William Shakespeare - The Complete Works of William Shakespeare

[Enter DON PEDRO, LEONATO, and CLAUDIO, followed by BALTHAZAR and

Musicians.]

DON PEDRO.

Come, shall we hear this music?

CLAUDIO.

Yea, my good lord.

How still the evening is,

As hush’d on purpose to grace harmony!

DON PEDRO.

See you where Benedick hath hid himself?

CLAUDIO.

O! very well, my lord: the music ended,

We’ll fit the kid-fox with a pennyworth.

DON PEDRO.

Come, Balthazar, we’ll hear that song again.

BALTHAZAR.

O! good my lord, tax not so bad a voice

To slander music any more than once.

DON PEDRO.

It is the witness still of excellency,

To put a strange face on his own perfection.

I pray thee, sing, and let me woo no more.

BALTHAZAR.

Because you talk of wooing, I will sing;

Since many a wooer doth commence his suit

To her he thinks not worthy; yet he wooes;

Yet will he swear he loves.

DON PEDRO.

Nay, pray thee come;

Or if thou wilt hold longer argument,

Do it in notes.

BALTHAZAR.

Note this before my notes;

There’s not a note of mine that’s worth the noting.

DON PEDRO.

Why these are very crotchets that he speaks;

Notes, notes, forsooth, and nothing!

[Music.]

BENEDICK. Now, divine air! now is his soul ravished! Is it not strange that sheep’s gutsshould hale souls out of men’s bodies? Well, a horn for my money, when all’s done.

[Balthasar sings.]

Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,

Men were deceivers ever;

One foot in sea, and one on shore,

To one thing constant never.

Then sigh not so,

But let them go,

And be you blithe and bonny,

Converting all your sounds of woe

Into Hey nonny, nonny.

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,

But let them go,

And be you blithe and bonny,

Converting all your sounds of woe

Into Hey nonny, nonny.

DON PEDRO.

By my troth, a good song.

BALTHAZAR.

And an ill singer, my lord.

DON PEDRO.

Ha, no, no, faith; thou singest well enough for a shift.

BENEDICK. [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.

DON PEDRO.

Yea, marry; dost thou hear, Balthazar? I pray thee, get us some

excellent music, for tomorrow night we would have it at the Lady

Hero’s chamber-window.

BALTHAZAR.

The best I can, my lord.

DON PEDRO.

Do so: farewell.

[Exeunt BALTHAZAR and Musicians.]

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:—

[Aside to DON PEDRO] 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 behaviours seemed ever

to abhor.

BENEDICK.

[Aside.] 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.

[Aside.] Bait the hook well: this fish will bite.

LEONATO. What effects, my lord? She will sit you; [To Claudio.] You heard my daughter tell you how.

CLAUDIO.

She did, indeed.

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

LEONATO.

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

BENEDICK. [Aside] I should think this a gull, but that the white-bearded fellow speaks it: knavery cannot, sure, hide itself in such reverence.

CLAUDIO.

[Aside.] 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 sometimes afeard 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 everything 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.

Fore 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?