DON PEDRO. Wilt thou make a trust a transgression? The transgression is in the stealer.
BENEDICK. 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.
DON PEDRO.
I will but teach them to sing, and restore them to the owner.
BENEDICK.
If their singing answer your saying, by my faith, you say honestly.
DON PEDRO. The Lady Beatrice hath a quarrel to you: the gentleman that danced with her told her she is much wronged by you.
BENEDICK. 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 follow her.
[Re-enter CLAUDIO, BEATRICE, HERO, and LEONATO.]
DON PEDRO.
Look! here she comes.
BENEDICK. 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?
DON PEDRO.
None, but to desire your good company.
BENEDICK.
O God, sir, here’s a dish I love not: I cannot endure my Lady Tongue.
[Exit.]
DON PEDRO.
Come, lady, come; you have lost the heart of Signior Benedick.
BEATRICE. Indeed, my lord, he lent it me awhile; and I gave him use for it, a double heart for a single one: marry, once before he won it of me with false dice, therefore your Grace may well say I have lost it.
DON PEDRO.
You have put him down, lady, you have put him down.
BEATRICE. So I would not he should do me, my lord, lest I should prove the mother of fools. I have brought Count Claudio, whom you sent me to seek.
DON PEDRO.
Why, how now, count! wherefore are you sad?
CLAUDIO.
Not sad, my lord.
DON PEDRO.
How then? Sick?
CLAUDIO.
Neither, my lord.
BEATRICE. The count is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor well; but civil count, civil as an orange, and something of that jealous complexion.
DON PEDRO. I’ faith, lady, I think your blazon to be true; though, I’ll be sworn, if he be so, his conceit is false. Here, Claudio, I have wooed in thy name, and fair Hero is won; I have broke with her father, and, his good will obtained; name the day of marriage, and God give thee joy!
LEONATO.
Count, take of me my daughter, and with her my fortunes: his
Grace hath made the match, and all grace say Amen to it!
BEATRICE.
Speak, Count, ‘tis your cue.
CLAUDIO. Silence is the perfectest herald of joy: I were but little happy, if I could say how much. Lady, as you are mine, I am yours: I give away myself for you and dote upon the exchange.
BEATRICE. Speak, cousin; or, if you cannot, stop his mouth with a kiss, and let not him speak neither.
DON PEDRO.
In faith, lady, you have a merry heart.
BEATRICE.
Yea, my lord; I thank it, poor fool, it keeps on the windy side of care.
My cousin tells him in his ear that he is in her heart.
CLAUDIO.
And so she doth, cousin.
BEATRICE. Good Lord, for alliance! Thus goes every one to the world but I, and I am sunburnt. I may sit in a corner and cry heigh-ho for a husband!
DON PEDRO.
Lady Beatrice, I will get you one.
BEATRICE. I would rather have one of your father’s getting. Hath your Grace ne’er a brother like you? Your father got excellent husbands, if a maid could come by them.
DON PEDRO.
Will you have me, lady?
BEATRICE.
No, my lord, unless I might have another for working days: your Grace
is too costly to wear every day. But, I beseech your Grace, pardon me;
I was born to speak all mirth and no matter.
DON PEDRO. Your silence most offends me, and to be merry best becomes you; for out of question, you were born in a merry hour.
BEATRICE. No, sure, my lord, my mother cried; but then there was a star danced, and under that was I born. Cousins, God give you joy!
LEONATO.
Niece, will you look to those things I told you of?
BEATRICE.
I cry you mercy, uncle. By your Grace’s pardon.
[Exit.]
DON PEDRO.
By my troth, a pleasant spirited lady.
LEONATO. There’s little of the melancholy element in her, my lord: she is never sad but when she sleeps; and not ever sad then, for I have heard my daughter say, she hath often dreamed of unhappiness and waked herself with laughing.
DON PEDRO.
She cannot endure to hear tell of a husband.
LEONATO.
O! by no means: she mocks all her wooers out of suit.
DON PEDRO.
She were an excellent wife for Benedick.
LEONATO. O Lord! my lord, if they were but a week married, they would talk themselves mad.
DON PEDRO.
Count Claudio, when mean you to go to church?
CLAUDIO.
Tomorrow, my lord. Time goes on crutches till love have all his rites.
LEONATO. Not till Monday, my dear son, which is hence a just seven-night; and a time too brief too, to have all things answer my mind.
DON PEDRO. Come, you shake the head at so long a breathing; but, I warrant thee, Claudio, the time shall not go dully by us. I will in the interim undertake one of Hercules’ labours, which is, to bring Signior Benedick and the Lady Beatrice into a mountain of affection the one with the other. I