1    I learn in this letter that Don Peter of Arragon
2    comes this night to Messina.

3    He is very near by this: he was not three leagues off
4    when I left him.

5    How many gentlemen have you lost in this action?

6    But few of any sort, and none of name.

7    A victory is twice itself when the achiever brings
8    home full numbers. I find here that Don Peter hath
9    bestowed much honour on a young Florentine called Claudio.

10   Much deserved on his part and equally remembered by
11   Don Pedro: he hath borne himself beyond the
12   promise of his age, doing, in the figure of a lamb,
13   the feats of a lion: he hath indeed better
14   bettered expectation than you must expect of me to
15   tell you how.

16   He hath an uncle here in Messina will be very much
17   glad of it.

18   I have already delivered him letters, and there
19   appears much joy in him; even so much that joy could
20   not show itself modest enough without a badge of
21   bitterness.

22   Did he break out into tears?

23   In great measure.

24   A kind overflow of kindness: there are no faces
25   truer than those that are so washed. How much
26   better is it to weep at joy than to joy at weeping!

27   I pray you, is Signior Mountanto returned from the
28   wars or no?

29   I know none of that name, lady: there was none such
30   in the army of any sort.

31   What is he that you ask for, niece?

32   My cousin means Signior Benedick of Padua.

33   O, he's returned; and as pleasant as ever he was.

34   He set up his bills here in Messina and challenged
35   Cupid at the flight; and my uncle's fool, reading
36   the challenge, subscribed for Cupid, and challenged
37   him at the bird-bolt. I pray you, how many hath he
38   killed and eaten in these wars? But how many hath
39   he killed? for indeed I promised to eat all of his killing.

40   Faith, niece, you tax Signior Benedick too much;
41   but he'll be meet with you, I doubt it not.

42   He hath done good service, lady, in these wars.

43   You had musty victual, and he hath holp to eat it:
44   he is a very valiant trencherman; he hath an
45   excellent stomach.

46   And a good soldier too, lady.

47   And a good soldier to a lady: but what is he to a lord?

48   A lord to a lord, a man to a man; stuffed with all
49   honourable virtues.

50   It is so, indeed; he is no less than a stuffed man:
51   but for the stuffing,--well, we are all mortal.

52   You must not, sir, mistake my niece. There is a
53   kind of merry war betwixt Signior Benedick and her:
54   they never meet but there's a skirmish of wit
55   between them.

56   Alas! he gets nothing by that. In our last
57   conflict four of his five wits went halting off, and
58   now is the whole man governed with one: so that if
59   he have wit enough to keep himself warm, let him
60   bear it for a difference between himself and his
61   horse; for it is all the wealth that he hath left,
62   to be known a reasonable creature. Who is his
63   companion now? He hath every month a new sworn brother.

64   Is't possible?

65   Very easily possible: he wears his faith but as
66   the fashion of his hat; it ever changes with the
67   next block.

68   I see, lady, the gentleman is not in your books.

69   No; an he were, I would burn my study. But, I pray
70   you, who is his companion? Is there no young
71   squarer now that will make a voyage with him to the devil?

72   He is most in the company of the right noble Claudio.

73   O Lord, he will hang upon him like a disease: he
74   is sooner caught than the pestilence, and the taker
75   runs presently mad. God help the noble Claudio! if
76   he have caught the Benedick, it will cost him a
77   thousand pound ere a' be cured.

78   I will hold friends with you, lady.

79   Do, good friend.

80   You will never run mad, niece.

81   No, not till a hot January.

82   Don Pedro is approached.

83   Good Signior Leonato, you are come to meet your
84   trouble: the fashion of the world is to avoid
85   cost, and you encounter it.

86   Never came trouble to my house in the likeness of
87   your grace: for trouble being gone, comfort should
88   remain; but when you depart from me, sorrow abides
89   and happiness takes his leave.

90   You embrace your charge too willingly. I think this
91   is your daughter.

92   Her mother hath many times told me so.

93   Were you in doubt, sir, that you asked her?

94   Signior Benedick, no; for then were you a child.

95   You have it full, Benedick: we may guess by this
96   what you are, being a man. Truly, the lady fathers
97   herself. Be happy, lady; for you are like an
98   honourable father.

99   If Signior Leonato be her father, she would not
100  have his head on her shoulders for all Messina, as
101  like him as she is.

