159

SCENE I. A Hall in Leonato's House. Enter
LEONATO, ANTONIO, HERO, BEATRICE, and
others.

Leon. Was not count John here at supper?
Ant. I saw him not.

Leon. Daughter, remember what I told you; if the prince do solicit you in that kind, you know your answer.

Beat. The fault will be in the musick, cousin, if you be not woo'd in good time: if the prince be too pt, tell him, there is measure in every For hear me, imp thing, and so dance out the answer. Hero; Wooing, wedding, and repenting, is as a Scotch jig, a measure, and a cinque-pace; the first suit is hot and hasty, like a Scotch jig, and full as fantastical; the wedding, mannerly-modest, as a measure full of state and ancientry; and then comes repentance, and, with his bad legs, falls into the cinque-pace faster and faster, till he sink into his grave.

Leon. Cousin, you apprehend passing shrewdly. Beat. I have a good eye, uncle; I can see a church by day-light.

Beat. How tartly that gentleman looks! I never can see him, but I am heart-burned an hour after. Hero. He is of a very melancholy disposition. Beat. He were an excellent man, that were made Just in the mid-way between him and Benedick: the one is too like an image, and says nothing; and the other, too like my lady's eldest son, ever-Enter DON PEDRO, CLAUDIO, BENEDICK, BALmore tattling.

Leon. Then half signior Benedick's tongue in count John's mouth, and half count John's inelancholy in signior Benedick's face,

Beat. With a good leg, and a good foot, uncle, and money enough in his purse, such a man would win any woman in the world,—if he could get her good will.

Leon. By my troth, niece, thou wilt never get thee a husband, if thou be so shrewd of thy tongue. Ant. In faith, she is too curst.

Beat. Too curst is more than curst: I shall lessen God's sending that way: for it is said, God sends a curst cow short horns; but to a cow too curst he sends none.

Leon. So, by being too curst, God will send you no horns.

Beat. Just, if he send me no husband: for the which blessing, I am at him upon my knees every morning and evening: Lord! I could not endure a husband with a beard on his face; I had rather lie in the woollen.

Leon. You may light upon a husband, that hath no beard.

Beat. What should I do with him? dress him in my apparel, and make him my waiting gentlewoman? He that hath a beard, is more than a youth; and he that hath no beard, is less than a man: and he that is more than a youth, is not for me; and he that is less than a man, I am not for him. Therefore I will even take sixpence in carnest of the bearherd, and lead his apes into hell.

Leon. Well then, go you into hell?

Beat. No; but to the gate; and there will the devil meet me, like an old cuckold, with horns on his head, and say, Get you to heaven, Beatrice, get you to heaven; here's no place for you maids: so deliver I up my apes, and away to Saint Peter for the heavens; he shows me where the bachelors sit, and there live we as merry as the day is long.

Ant. Well, niece, (To HERO.] I trust, you will be ruled by your father.

Beat. Yes, faith; it is my cousin's duty to make courtesy, and say, Father, as it please you :- but yet for all that, cousin, let him be a handsome fellow, or else make another courtesy, and say, Father, as it please me.

Leon. Well, niece, I hope to see you one day fitted with a husband.

Beat. Not till God make men of some other metal than earth. Would it not grieve a woman to be over-mastered with a piece of valiant dust? to make an account of her life to a clod of wayward marl? No, uncle, I'll none: Adam's sons are my brethren; and truly, I hold it a sin to match in my kindred.

1 Importunate.

2 A measure, in old language, besides its ordinary meaning, signified also a dunce.

3 Lover.

Leon. The revellers are entering; brother, make good room.

THAZAR; DON JOHN, BORACHIO, MARGARET,
URSULA, and others, masked.

D. Pedro. Lady, will you walk about with your friend ?3

you

Hero. So walk softly, and look sweetly, and say nothing, I am yours for the walk; and, especially, when I walk away.

D. Pedro. With me in your company?
Hero. I may say so, when I please.

D. Pedro. And when please you to say so? Hero. When I like your favour; for God defend, the lute should be like the case!

D. Pedro. My visor is Philemon's roof; within the house is Jove.s

I

Hero. Why then your visor should be thatch'd.
D. Pedro. Speak low, if you speak love.

