BEAT. No, not till a hot January.
Mess. Don Pedro is approached.
Enter Don Pedro, attended by BALTHAZAB and others, Don JOHN, CLAUDIO, and

BENEDICK.
D. PEDRO. Good signior Leonato, you are comes to meet your trouble: the

: fashion of the world is to avoid cost, and you encounter it. Leon. Never came trouble to my house in the likeness of your gráce; for

trouble being gone, comfort should remain; but when you depart from

me sorrow abides, and happiness takes his leave. D. PEDRO. You embrace your charge too willingly. I think this is your

daughter. Leon. Her mother hath many times told me so. BENE. Were you in doubt that you asked her ? Leon. Signior Benedick, no; for then were you a child. D. PEDRO. You have it full, Benedick: we may guess by this what you are,

being a man. Truly, the lady fathers herself :-Be happy, lady! for you are

like an honourable father. BENE. If signior Leonato be her father, she would not have his head on her

shoulders for all Messina, as like him as she is. BEAT. I wonder that you will still be talking, signior Benedick; nobody marks

you. BENE. What, my dear lady Disdain ! are you get living ? BEAT. Is it possible Disdain should die, while she hath such meet food to feed it

as signior Benedick? Courtesy itself mast convert to disdain if you come

in her presence. BENE. Then is courtesy a turncoat:—But it is certain I am loved of all ladies,

only you excepted : and I would I could find in my heart that I had not a

hard heart: for, truly, I love none. BEAT. A dear happiness to women; they would else have been troubled with a

pernicious suitor. I thank God, and my cold blood, I am of your humour for that; I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow, than a man swear ho

loves me. BENE. God keep your ladyship still in that mind! so some gentleman or other

shall 'scape & predestinate scratched face. Beat. Scratching could not make it worse, an 't were such a face as yours

were.

BENE. Well, you are a rare parrot-teacher.
BEAT. A bird of my tongue is better than a beast of yours.

& BENE. I would my horse had the speed of your tongue ; and so good a con

tinuer: But keep your way o' God's name; I have done. Beat. You always end with a jade's trick; I know you of old. D. PEDRO. This is the sum of all: Leonato,-signior Claudio, and signior Benedick,-my dear friend Leonato hath invited you all. I tell him we

• The quarto reads, are you come.

shall stay here at the least a month; and he heartily prays some occasion may detain us longer: I dare swear he is no hypocrite, but prays from his

heart. LEON. If you swear, my lord, you shall not be forsworn.-Let me bid you wel.

come, my lord: being reconciled to the prince your brother, I owe you all

duty.
D. Joan. I thank you: I am not of many words, but I thank you.
LEON. Please it your grace lead on ?
D. PEDRO. Your hand, Leonato; we will go together.

[Exeunt all but BENEDICK and CLAUDIO.
CLAUD. Benedick, didst thou note the daughter of signior Leonato ?
BENE. I noted her not: but I looked on her.
CLAUD. Is she not a modest young lady?
BENE. Do you question me as an honest man should do, for my simple true

judgment; or would you have me speak after my custom, as being a pro

fessed tyrant to their sex ? · CLAUD. No, I pray thee, speak in sober judgment. BENE. Why, i' faith, methinks she's too low for a high praise, too brown for a

fair praise, and too little for a great praise: only this commendation I can afford her: that were she other than she is, she were unhandsome ; and

being no other but as she is, I do not like her. CLAUD. Thou thinkest I am in sport; I pray thee, tell me truly how thou likest

her. BENE. Would you buy her, that you inquire after her ? CLAUD. Can the world buy such a jewel? BENE. Yea, and a case to put it into. But speak you this with a sad brow? or

do you play the flouting Jack; to tell us Cupid is a good hare-finder, and Vulcan a rare carpenter“? Come, in what key shall a man take you, to go in

the songa ? CLAUD. In mine eye she is the sweetest lady that ever I looked on. BENE. I can see yet without spectacles, and I see no such matter: there's her

cousin, an she were not possessed with a fury, exceeds her as much in beauty as the first of May doth the last of December. But I hope you have no

intent to turn husband; have you ? CLAUD. I would scarce trust myself, though. I had sworn the contrary, if Hero would be

my

wife. BENE. Is 't come to this, i' faith ? Hath not the world one man but he will

wear his cap with suspicion? Shall I never see a bachelor of three-score 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 returned to seek you.

Re-enter DON PEDRO. D. PEDRO. What secret hath held you here, that you followed not to Leonato's?

a

• To join in the song.

BENE. I would your grace would constrain me to tell.
D. PEDRO. I charge thee on thy allegiance.
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, 80 were it uttered. BENE. Like the old tale, my lord: “it is not so, nor 't was not so; but, indeed,

God forbid it should be so." 5 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. 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. BENE. That I neither feel how she should be loved, 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 conceived me, I thank her; that she brought me up, I

likewise give her most humble thanks : but that I will have a recheat • winded in my forehead, or hang my bugle in an invisible baldrick b, 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. 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 ballad-maker's pen, and hang me up at the

door of a brothel-house, for the sign of blind Cupid. D. PEDRO. Well, if ever thou dost fall from this faith thou wilt

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 clapped on the shoulder and called Adam ®. D. PEDRO. Well, as time shall try :

“ In time the savage bull doth bear the yoke."d BENE. The

bull may; but if ever this 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

&

prove a notable

ere you

hire," let them signify under my sign,“ Here you may see Benedick the

married man.” CLAUD. If this should ever happen thou wouldst 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 mean time, 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. BENE. I have almost matter enough in me for such an embassage ; and so I

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

Aout 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 herb:] Was 't not to this end

That thou begann'st to twist so fine a story?
CLAUD. How sweetly do you o 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.
D. PEDRO. What need the bridge much broader than the flood ?

The fairest grant is the necessity :
Look, what will serve is fit: 't is once a, thou lovest;
And I will fit thee with the remedy.
I know we shall have revelling to-night;
I will assume thy part in some disguise,
And tell fair Hero I am Claudio;
And in her bosom I 'll unclasp my heart,
And take her hearing prisoner with the force
And strong encounter of my amorous tale:
Then, after, to her father will I break;
And, the conclusion is, she shall be thine:
In practice let us put it presently.

(Exeunt.

b

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 dreamt not of. Leon. Are they good ? Ant. As the event stamps them; but they have a good cover; they show well

outward. The prince and count Claudio, walking in a thick-pleached alley in my orchard, were thus overheard e by a man of mine : The prince discovered. to Claudio that he loved 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. LEON. Hath the fellow any wit 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 prepared 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.-0, I cry you mercy, friend: go you with me, and I will use your skill :-Good cousin, have a care this busy time.

[E.count.

.

· Once once for all. So in Coriolanus:' " Once, if he do require our voices we ought not to deny him."