Complete Plays, The (402 page)

Don Pedro

As I am an honest man, he looks pale. Art thou sick, or angry?

Claudio

What, courage, man! What though care killed a cat, thou hast mettle enough in thee to kill care.

Benedick

Sir, I shall meet your wit in the career, and you charge it against me. I pray you choose another subject.

Claudio

Nay, then, give him another staff: this last was broke cross.

Don Pedro

By this light, he changes more and more: I think he be angry indeed.

Claudio

If he be, he knows how to turn his girdle.

Benedick

Shall I speak a word in your ear?

Claudio

God bless me from a challenge!

Benedick

[Aside to Claudio]
 
You are a villain; I jest not: I will make it good how you dare, with what you dare, and when you dare. Do me right, or I will protest your cowardice. You have killed a sweet lady, and her death shall fall heavy on you. Let me hear from you.

Claudio

Well, I will meet you, so I may have good cheer.

Don Pedro

What, a feast, a feast?

Claudio

I’ faith, I thank him; he hath bid me to a calf’s head and a capon; the which if I do not carve most curiously, say my knife’s naught. Shall I not find a woodcock too?

Benedick

Sir, your wit ambles well; it goes easily.

Don Pedro

I’ll tell thee how Beatrice praised thy wit the other day. I said, thou hadst a fine wit: ‘True,’ said she, ‘a fine little one.’ ‘No,’ said I, ‘a great wit:’ ‘Right,’ says she, ‘a great gross one.’ ‘Nay,’ said I, ‘a good wit:’ ‘Just,’ said she, ‘it hurts nobody.’ ‘Nay,’ said I, ‘the gentleman is wise:’ ‘Certain,’ said she, ‘a wise gentleman.’ ‘Nay,’ said I, ‘he hath the tongues:’ ‘That I believe,’ said she, ‘for he swore a thing to me on Monday night, which he forswore on Tuesday morning; there’s a double tongue; there’s two tongues.’ Thus did she, an hour together, transshape thy particular virtues: yet at last she concluded with a sigh, thou wast the properest man in Italy.

Claudio

For the which she wept heartily and said she cared not.

Don Pedro

Yea, that she did: but yet, for all that, an if she did not hate him deadly, she would love him dearly: the old man’s daughter told us all.

Claudio

All, all; and, moreover, God saw him when he was hid in the garden.

Don Pedro

But when shall we set the savage bull’s horns on the sensible Benedick’s head?

Claudio

Yea, and text underneath, ‘Here dwells Benedick the married man’?

Benedick

Fare you well, boy: you know my mind. I will leave you now to your gossip-like humour: you break jests as braggarts do their blades, which God be thanked, hurt not. My lord, for your many courtesies I thank you: I must discontinue your company: your brother the bastard is fled from Messina: you have among you killed a sweet and innocent lady. For my Lord Lackbeard there, he and I shall meet: and, till then, peace be with him.

Exit

Don Pedro

He is in earnest.

Claudio

In most profound earnest; and, I’ll warrant you, for the love of Beatrice.

Don Pedro

And hath challenged thee.

Claudio

Most sincerely.

Don Pedro

What a pretty thing man is when he goes in his doublet and hose and leaves off his wit!

Claudio

He is then a giant to an ape; but then is an ape a doctor to such a man.

Don Pedro

But, soft you, let me be: pluck up, my heart, and be sad. Did he not say, my brother was fled?

Enter Dogberry, Verges, and the Watch, with Conrade and Borachio

Dogberry

Come you, sir: if justice cannot tame you, she shall ne’er weigh more reasons in her balance: nay, an you be a cursing hypocrite once, you must be looked to.

Don Pedro

How now? two of my brother’s men bound! Borachio one!

Claudio

Hearken after their offence, my lord.

Don Pedro

Officers, what offence have these men done?

Dogberry

Marry, sir, they have committed false report; moreover, they have spoken untruths; secondarily, they are slanders; sixth and lastly, they have belied a lady; thirdly, they have verified unjust things; and, to conclude, they are lying knaves.