[Takes her aside.
Bene. Well, I would you did like me.
Marg. So would not 1, for your own sake; for
have many ill qualities.

Bene. Which is one?

Marg. I say my prayers aloud.

Bene. I love you the better; the hearers may cry, Amen.

the

Marg. God match me with a good dancer!
Balth. Amen.

Marg. And God keep him out of my sight, when
dance is done!-Answer, clerk.

Balth. No more words; the clerk is answered. Urs. I know you well enough; you are signior Antonio.

Ant. At a word, I am not.

Ure. I know you by the waggling of your head.
Ant. To tell you true, I counterfeit him.

Urs. You could never do him so ill-well, unless you were the very man: Here's his dry hand up and down; you are he, you are he.

Ant. At a word I am not.

Urs. Come, come; do you think I do not know you by your excellent wit? Can virtue hide itself? Go to, mum, you are he; graces will appear, and there's an end.

Beat. Will you not tell me who told you so?
Bene. No, you shall pardon me.

Beat. Nor will you not tell me who you are?
Bene. Not now.

Beat. That I was disdainful,-and that I had
my good wit out of the Hundred merry Tales ;*—
Well, this was signior Benedick that said so.
Bene. What's he?

Beat. I am sure, you know him well enough.

5 Alluding to the table of Baucis and Philemon in

ed cottage.

Ovid, who describes the old couple as living in a thatch-
-Stipulis et canna tecta palustri,
which Golding renders:

The roofe thereef was thatched all with straw and
fennish reede.'

6 This was the term for a jest-book in Shakspeare's

4 That is, God forbid that your face should be as time, from a popular collection of that name, about which homely and coarse as your mask.'

the commentators were much puzzled, until a large frag.

Bene. Not I, believe me.
Beat. Did he never make you laugh?
Bene. I pray you, what is he?

Beat. Why, he is the prince's jester; a very dull fool, only his gift is in devising impossible' slanders: none but libertines delight in him; and the commendation is not in his wit, but in his villany; for he both pleaseth men, and angers them, and then they laugh at him, and beat him: I am sure he is in the fleet: I would he had boarded me.

Bene. When I know the gentleman, I'll tell him what you say.

Beat. Do, do: he'll but break a comparison or two on me; which, peradventure, not marked, or not laughed at, strikes him into melancholy; and then there's a partridge wing saved, for the fool will eat no supper that night. [Music within. We must follow the leaders.

Bene. In every good thing. Beat. Nay, if they lead to any ill, I will leave them at the next turning.

[Dance. Then exeunt all but DoN JOHN, BORACHIO, and CLAUDIO. D. John. Sure my brother is amorous on Hero, and hath withdrawn her father to break with him about it: The ladies follow her, and but one visor

garland of? About your neck, like an usurer's chain? or under your arm, like a lieutenant's scarf? You must wear it one way, for the prince hath got your Hero.

Claud. I wish him joy of her.

Bene. Why, that's spoken like an honest drover; so they sell bullocks. But did you think the prince thus? would have served you

Claud. I pray you, leave me.

Bene. Ho! now you strike like the blind man! 'twas the boy that stole your meat, and you'll beat the post.

Claud. If it will not be, I'll leave you. [Exit. Bene. Alas, poor hurt fowl! Now will he creep into sedges. But, that my lady Beatrice should know me, and not know me! The Prince's foo!!Ha! it may be, I go under that title, because I am merry.-Yea; but so; I am apt to do myself wrong: I am not so reputed: it is the base, the bitter disposition of Beatrice, that puts the world into her person, and so gives me out." Well, I'l! be revenged as I may.

Re-enter DON PEDRO.

D. Pedro. Now, signior, where's the count. Dia you see him?

Bene. Troth, my lord, I have play'd the part of lady Fame. I found him here as melancholy as a lodge in a warren; I told him, and, I think, I told him true, that your grace had got the good will of this young lady; and I offered him my company to a willow tree, either to make him a garland, as being forsaken, or to bind him up a rod, as being worthy to be whipped.

