ACT 1
Scene 1
...Pedro is approached.
Enter Don Pedro, Prince of Aragon, with Claudio, Benedick, Balthasar, and John the Bastard.
...told me so.
Were you in doubt, sir, that you asked her?
...Prince move aside.
If Signior Leonato be her father, she would
not have his head on her shoulders for all Messina,
as like him as she is.
...nobody marks you.
What, my dear Lady Disdain! Are you yet
living?
...in her presence.
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.
...he loves me.
God keep your Ladyship still in that mind,
so some gentleman or other shall ’scape a predestinate
scratched face.
...as yours were.
Well, you are a rare parrot-teacher.
...beast of yours.
I would my horse had the speed of your
tongue and so good a continuer, but keep your
way, i’ God’s name, I have done.
...of Signior Leonato?
I noted her not, but I looked on her.
...modest young lady?
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
professed tyrant to their sex?
...in sober judgment.
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.
...thou lik’st her.
Would you buy her that you enquire after
her?
...such a jewel?
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 song?
...I looked on.
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?
...be my wife.
Is ’t come to this? In faith, hath not the
world one man but he will wear his cap with
suspicion? Shall I never see a bachelor of threescore
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.
...not to Leonato’s?
I would your Grace would constrain me to
tell.
...on thy allegiance.
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.
...were it uttered.
Like the old tale, my lord: “It is not so, nor
’twas not so, but, indeed, God forbid it should be
so.”
...I spoke mine.
And by my two faiths and troths, my lord, I
spoke mine.
...worthy, I know.
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.
...of his will.
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, 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.
...pale with love.
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.
...a notable argument.
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.
...bear the yoke.
The savage bull may, but if ever the 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 hire” let them signify under my sign “Here
you may see Benedick the married man.”
...for this shortly.
I look for an earthquake too, then.
...made great preparation.
I have almost matter enough in me for such
an embassage, and so I commit you—
...loving friend, Benedick.
Nay, mock not, mock not. The body of your
discourse is sometimes guarded with fragments,
and the guards are but slightly basted on neither.
Ere you flout old ends any further, examine your
conscience. And so I leave you.
He exits.
ACT 2
Scene 1
...brother step aside.
Enter, with a Drum, Prince Pedro, Claudio, and Benedick, Signior Antonio, and Balthasar, all in masks, with Borachio and Don John.
...you speak love.
Benedick and Margaret move forward.
to Margaret
Well, I would you did like me.
...many ill qualities.
Which is one?
...my prayers aloud.
I love you the better; the hearers may cry
“Amen.”
...a good dancer.
They separate; Benedick moves aside; Balthasar moves forward.
...there’s an end.
Benedick and Beatrice move forward.
...told you so?
No, you shall pardon me.
...who you are?
Not now.
...that said so.
What’s he?
...him well enough.
Not I, believe me.
...make you laugh?
I pray you, what is he?
...had boarded me.
When I know the gentleman, I’ll tell him
what you say.
...follow the leaders.
In every good thing.
...the next turning.
Dance. Then exit all except Don John, Borachio, and Claudio.
...Farewell therefore, Hero.
Enter Benedick.
Count Claudio?
...Yea, the same.
Come, will you go with me?
... Whither?
Even to the next willow, about your own
business, county. What fashion will you wear the
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.
...joy of her.
Why, that’s spoken like an honest drover; so
they sell bullocks. But did you think the Prince
would have served you thus?
...you, leave me.
Ho, now you strike like the blind man.
’Twas the boy that stole your meat, and you’ll beat
the post.
...I’ll leave you.
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.
...you see him?
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 goodwill 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.
...What’s his fault?
The flat transgression of a schoolboy who,
being overjoyed with finding a bird’s nest, shows it
his companion, and he steals it.
...in the stealer.
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.
...to the owner.
If their singing answer your saying, by my
faith, you say honestly.
...wronged by you.
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.
...here she comes.
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?
...your good company.
O God, sir, here’s a dish I love not! I cannot
endure my Lady Tongue.
He exits.
Scene 3
...day of marriage.
Enter Benedick alone.
Boy!
...Boy. Signior?
In my chamber window lies a book. Bring it
hither to me in the orchard.
