A Hall in Leonato's House.
 Enter LEONATO, ANTONIO his brother, HERO his daughter,
 and BEATRICE his niece, with MARGARET and URSULA.

Leonato	Was not Count John here at supper?

Antonio	I saw him not.

Beatrice	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.

Beatrice	He were an excellent man that were made just in the midway 
	between him and Benedick: the one is too like an image and 
	says nothing, and the other too like my lady's eldest son, 
	evermore tattling.

Leonato	Then half Signor Benedick's tongue in Count John's mouth, and 
	half Count John's melancholy in Signor Benedick's face=-=

Beatrice	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 a' 
	could get her good will.

Leonato	By my troth, niece, thou wilt never get thee a husband if thou 
	be so shrewd of thy tongue.

Antonio	In faith, she's too curst.

Beatrice	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.

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

Beatrice	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.

Leonato	You may light on a husband that hath no beard.

Beatrice	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 earnest of the bearward and lead his apes into 
	hell.

Leonato	Well then, go you into hell?

Beatrice	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.

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

Beatrice	Yes, faith' it is my cousin's duty to make curtsy and say 
	'Father, as it please you'. But yet for all that, cousin, let 
	him be a handsome fellow, or else make another curtsy and say 
	'Father, as it please me'.

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

Beatrice	Not till God make men of some other metal than earth. Would it 
	not grieve a woman to be overmastered 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.

Leonato	[To HERO.] Daughter, remember what I told you. If the prince 
	do solicit you in that kind, you know your answer.

Beatrice	The fault will be in the music, cousin, if you be not wooed in 
	good time. If the prince be too important, tell him there is 
	measure in everything, and so dance out the answer. For hear 
	me, 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.

Leonato	Cousin, you apprehend passing shrewdly.

Beatrice	I have a good eye, uncle; I can see a church by daylight.

Leonato	The revellers are entering, brother. Make good room.
													[The men put on masks.

         Enter, masked, DON PEDRO, CLAUDIO, BENEDICK, BALTHASAR,
                   DON JOHN, and BORACHIO, with a drum.

Don Pedro	Lady, will you walk a bout with your friend?

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

Don Pedro	With me in your company?

Hero	I may say so, when I please.

Don Pedro	And when please you to say so?

Hero	When I like your favour, for God defend the lute should be 
	like the case.

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

Hero	Why, then your visor should be thatched.

Don Pedro	Speak low, if you speak love.
													[They stand apart.
Balthasar	Well, I would you did like me.

Margaret	So would not I for your own sake, for I have many ill 
	qualities.

Balthasar	Which is one?

Margaret	I say my prayers aloud.

Balthasar	I love you the better; the hearers may cry amen.

Margaret	God match me with a good dancer!

Balthasar	Amen.

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

Balthasar	No more words; the clerk is answered.

Ursula	I know you well enough; you are Signor Antonio.

Antonio	At a word, I am not.

Ursula	I know you by the waggling of your head.

Antonio	To tell you true, I counterfeit him.

Ursula	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.

Antonio	At a word, I am not.

Ursula	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.

Beatrice	Will you not tell me who told you so?

Benedick	No, you shall pardon me.

Beatrice	Nor will you not tell me who you are?

Benedick	Not now.

Beatrice	That I was disdainful, and that I had my good wit out of the 
	'Hundred Merry Tales' - well, this was Signor Benedick that 
	said so.

Benedick	What's he?

Beatrice	I am sure you know him well enough.

Benedick	Not I, believe me.

Beatrice	Did he never make you laugh?

Benedick	I pray you, what is he?

Beatrice	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 villainy, for he both pleases 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.

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

Beatrice	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.
	We must follow the leaders.

Benedick	In every good thing.

Beatrice	Nay, if they lead to any ill, I will leave them at the next 
	turning.
													[Dance.
				   [Exeunt all but DON JOHN, BORACHIO, and CLAUDIO.

Don 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 remains.

Borachio	And that is Claudio. I know him by his bearing.

Don John	Are not you Signor Benedick?

Claudio	You know me well, I am he.

Don John	Signor, you are very near my brother in his love. He is 
	enamoured on Hero. I pray you dissuade him from her, she is no 
	equal for his birth. You may do the part of an honest man in 
	it.

Claudio	How know you he loves her?

Don John	I heard him swear his affection.

Borachio	So did I too, and he swore he would marry her tonight.

Don John	Come, let us to the banquet.
									 [Exeunt DON JOHN and BORACHIO.

Claudio	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
	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.

Benedick	Count Claudio?

Claudio	Yea, the same.

Benedick	Come, will you go with me?

Claudio	Whither?

Benedick	Even to the next willow, about your own business, County. What 
	fashion will you wear the garland of? About your neck, like a 
	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.

Claudio	I wish him joy of her.

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

Claudio	I pray you, leave me.

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

Claudio	If it will not be, I'll leave you.
													[Exit.

Benedick	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 
	fool! 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, though bitter, disposition of Beatrice that 
	puts the world into her person, and so gives me out. Well, 
	I'll be revenged as I may.

                    Re-enter DON PEDRO, HERO, LEONATO.

Don Pedro	Now, signor, where's the count? Did you see him?

Benedick	Troth, my lord, I have played 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.

Don Pedro	To be whipped! What's his fault?

Benedick	The flat transgression of a schoolboy, who being over joyed 
	with finding a bird's nest, shows it his companion, and he 
	steals it.

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

Benedick	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 
	stolen his bird's nest.

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

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

Don Pedro	The Lady Beatrice hath a quarrel to you. The gentleman that 
	danced with her told her she is much wronged by you.

Benedick	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, huddling jest 
	upon jest with such impossible conveyance 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 living 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 transgressed. 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 Ate in good 
	apparel. I would to God some scholar would conjure her, for 
	certainly, while she is here a man may live as quiet in hell 
	as in a sanctuary; and people sin upon purpose because they 
	would go thither. So, indeed, all disquiet, horror, and 
	perturbation follows her.

                      Re-enter CLAUDIO and BEATRICE.

Don Pedro	Look, here she comes.

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 toothpicker 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 Pygmies, 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 Signor 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 all 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 everyone 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 o' 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 dreamt 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 Benedick.

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	Tomorrow, my lord. Time goes on crutches till love have all 
	his rites.

Leonato	Not till Monday, my dear son, which is hence a just 
	sevennight, 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 Signor Benedick and the Lady Beatrice into a mountain of 
	affection th'one with th'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; his glory shall be ours,
	for we are the only love-gods. Go in with me, and I will tell 
	you my drift.
													[Exeunt.