D. Pedro. To be whipped! What's his fault? Bene. The flat transgression of a schoolboy; who, being overjoyed with finding a bird's nest, shows his companion, and he steals it.

Claud. How know you he loves her?
D. John. I heard him swear his affection.
Bora. So did I too; and he swore he would mar-it
ry her to-night.

D. John. Come let us to the banquet.

[Exeunt DON JOHN, and BORACHIO. Claud. Thus answer I in name of Benedick, But hear these ill news with the ears of Claudio.'Tis certain so ;-the prince woos for himself. Friendship is constant in all other things,

4

Save in the office and affairs of love:
Therefore, all hearts in love use their own tongues;
Let every eye negotiate for itself,

And trust no agent: for beauty is a witch,
Against whose charms faith melteth into blood."
This is an accident of hourly proof,

Which I mistrusted not: Farewell, therefore, Hero!

Re-enter BENEDICK.

Bene. Count Claudio?

Claud. Yea, the same.

Bene. Come, will you go with me?

Claud. Whither?

D. Pedro. Wilt thou make a trust a transgression? The transgression is in the stealer.

Bene. Yet it had not been amiss, the rod had been made, and the garland too; for the garland he might have worn himself; and the rod he might have bestowed on you, who, as I take it, have stol'n his bird's nest.

D. Pedro. I will but teach them to sing, and restore them to the owner.

Bene. If their singing answer your saying, by my faith you say honestly.

D. Pedro. The lady Beatrice hath a quarrel to the gentleman, that danced with her, told her, she is much wronged by you.

you;

Bene. O, she misused me past the endurance of a block; an oak, but with one green leaf on it, would have answered her; my very visor began to assume life, and scold with her: She told me, not thinking I had been myself, that I was the prince's jester: that I was duller than a great thaw: hudBene. Even to the next willow, about your owndling jest upon jest, with such impossible1o conveybusiness, count. What fashion will you wear the ment was discovered in 1815, by my late lamented friend the Rev. J. Conybeare, Professor of Poetry in Oxford. I had the gratification of printing a few copies at the Chiswick press, under the title of Shakspeare's Jest Book. It was printed by Rastell, and therefore must have been published previous to 1533. Another collection of the same kind, called, Tales and Quicke Answeres,' printed by Berthelette, and of nearly equal antiquity, was also reprinted at the same time; and it is remarkable that this collection is cited by Sir John Harrington under the title of the hundred merry tales.' It continued for a long period to be the popular name for collections of this sort, for in the London Chaunticlere, 1659, it is mentioned as being cried for sale by a ballad

man.

1 Incredible, or inconceivable.

6 Chains of gold of considerable value were, in Shakspeare's time, worn by wealthy citizens, and others, in the same manner as they are now on public occasions by the aldermen of London. Usury was then a common topic of invective. So, in 'The Choice of Change,' 1598, 'Three sortes of people, in respect of necessity, may be accounted good:-Merchants, for they may play the usurers, instead of the Jews, &c.' Again, There is a scarcity of Jews, because Christians make an occupation of usurie.'

7It is the disposition of Beatrice, who takes upon herself to personate the world, and therefore represents the world as saying what she only says herself.

8 A parallel thought occurs in Isaiah, c. i. where the prophet, in describing the desolation of Judah, says. The daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers,' &c. It appeare

2 Boarded, besides its usual meaning, signified ac- that these lonely buildings were necessary, as the cu costed.

3 Carriage, demeanour.

4 Let, which is found in the next line, is understood here.

5 Blood signifies amorous heat or passion. So, in All's Well that Ends Well, Act. iii. Sc. 7.

Now his important blood will nought deny,
That she'll demand.'

cumbers, &c. were obliged to be constantly watched and watered, and that as soon as the crop was gathered they were forsaken.

9 It is singular that a similar thought should be found in the tenth Thebaid of Statius, v. 658.

- ipsa insanire videtur Sphynx galeæ custos.'