...here already, sir.
I know that, but I would have thee hence
and here again.
I do much wonder that one man, seeing how much
another man is a fool when he dedicates his behaviors
to love, will, after he hath laughed at such
shallow follies in others, become the argument of
his own scorn by falling in love—and such a man is
Claudio. I have known when there was no music
with him but the drum and the fife, and now had he
rather hear the tabor and the pipe; I have known
when he would have walked ten mile afoot to see a
good armor, and now will he lie ten nights awake
carving the fashion of a new doublet. He was wont
to speak plain and to the purpose, like an honest
man and a soldier, and now is he turned orthography;
his words are a very fantastical banquet, just so
many strange dishes. May I be so converted and see
with these eyes? I cannot tell; I think not. I will not
be sworn but love may transform me to an oyster,
but I’ll take my oath on it, till he have made an
oyster of me, he shall never make me such a fool.
One woman is fair, yet I am well; another is wise, yet
I am well; another virtuous, yet I am well; but till all
graces be in one woman, one woman shall not
come in my grace. Rich she shall be, that’s certain;
wise, or I’ll none; virtuous, or I’ll never cheapen
her; fair, or I’ll never look on her; mild, or come not
near me; noble, or not I for an angel; of good
discourse, an excellent musician, and her hair shall
be of what color it please God. Ha! The Prince and
Monsieur Love! I will hide me in the arbor.
He hides.
...and nothing.Music plays.
aside
Now, divine air! Now is his soul
ravished. Is it not strange that sheeps’ guts should
hale souls out of men’s bodies? Well, a horn for my
money, when all’s done.
...for a shift.
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.
...ever to abhor.
aside
Is ’t possible? Sits the wind in that
corner?
...especially against Benedick.
aside
I should think this a gull but that the
white-bearded fellow speaks it. Knavery cannot,
sure, hide himself in such reverence.
...in to dinner.
coming forward
This can be no trick. The
conference was sadly borne; they have the truth of
this from Hero; they seem to pity the lady. It seems
her affections have their full bent. Love me? Why, it
must be requited! I hear how I am censured. They
say I will bear myself proudly if I perceive the love
come from her. They say, too, that she will rather
die than give any sign of affection. I did never think
to marry. I must not seem proud. Happy are they
that hear their detractions and can put them to
mending. They say the lady is fair; ’tis a truth, I can
bear them witness. And virtuous; ’tis so, I cannot
reprove it. And wise, but for loving me; by my troth,
it is no addition to her wit, nor no great argument of
her folly, for I will be horribly in love with her! I
may chance have some odd quirks and remnants of
wit broken on me because I have railed so long
against marriage, but doth not the appetite alter? A
man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot
endure in his age. Shall quips and sentences and
these paper bullets of the brain awe a man from the
career of his humor? No! The world must be peopled.
When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not
think I should live till I were married. Here comes
Beatrice. By this day, she’s a fair lady. I do spy some
marks of love in her.
...in to dinner.
Fair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains.
...not have come.
You take pleasure then in the message?
...Fare you well.
Ha! “Against my will I am sent to bid you
come in to dinner.” There’s a double meaning in
that. “I took no more pains for those thanks than
you took pains to thank me.” That’s as much as to
say “Any pains that I take for you is as easy as
thanks.” If I do not take pity of her, I am a villain; if I
do not love her, I am a Jew. I will go get her picture.
He exits.
ACT 3
Scene 2
...better than reportingly.
Enter Prince, Claudio, Benedick, and Leonato.
...his tongue speaks.
Gallants, I am not as I have been.
...he wants money.
I have the toothache.
... Draw it.
Hang it!
...or a worm.
Well, everyone can master a grief but he
that has it.
...her face upwards.
Yet is this no charm for the toothache.—
Old signior, walk aside with me. I have studied eight
or nine wise words to speak to you, which these
hobby-horses must not hear.
Benedick and Leonato exit.
ACT 4
Scene 1
...at the jail.
Enter Prince, John the Bastard, Leonato, Friar, Claudio, Benedick, Hero, and Beatrice, with Attendants.
...what they do!