Don Pedro

First, I ask thee what they have done; thirdly, I ask thee what’s their offence; sixth and lastly, why they are committed; and, to conclude, what you lay to their charge.

Claudio

Rightly reasoned, and in his own division: and, by my troth, there’s one meaning well suited.

Don Pedro

Who have you offended, masters, that you are thus bound to your answer? this learned constable is too cunning to be understood: what’s your offence?

Borachio

Sweet prince, let me go no farther to mine answer: do you hear me, and let this count kill me. I have deceived even your very eyes: what your wisdoms could not discover, these shallow fools have brought to light: who in the night overheard me confessing to this man how Don John your brother incensed me to slander the Lady Hero, how you were brought into the orchard and saw me court Margaret in Hero’s garments, how you disgraced her, when you should marry her: my villany they have upon record; which I had rather seal with my death than repeat over to my shame. The lady is dead upon mine and my master’s false accusation; and, briefly, I desire nothing but the reward of a villain.

Don Pedro

Runs not this speech like iron through your blood?

Claudio

I have drunk poison whiles he utter’d it.

Don Pedro

But did my brother set thee on to this?

Borachio

Yea, and paid me richly for the practise of it.

Don Pedro

He is composed and framed of treachery:
And fled he is upon this villany.

Claudio

Sweet Hero! now thy image doth appear
In the rare semblance that I loved it first.

Dogberry

Come, bring away the plaintiffs: by this time our sexton hath reformed Signior Leonato of the matter: and, masters, do not forget to specify, when time and place shall serve, that I am an ass.

Verges

Here, here comes master Signior Leonato, and the
Sexton too.

Re-enter Leonato and Antonio, with the Sexton

Leonato

Which is the villain? let me see his eyes,
That, when I note another man like him,
I may avoid him: which of these is he?

Borachio

If you would know your wronger, look on me.

Leonato

Art thou the slave that with thy breath hast kill’d
Mine innocent child?

Borachio

Yea, even I alone.

Leonato

No, not so, villain; thou beliest thyself:
Here stand a pair of honourable men;
A third is fled, that had a hand in it.
I thank you, princes, for my daughter’s death:
Record it with your high and worthy deeds:
’Twas bravely done, if you bethink you of it.

Claudio

I know not how to pray your patience;
Yet I must speak. Choose your revenge yourself;
Impose me to what penance your invention
Can lay upon my sin: yet sinn’d I not
But in mistaking.

Don Pedro

 
By my soul, nor I:
And yet, to satisfy this good old man,
I would bend under any heavy weight
That he’ll enjoin me to.

Leonato

I cannot bid you bid my daughter live;
That were impossible: but, I pray you both,
Possess the people in Messina here
How innocent she died; and if your love
Can labour ought in sad invention,
Hang her an epitaph upon her tomb
And sing it to her bones, sing it to-night:
To-morrow morning come you to my house,
And since you could not be my son-in-law,
Be yet my nephew: my brother hath a daughter,
Almost the copy of my child that’s dead,
And she alone is heir to both of us:
Give her the right you should have given her cousin,
And so dies my revenge.

Claudio

O noble sir,
Your over-kindness doth wring tears from me!
I do embrace your offer; and dispose
For henceforth of poor Claudio.

Leonato

To-morrow then I will expect your coming;
To-night I take my leave. This naughty man
Shall face to face be brought to Margaret,
Who I believe was pack’d in all this wrong,
Hired to it by your brother.

Borachio

No, by my soul, she was not,
Nor knew not what she did when she spoke to me,
But always hath been just and virtuous
In any thing that I do know by her.

Dogberry

Moreover, sir, which indeed is not under white and black, this plaintiff here, the offender, did call me ass: I beseech you, let it be remembered in his punishment. And also, the watch heard them talk of one Deformed: they say be wears a key in his ear and a lock hanging by it, and borrows money in God’s name, the which he hath used so long and never paid that now men grow hard-hearted and will lend nothing for God’s sake: pray you, examine him upon that point.