102  I wonder that you will still be talking, Signior
103  Benedick: nobody marks you.

104  What, my dear Lady Disdain! are you yet living?

105  Is it possible disdain should die while she hath
106  such meet food to feed it as Signior Benedick?
107  Courtesy itself must convert to disdain, if you come
108  in her presence.

109  Then is courtesy a turncoat. But it is certain I
110  am loved of all ladies, only you excepted: and I
111  would I could find in my heart that I had not a hard
112  heart; for, truly, I love none.

113  A dear happiness to women: they would else have
114  been troubled with a pernicious suitor. I thank God
115  and my cold blood, I am of your humour for that: I
116  had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man
117  swear he loves me.

118  God keep your ladyship still in that mind! so some
119  gentleman or other shall 'scape a predestinate
120  scratched face.

121  Scratching could not make it worse, an 'twere such
122  a face as yours were.

123  Well, you are a rare parrot-teacher.

124  A bird of my tongue is better than a beast of yours.

125  I would my horse had the speed of your tongue, and
126  so good a continuer. But keep your way, i' God's
127  name; I have done.

128  You always end with a jade's trick: I know you of old.

129  That is the sum of all, Leonato. Signior Claudio
130  and Signior Benedick, my dear friend Leonato hath
131  invited you all. I tell him we shall stay here at
132  the least a month; and he heartily prays some
133  occasion may detain us longer. I dare swear he is no
134  hypocrite, but prays from his heart.

135  If you swear, my lord, you shall not be forsworn.
To DON JOHN
136  Let me bid you welcome, my lord: being reconciled to
137  the prince your brother, I owe you all duty.

138  I thank you: I am not of many words, but I thank
139  you.

140  Please it your grace lead on?

141  Your hand, Leonato; we will go together.

142  Benedick, didst thou note the daughter of Signior Leonato?

143  I noted her not; but I looked on her.

144  Is she not a modest young lady?

145  Do you question me, as an honest man should do, for
146  my simple true judgment; or would you have me speak
147  after my custom, as being a professed tyrant to their sex?

148  No; I pray thee speak in sober judgment.

149  Why, i' faith, methinks she's too low for a high
150  praise, too brown for a fair praise and too little
151  for a great praise: only this commendation I can
152  afford her, that were she other than she is, she
153  were unhandsome; and being no other but as she is, I
154  do not like her.

155  Thou thinkest I am in sport: I pray thee tell me
156  truly how thou likest her.

157  Would you buy her, that you inquire after her?

158  Can the world buy such a jewel?

159  Yea, and a case to put it into. But speak you this
160  with a sad brow? or do you play the flouting Jack,
161  to tell us Cupid is a good hare-finder and Vulcan a
162  rare carpenter? Come, in what key shall a man take
163  you, to go in the song?

164  In mine eye she is the sweetest lady that ever I
165  looked on.

166  I can see yet without spectacles and I see no such
167  matter: there's her cousin, an she were not
168  possessed with a fury, exceeds her as much in beauty
169  as the first of May doth the last of December. But I
170  hope you have no intent to turn husband, have you?

171  I would scarce trust myself, though I had sworn the
172  contrary, if Hero would be my wife.

173  Is't come to this? In faith, hath not the world
174  one man but he will wear his cap with suspicion?
175  Shall I never see a bachelor of three-score again?
176  Go to, i' faith; an thou wilt needs thrust thy neck
177  into a yoke, wear the print of it and sigh away
178  Sundays. Look Don Pedro is returned to seek you.

179  What secret hath held you here, that you followed
180  not to Leonato's?

181  I would your grace would constrain me to tell.

182  I charge thee on thy allegiance.

183  You hear, Count Claudio: I can be secret as a dumb
184  man; I would have you think so; but, on my
185  allegiance, mark you this, on my allegiance. He is
186  in love. With who? now that is your grace's part.
187  Mark how short his answer is;--With Hero, Leonato's
188  short daughter.

189  If this were so, so were it uttered.

190  Like the old tale, my lord: 'it is not so, nor
191  'twas not so, but, indeed, God forbid it should be
192  so.'

193  If my passion change not shortly, God forbid it
194  should be otherwise.

195  Amen, if you love her; for the lady is very well worthy.

196  You speak this to fetch me in, my lord.

197  By my troth, I speak my thought.

198  And, in faith, my lord, I spoke mine.

199  And, by my two faiths and troths, my lord, I spoke mine.

200  That I love her, I feel.

201  That she is worthy, I know.

202  That I neither feel how she should be loved nor
203  know how she should be worthy, is the opinion that
204  fire cannot melt out of me: I will die in it at the stake.