How now, interjections? Why, then, some
be of laughing, as ah, ha, he!
...things are true.
This looks not like a nuptial.
...her spirits up.
How doth the lady?
...foul tainted flesh!
Sir, sir, be patient.
For my part, I am so attired in wonder
I know not what to say.
...cousin is belied!
Lady, were you her bedfellow last night?
...in the princes.
Two of them have the very bent of honor,
And if their wisdoms be misled in this,
The practice of it lives in John the Bastard,
Whose spirits toil in frame of villainies.
...minds, and injuries.
Signior Leonato, let the Friar advise you.
And though you know my inwardness and love
Is very much unto the Prince and Claudio,
Yet, by mine honor, I will deal in this
As secretly and justly as your soul
Should with your body.
...and endure.
Lady Beatrice, have you wept all this while?
...a while longer.
I will not desire that.
...do it freely.
Surely I do believe your fair cousin is
wronged.
...would right her!
Is there any way to show such friendship?
...no such friend.
May a man do it?
...but not yours.
I do love nothing in the world so well as
you. Is not that strange?
...for my cousin.
By my sword, Beatrice, thou lovest me!
...and eat it.
I will swear by it that you love me, and I will
make him eat it that says I love not you.
...eat your word?
With no sauce that can be devised to it. I
protest I love thee.
...God forgive me.
What offense, sweet Beatrice?
...I loved you.
And do it with all thy heart.
...left to protest.
Come, bid me do anything for thee.
... Kill Claudio.
Ha! Not for the wide world.
...begins to exit.
Tarry, sweet Beatrice.
...let me go.
Beatrice—
...I will go.
We’ll be friends first.
...with mine enemy.
Is Claudio thine enemy?
...in the marketplace.
Hear me, Beatrice—
...A proper saying.
Nay, but Beatrice—
...she is undone.
Beat—
...woman with grieving.
Tarry, good Beatrice. By this hand, I love
thee.
...swearing by it.
Think you in your soul the Count Claudio
hath wronged Hero?
...or a soul.
Enough, I am engaged. I will challenge
him. I will kiss your hand, and so I leave you. By
this hand, Claudio shall render me a dear account.
As you hear of me, so think of me. Go comfort your
cousin. I must say she is dead, and so farewell.
They exit.
ACT 5
Scene 1
...smart for it.
Enter Benedick.
...signior, what news?
to Prince
Good day, my lord.
...young for them.
In a false quarrel there is no true valor. I
came to seek you both.
...use thy wit?
It is in my scabbard. Shall I draw it?
...to kill care.
Sir, I shall meet your wit in the career, an
you charge it against me. I pray you, choose another
subject.
...turn his girdle.
Shall I speak a word in your ear?
...from a challenge!
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.
...a woodcock too?
Sir, your wit ambles well; it goes easily.
...the married man”?
Fare you well, boy. You know my mind. I
will leave you now to your gossip-like humor. 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.
Benedick exits.
Scene 2
...this lewd fellow.
Enter Benedick and Margaret.
Pray thee, sweet Mistress Margaret, deserve
well at my hands by helping me to the speech of
Beatrice.
...of my beauty?
In so high a style, Margaret, that no man
living shall come over it, for in most comely truth
thou deservest it.
...keep below stairs?
Thy wit is as quick as the greyhound’s
mouth; it catches.
...but hurt not.
A most manly wit, Margaret; it will not hurt
a woman. And so, I pray thee, call Beatrice. I give
thee the bucklers.
...of our own.
If you use them, Margaret, you must put in
the pikes with a vice, and they are dangerous
weapons for maids.
...think hath legs.
And therefore will come. Sings
The god of love
That sits above,
And knows me, and knows me,
How pitiful I deserve—
I mean in singing. But in loving, Leander the good
swimmer, Troilus the first employer of panders, and
a whole book full of these quondam carpetmongers,
whose names yet run smoothly in the even
road of a blank verse, why, they were never so truly
turned over and over as my poor self in love. Marry,
I cannot show it in rhyme. I have tried. I can find out
no rhyme to “lady” but “baby”—an innocent
rhyme; for “scorn,” “horn”—a hard rhyme; for
“school,” “fool”—a babbling rhyme; very ominous
endings. No, I was not born under a rhyming
planet, nor I cannot woo in festival terms.