10 i. e. with a rapidity equal to that of jugglers

ance upon me, that I stood like a man at a mark,
with a whole army shooting at me: She speaks
poniards, and every word stabs: if her breath were
as terrible as her terminations, there were no liv-
ing near her, she would infect to the north star. I
would not marry her, though she were endowed
with all that Adam had left him before he trans-
gressed; she would have made Hercules have
turned spit; yea, and have cleft his club to make
the fire too. Come, talk not of her; you shall find
her the infernal Ate1 in good apparel. I would to
God, some scholar would conjure her; for, certain-
ly, while she is here, a man may live as quiet in
hell, as in a sanctuary; and people sin upon pur-
pose, because they would go thither so, indeed,
all disquiet, horror, and perturbation follow her.
Re-enter CLAUDIO, BEATRICE, HERO, and
LEONATO.

D. Pedro. Look, here she comes.
Bene. 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 toothpicker now from the
farthest inch of Asia; bring you the length of
Prester John's foot; etch you a hair off the great
Chain's beard: do you any embassage to the Pig-
mies, rather than hold three words conference with
this harpy: You have no employment for me?
D. Pedro. Nons, but to desire your good com-

pany.
Bene. O God, sir, here's a dish I love not; I
cannot endure my lady Tongue.
[Exit.
D. Pedro. Come, lady, come; you have lost the
heart of signior Benedick.

Beat. Indeed, my lord, he lent it me a while; and I give 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.
D. Pedro. You have put him down, lady, you
have put him down.

Beat. 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. D. Pedro. Why, how now, count? wherefore are you sad?

Claud. Not sad, my lord.
D. Pedro, How then? Sick.
Claud. Neither, my lord.

Beat. The count is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor well: but civil, count; civil as an orange, and something of that jealous complexion. D. Pedro. I'faith, lady, I think your blazon to be true, though, I'll be sworn, if he be 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!

Leon. Count, take of me my daughter, and with her my fortunes: his grace hath made the match, and all grace say Amen to it!

Beat. Speak, count, 'tis your cue.3 Claud. 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.

Claud. And so she doth, cousin. Beat. Good lord, for alliance!-Thus goes every one to the world but I, and I am sun-burned; ] may sit in the corner, and cry, heigh ho! for a husband.

D. Pedro. Lady Beatrice, I will get you one. Beat. 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.

D. Pedro. Will you have me, lady?

Beat. 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.

D. Pedro. Your silence most offends me, and to be merry best becomes you; for, out of question, you were born in a merry hour.

Beat. No, sure, my lord, my mother cri'd; but then there was a star danced, and under that was I born.--Cousins, God give you joy!

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

Beat. I cry you mercy, uncle.-By your grace's [Exit BEATRICE. pardon. D. Pedro. By my troth, a pleasant-spirited lady. Leon. 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.

D. Pedro. She cannot endure to hear tell of husband.

Leon. O, by no means; she mocks all her wooers out of suit.

D. Pedro. She were an excellent wife for Benedick.

Leon. O lord, my lord, if they were but a week married, they would talk themselves mad. D. Pedro. Count Claudio, when mean you to go to church?

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

Leon. 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.

D. 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.

6

Leon. My lord, I am for you, though it cost me ten nights' watching.

Claud. And I, my lord.

D. Pedro. And you, too, gentle Hero.

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

D. 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 hu Benedick:-and I, with your two helps, will so mour your cousin, that she shall fall in love with practice 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; his glory shall be ours, for we 4 i. e. good lord, how many alliances are forming! Every one is likely to be married but I. I am sunburned means I have lost my beauty, and am consewhose conveyances or tricks appear impossibilities.quently no longer an object to tempt a man to marry. 5 i. c. mischief. Unhappy was often used for misImpossible may, however, be used in the sense of incredible or inconceivable, both here and in the begin-chievous, as we now say an unlucky boy for a misning of the scene, where Beatrice speaks of impossible chievous boy. slanders.'

Beat. Speak, cousin, or, if you cannot, stop his mouth with a kiss, and let him not speak neither. D. Pedro. In faith, lady, you have a merry heart. Beat. 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.

1 The goddess of discord.

6A mountain of affection with one another' is, as Johnson observes, a strange expression; yet all that is meant appears to be a great deal of affection.'

7 The same as strene, descent, lineage

8 Squeamish.

D. John. It is so: the count Claudio shall marry wonder, that one man, seeing how much another the daughter of Leonato.

156

II.