Leonato

I thank thee for thy care and honest pains.

Dogberry

Your worship speaks like a most thankful and reverend youth; and I praise God for you.

Leonato

There’s for thy pains.

Dogberry

God save the foundation!

Leonato

Go, I discharge thee of thy prisoner, and I thank thee.

Dogberry

I leave an arrant knave with your worship; which I beseech your worship to correct yourself, for the example of others. God keep your worship! I wish your worship well; God restore you to health! I humbly give you leave to depart; and if a merry meeting may be wished, God prohibit it! Come, neighbour.

Exeunt Dogberry and Verges

Leonato

Until to-morrow morning, lords, farewell.

Antonio

Farewell, my lords: we look for you to-morrow.

Don Pedro

We will not fail.

Claudio

 
To-night I’ll mourn with Hero.

Leonato

[To the Watch]
 
Bring you these fellows on. We’ll talk with Margaret, How her acquaintance grew with this lewd fellow.

Exeunt, severally

S
CENE
II. L
EONATO
’
S
GARDEN
.

Enter Benedick and Margaret, meeting

Benedick

Pray thee, sweet Mistress Margaret, deserve well at my hands by helping me to the speech of Beatrice.

Margaret

Will you then write me a sonnet in praise of my beauty?

Benedick

In so high a style, Margaret, that no man living shall come over it; for, in most comely truth, thou deservest it.

Margaret

To have no man come over me! why, shall I always keep below stairs?

Benedick

Thy wit is as quick as the greyhound’s mouth; it catches.

Margaret

And yours as blunt as the fencer’s foils, which hit, but hurt not.

Benedick

A most manly wit, Margaret; it will not hurt a woman: and so, I pray thee, call Beatrice: I give thee the bucklers.

Margaret

Give us the swords; we have bucklers of our own.

Benedick

If you use them, Margaret, you must put in the pikes with a vice; and they are dangerous weapons for maids.

Margaret

Well, I will call Beatrice to you, who I think hath legs.

Benedick

And therefore will come.

Exit Margaret

[Sings]
 
The god of love,
That sits above,
And knows me, and knows me,
How pitiful I deserve,—

I mean in singing; but in loving, Leander the good swimmer, Troilus the first employer of panders, and a whole bookful of these quondam carpet-mangers, whose names yet run smoothly in the even road of a blank verse, why, they were never so truly turned over and over as my poor self in love. Marry, I cannot show it in rhyme; I have tried: I can find out no rhyme to ‘lady’ but ‘baby,’ an innocent rhyme; for ‘scorn,’ ‘horn,’ a hard rhyme; for, ‘school,’ ‘fool,’ a babbling rhyme; very ominous endings: no, I was not born under a rhyming planet, nor I cannot woo in festival terms.

Enter Beatrice

Sweet Beatrice, wouldst thou come when I called thee?

Beatrice

Yea, signior, and depart when you bid me.

Benedick

O, stay but till then!

Beatrice

‘Then’ is spoken; fare you well now: and yet, ere I go, let me go with that I came; which is, with knowing what hath passed between you and Claudio.

Benedick

Only foul words; and thereupon I will kiss thee.

Beatrice

Foul words is but foul wind, and foul wind is but foul breath, and foul breath is noisome; therefore I will depart unkissed.

Benedick

Thou hast frighted the word out of his right sense, so forcible is thy wit. But I must tell thee plainly, Claudio undergoes my challenge; and either I must shortly hear from him, or I will subscribe him a coward. And, I pray thee now, tell me for which of my bad parts didst thou first fall in love with me?

Beatrice

For them all together; which maintained so politic a state of evil that they will not admit any good part to intermingle with them. But for which of my good parts did you first suffer love for me?

Benedick

Suffer love! a good epithet! I do suffer love indeed, for I love thee against my will.