Enter Beatrice.
Sweet Beatrice, wouldst thou come when I called
thee?
...you bid me.
O, stay but till then!
...you and Claudio.
Only foul words, and thereupon I will kiss
thee.
...will depart unkissed.
Thou hast frighted the word out of his right
sense, so forcible is thy wit. But I must tell thee
plainly, Claudio undergoes my challenge, and either
I must shortly hear from him, or I will subscribe
him a coward. And I pray thee now tell me, for
which of my bad parts didst thou first fall in love
with me?
...love for me?
Suffer love! A good epithet. I do suffer love
indeed, for I love thee against my will.
...my friend hates.
Thou and I are too wise to woo peaceably.
...will praise himself.
An old, an old instance, Beatrice, that lived
in the time of good neighbors. If a man do not erect
in this age his own tomb ere he dies, he shall live no
longer in monument than the bell rings and the
widow weeps.
...that, think you?
Question: why, an hour in clamor and a
quarter in rheum. Therefore is it most expedient for
the wise, if Don Worm, his conscience, find no
impediment to the contrary, to be the trumpet of
his own virtues, as I am to myself. So much for
praising myself, who, I myself will bear witness, is
praiseworthy. And now tell me, how doth your
cousin?
... Very ill.
And how do you?
...Very ill, too.
Serve God, love me, and mend. There will I
leave you too, for here comes one in haste.
...this news, signior?
I will live in thy heart, die in thy lap, and be
buried in thy eyes—and, moreover, I will go with
thee to thy uncle’s.
They exit.
Scene 4
...up this woe.
Enter Leonato, Benedick, Beatrice, Margaret, Ursula, Leonato’s brother, Friar, Hero.
...sorts so well.
And so am I, being else by faith enforced
To call young Claudio to a reckoning for it.
...with confirmed countenance.
Friar, I must entreat your pains, I think.
...do what, signior?
To bind me, or undo me, one of them.—
Signior Leonato, truth it is, good signior,
Your niece regards me with an eye of favor.
...’tis most true.
And I do with an eye of love requite her.
...what’s your will?
Your answer, sir, is enigmatical.
But for my will, my will is your goodwill
May stand with ours, this day to be conjoined
In the state of honorable marriage—
In which, good friar, I shall desire your help.
...beast in love.
Bull Jove, sir, had an amiable low,
And some such strange bull leapt your father’s cow
And got a calf in that same noble feat
Much like to you, for you have just his bleat.
...let us presently.
Soft and fair, friar.—Which is Beatrice?
...is your will?
Do not you love me?
...more than reason.
Why then, your uncle and the Prince and Claudio
Have been deceived. They swore you did.
...you love me?
Troth, no, no more than reason.
...swear you did.
They swore that you were almost sick for me.
...dead for me.
’Tis no such matter. Then you do not love me?
...shows a paper.
A miracle! Here’s our own hands against
our hearts. Come, I will have thee, but by this light
I take thee for pity.
...in a consumption.
Peace! I will stop your mouth.
They kiss.
...the married man?
I’ll tell thee what, prince: a college of
wit-crackers cannot flout me out of my humor.
Dost thou think I care for a satire or an epigram?
No. If a man will be beaten with brains, he shall
wear nothing handsome about him. In brief, since I
do purpose to marry, I will think nothing to any
purpose that the world can say against it, and
therefore never flout at me for what I have said
against it. For man is a giddy thing, and this is my
conclusion.—For thy part, Claudio, I did think to
have beaten thee, but in that thou art like to be my
kinsman, live unbruised, and love my cousin.
...narrowly to thee.
Come, come, we are friends. Let’s have a
dance ere we are married, that we may lighten our
own hearts and our wives’ heels.
...have dancing afterward.
First, of my word! Therefore play, music.—
Prince, thou art sad. Get thee a wife, get thee a wife.
There is no staff more reverend than one tipped
with horn.
...back to Messina.
to Prince
Think not on him till tomorrow.
I’ll devise thee brave punishments for him.—Strike
up, pipers!
...plays. They dance.
They exit.