Sing no more ditties, sing no mo
Of dumps so dull and heavy;
The fraud of men was ever so,

Since summer first was leavy:
Then sigh not so, &c.

D. Pedro. By my troth, a good song.
Balth. And an ill singer, my lord,
D. Pedro. Ha? no; no, faith; thou singest well
enough for a shift.

Bene. [Aside.] 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.

D. Pedro. Yea, marry; [To CLAUDIO.]--Dost thou hear, Balthazar? I pray thee, get us some excellent music; for to-morrow night we would have at at the lady Hero's chamber window.

Balth. The best I can, my lord.

D. Pedro. Do so: farewell. [Exeunt BALTHAZAR and music.] Come hither, Leonato: What was it you told me of to-day? that your niece Beatrice was in love with signior Benedick?

Claud. O, ay:--Stalk on, stalk on; the fowl sits. [Aside to PEDRO.] I did never think that lady would have loved any man.

Leon. No, nor I neither; but most wonderful, that she should so dote on signior Benedick, whom she hath in all outward behaviours seemed ever to abhor.

Bene. Is't possible? Sits the wind in that corner? [Aside. Leon. 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.

D. Pedro. May be, she doth but counterfeit.
Claud. Faith, like enough.

Leon. O God! counterfeit! There never was counterfeit of passion came so near the life of passion, as she discovers it.

D. Pedro. Why, what effects of passion shows

she?

Claud. Bait the hook well; this fish will bite.

[Aside.

Leon. What effects, my lord! She will sit you,You heard my daughter tell you how.

Claud. She did, indeed.

D. Pedro. How, how, I pray you? You amaze me: I would have thought her spirit had been invincible against all assaults of affection.

Leon. I would have sworn it had, my lord; especially against Benedick.

Bene. Aside.] I should think this a gull, but that the white-bearded fellow speaks it: knavery cannot, sure, hide itself in such reverence. hold it up. Claud. He hath ta'en the infection; Aside. D. Pedro. Hath she made her affection known to Benedick?

Leon. No; and swears she never will: that's her torment.

Claud. 'Tis true, indeed; so your daughter says: Shall I, says she, that have so oft encounter'd him with scorn, write to him that I love him!

Leon. 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.

Claud. Now you talk of a sheet of paper, I remember a pretty jest your daughter told us of.

Leon. O!-When she had writ it, and was reading it over, she found Benedick and Beatrice between the sheet !-

Claud. That.

Leon 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: Imeasure him, says she, by my own spirit; for I should flout him, if he writ to me; yea, though I love him, I should.

Claud. Then down upon her knees she falls, weeps, sobs, beats her heart, tears her hair, prays, curses:-O sweet Benedick! God give me patience!

Leon. She doth indeed; my daughter says so: and the ecstasy hath so much overborne her, that my daughter is sometime afraid she will do a desperate outrage to herself: It is very true.

D. Pedro. It were good, that Benedick knew of it by some other, if she will not discover it. Claud. To what end? He would but make a sport of it, and torment the poor lady worse.

D. 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.

Claud. And she is exceeding wise.

D. Pedro. In every thing but in loving Benedick. Leon. O my lord, wisdom and blood combating in so terder 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.

D. Pedro. I would, she had bestow'd this dotago on me; I would have daff'd all other respects, and made her half myself: I pray you, tell Benedick of it, and hear what he will say.

Leon. Were it good, think you?

Claud. Hero thinks surely, she will die for she says, she will die if he love her not; and she will die ere she makes her love known; and she will die if he woo her, rather than she will 'bate one breath of her accustomed crossness.

D. 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 contemptibles spirit. Claud. He is a very proper9 man.

D. Pedro. He hath, indeed, a good outward happiness. Claud. 'Fore God, and in my mind, very wise. D. Pedro. He doth, indeed, show some sparks that are like wit.

Leon. And I take him to be valiant.

D. Pedro. As Hector, 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.

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

D. Pedro. And so will he do; for the man doth fear God, howsoever it seems not in him by some for your large jests he will make. Well, I am sorry niece: Shall we go see Benedick, and tell him of her love?