205  Thou wast ever an obstinate heretic in the despite
206  of beauty.

207  And never could maintain his part but in the force
208  of his will.

209  That a woman conceived me, I thank her; that she
210  brought me up, I likewise give her most humble
211  thanks: but that I will have a recheat winded in my
212  forehead, or hang my bugle in an invisible baldrick,
213  all women shall pardon me. Because I will not do
214  them the wrong to mistrust any, I will do myself the
215  right to trust none; and the fine is, for the which
216  I may go the finer, I will live a bachelor.

217  I shall see thee, ere I die, look pale with love.

218  With anger, with sickness, or with hunger, my lord,
219  not with love: prove that ever I lose more blood
220  with love than I will get again with drinking, pick
221  out mine eyes with a ballad-maker's pen and hang me
222  up at the door of a brothel-house for the sign of
223  blind Cupid.

224  Well, if ever thou dost fall from this faith, thou
225  wilt prove a notable argument.

226  If I do, hang me in a bottle like a cat and shoot
227  at me; and he that hits me, let him be clapped on
228  the shoulder, and called Adam.

229  Well, as time shall try: 'In time the savage bull
230  doth bear the yoke.'

231  The savage bull may; but if ever the sensible
232  Benedick bear it, pluck off the bull's horns and set
233  them in my forehead: and let me be vilely painted,
234  and in such great letters as they write 'Here is
235  good horse to hire,' let them signify under my sign
236  'Here you may see Benedick the married man.'

237  If this should ever happen, thou wouldst be horn-mad.

238  Nay, if Cupid have not spent all his quiver in
239  Venice, thou wilt quake for this shortly.

240  I look for an earthquake too, then.

241  Well, you temporize with the hours. In the
242  meantime, good Signior Benedick, repair to
243  Leonato's: commend me to him and tell him I will
244  not fail him at supper; for indeed he hath made
245  great preparation.

246  I have almost matter enough in me for such an
247  embassage; and so I commit you--

248  To the tuition of God: From my house, if I had it,--

249  The sixth of July: Your loving friend, Benedick.

250  Nay, mock not, mock not. The body of your
251  discourse is sometime guarded with fragments, and
252  the guards are but slightly basted on neither: ere
253  you flout old ends any further, examine your
254  conscience: and so I leave you.

255  My liege, your highness now may do me good.

256  My love is thine to teach: teach it but how,
257  And thou shalt see how apt it is to learn
258  Any hard lesson that may do thee good.

259  Hath Leonato any son, my lord?

260  No child but Hero; she's his only heir.
261  Dost thou affect her, Claudio?

262  O, my lord,
263  When you went onward on this ended action,
264  I look'd upon her with a soldier's eye,
265  That liked, but had a rougher task in hand
266  Than to drive liking to the name of love:
267  But now I am return'd and that war-thoughts
268  Have left their places vacant, in their rooms
269  Come thronging soft and delicate desires,
270  All prompting me how fair young Hero is,
271  Saying, I liked her ere I went to wars.

272  Thou wilt be like a lover presently
273  And tire the hearer with a book of words.
274  If thou dost love fair Hero, cherish it,
275  And I will break with her and with her father,
276  And thou shalt have her. Was't not to this end
277  That thou began'st to twist so fine a story?

278  How sweetly you do minister to love,
279  That know love's grief by his complexion!
280  But lest my liking might too sudden seem,
281  I would have salved it with a longer treatise.

282  What need the bridge much broader than the flood?
283  The fairest grant is the necessity.
284  Look, what will serve is fit: 'tis once, thou lovest,
285  And I will fit thee with the remedy.
286  I know we shall have revelling to-night:
287  I will assume thy part in some disguise
288  And tell fair Hero I am Claudio,
289  And in her bosom I'll unclasp my heart
290  And take her hearing prisoner with the force
291  And strong encounter of my amorous tale:
292  Then after to her father will I break;
293  And the conclusion is, she shall be thine.
294  In practise let us put it presently.