window.
BALTHASAR The best I can, my lord.
DON PEDRO Do so: farewell. Exit Balthasar.
Come hither, Leonato. What was it you told me of
today, that your niece Beatrice was in love with Signior
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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
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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
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think of it, but that she loves him with an enraged
affection, it is past the infinite of thought.
DON PEDRO Maybe she doth but counterfeit.
CLAUDIO Faith, like enough.
LEONATO O God! Counterfeit? There was never
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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 – you
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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.
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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 himself in such reverence.
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CLAUDIO [aside] He hath ta’en th’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.
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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
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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
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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
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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,
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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 sometime afeard she will do a desperate
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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.
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DON PEDRO And 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.
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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
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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
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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
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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 Before God, and, in my mind, very wise.
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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
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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.
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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?
CLAUDIO Never tell him, my lord, let her wear it out
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with good counsel.
LEONATO Nay, that’s impossible, she may wear her
heart out first.
DON PEDRO Well, we will hear further of it by your
daughter; let it cool the while. I love Benedick well,
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and I could wish he would modestly examine himself,
to see how much he is unworthy so good a lady.
LEONATO My lord, will you walk? Dinner is ready.
CLAUDIO [aside] If he do not dote on her upon this, I
will never trust my expectation.
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DON PEDRO [aside] Let there be the same net spread for
her, and that must your daughter and her gentle-
women carry. The sport will be when they hold one an
opinion of another’s dotage, and no such matter: that’s
the scene that I would see, which will be merely a
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dumb-show. Let us send her to call him in to dinner.
Exeunt Don Pedro, Claudio and Leonato.
BENEDICK [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
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must be requited. I hear how I am cens
ured: 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
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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
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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
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sentences and these paper bullets of the brain awe a
man from the career of his humour? 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
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some marks of love in her.
Enter BEATRICE.
BEATRICE Against my will I am sent to bid you come in
to dinner.
BENEDICK Fair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains.
BEATRICE I took no more pains for those thanks than
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you take pains to thank me; if it had been painful, I
would not have come.
BENEDICK You take pleasure then in the message?
BEATRICE Yea, just so much as you may take upon a
knife’s point and choke a daw withal. You have no
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stomach, signior, fare you well. Exit.
BENEDICK 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
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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. Exit.
3.1 Enter HERO and two gentlewomen, MARGARET and URSULA.
HERO Good Margaret, run thee to the parlour;
There shalt thou find my cousin Beatrice
Proposing with the Prince and Claudio.
Whisper her ear, and tell her I and Ursley
Walk in the orchard, and our whole discourse
5
Is all of her; say that thou overheard’st us,
And bid her steal into the pleached bower
Where honeysuckles, ripen’d by the sun,
Forbid the sun to enter, like favourites,
Made proud by princes, that advance their pride
10
Against that power that bred it. There will she hide her
To listen our propose. This is thy office;
Bear thee well in it, and leave us alone.
MARGARET
I’ll make her come, I warrant you, presently. Exit.
HERO Now, Ursula, when Beatrice doth come,
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As we do trace this alley up and down,
Our talk must only be of Benedick.
When I do name him, let it be thy part
To praise him more than ever man did merit:
My talk to thee must be how Benedick
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Is sick in love with Beatrice. Of this matter
Is little Cupid’s crafty arrow made,
That only wounds by hearsay.
Enter BEATRICE into the arbour.
Now begin;
For look where Beatrice like a lapwing runs
Close by the ground, to hear our conference.
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URSULA The pleasant’st angling is to see the fish
Cut with her golden oars the silver stream,
And greedily devour the treacherous bait:
So angle we for Beatrice, who even now
Is couched in the woodbine coverture.
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Fear you not my part of the dialogue.
HERO Then go we near her, that her ear lose nothing
Of the false sweet bait that we lay for it.
[approaching the arbour] No, truly, Ursula, she is too
disdainful;
I know her spirits are as coy and wild
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As haggards of the rock.
URSULA But are you sure
That Benedick loves Beatrice so entirely?
HERO So says the Prince and my new-trothed lord.
URSULA And did they bid you tell her of it, madam?
HERO They did entreat me to acquaint her of it;
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But I persuaded them, if they lov’d Benedick,
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 404
