so;
And therefore certainly it were not good
She knew his love, lest she make sport at it.

Hero

Why, you speak truth. I never yet saw man,
How wise, how noble, young, how rarely featured,
But she would spell him backward: if fair-faced,
She would swear the gentleman should be her sister;
If black, why, Nature, drawing of an antique,
Made a foul blot; if tall, a lance ill-headed;
If low, an agate very vilely cut;
If speaking, why, a vane blown with all winds;
If silent, why, a block moved with none.
So turns she every man the wrong side out
And never gives to truth and virtue that
Which simpleness and merit purchaseth.

Ursula

Sure, sure, such carping is not commendable.

Hero

No, not to be so odd and from all fashions
As Beatrice is, cannot be commendable:
But who dare tell her so? If I should speak,
She would mock me into air; O, she would laugh me
Out of myself, press me to death with wit.
Therefore let Benedick, like cover’d fire,
Consume away in sighs, waste inwardly:
It were a better death than die with mocks,
Which is as bad as die with tickling.

Ursula

Yet tell her of it: hear what she will say.

Hero

No; rather I will go to Benedick
And counsel him to fight against his passion.
And, truly, I’ll devise some honest slanders
To stain my cousin with: one doth not know
How much an ill word may empoison liking.

Ursula

O, do not do your cousin such a wrong.
She cannot be so much without true judgment —
Having so swift and excellent a wit
As she is prized to have — as to refuse
So rare a gentleman as Signior Benedick.

Hero

He is the only man of Italy.
Always excepted my dear Claudio.

Ursula

I pray you, be not angry with me, madam,
Speaking my fancy: Signior Benedick,
For shape, for bearing, argument and valour,
Goes foremost in report through Italy.

Hero

Indeed, he hath an excellent good name.