William Shakespeare - The Complete Works of William Shakespeare

LEONATO.

Tush, tush, man! never fleer and jest at me:

I speak not like a dotard nor a fool,

As, under privilege of age, to brag

What I have done being young, or what would do,

Were I not old. Know, Claudio, to thy head,

Thou hast so wrong’d mine innocent child and me

That I am forc’d to lay my reverence by,

And, with grey hairs and bruise of many days,

Do challenge thee to trial of a man.

I say thou hast belied mine innocent child:

Thy slander hath gone through and through her heart,

And she lied buried with her ancestors;

O! in a tomb where never scandal slept,

Save this of hers, fram’d by thy villany!

CLAUDIO.

My villany?

LEONATO.

Thine, Claudio; thine, I say.

DON PEDRO.

You say not right, old man,

LEONATO.

My lord, my lord,

I’ll prove it on his body, if he dare,

Despite his nice fence and his active practice,

His May of youth and bloom of lustihood.

CLAUDIO.

Away! I will not have to do with you.

LEONATO.

Canst thou so daff me? Thou hast kill’d my child;

If thou kill’st me, boy, thou shalt kill a man.

ANTONIO.

He shall kill two of us, and men indeed:

But that’s no matter; let him kill one first:

Win me and wear me; let him answer me.

Come, follow me, boy; come, sir boy, come, follow me.

Sir boy, I’ll whip you from your foining fence;

Nay, as I am a gentleman, I will.

LEONATO.

Brother,—

ANTONIO.

Content yourself. God knows I lov’d my niece;

And she is dead, slander’d to death by villains,

That dare as well answer a man indeed

As I dare take a serpent by the tongue.

Boys, apes, braggarts, Jacks, milksops!

LEONATO.

Brother Antony,—

ANTONIO.

Hold your content. What, man! I know them, yea,

And what they weigh, even to the utmost scruple,

Scambling, outfacing, fashion-monging boys,

That lie and cog and flout, deprave and slander,

Go antickly, show outward hideousness,

And speak off half a dozen dangerous words,

How they might hurt their enemies, if they durst;

And this is all!

LEONATO.

But, brother Antony,—

ANTONIO.

Come, ‘tis no matter:

Do not you meddle, let me deal in this.

DON PEDRO.

Gentlemen both, we will not wake your patience.

My heart is sorry for your daughter’s death;

But, on my honour, she was charg’d with nothing

But what was true and very full of proof.

LEONATO.

My lord, my lord—

DON PEDRO.

I will not hear you.

LEONATO.

No? Come, brother, away. I will be heard.—

ANTONIO.

And shall, or some of us will smart for it.

[Exeunt LEONATO and ANTONIO.]

[Enter BENEDICK.]

DON PEDRO.

See, see; here comes the man we went to seek.

CLAUDIO.

Now, signior, what news?

BENEDICK.

Good day, my lord.

DON PEDRO.

Welcome, signior: you are almost come to part almost a fray.

CLAUDIO. We had like to have had our two noses snapped off with two old men without teeth.

DON PEDRO. Leonato and his brother. What think’st thou? Had we fought, I doubt we should have been too young for them.

BENEDICK. In a false quarrel there is no true valour. I came to seek you both.

CLAUDIO. We have been up and down to seek thee; for we are high-proof melancholy, and would fain have it beaten away. Wilt thou use thy wit?

BENEDICK.

It is in my scabbard; shall I draw it?

DON PEDRO.

Dost thou wear thy wit by thy side?

CLAUDIO. Never any did so, though very many have been beside their wit. I will bid thee draw, as we do the minstrels; draw, to pleasure us.

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, an 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,’ says she, ‘a fine little one.’

‘No,’ said I, ‘a great wit.’

‘Right,’ said 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, trans-shape 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?