Leon. You will never run mad, niece.
Beat. No, not till a hot January.
Mess. Don Pedro is approach’d.
Enter Don Pedro, Claudio, Benedick, Balthasar, and [Don] John the Bastard.
D. Pedro. Good Signior Leonato, are you come to meet your trouble? The fashion of the world is to avoid cost, and you encounter it.
Leon. Never came trouble to my house in the likeness of your Grace, for trouble being gone, comfort should remain; but when you depart from me, sorrow abides and happiness takes his leave.
D. Pedro. You embrace your charge too willingly. I think this is your daughter.
Leon. Her mother hath many times told me so.
Bene. Were you in doubt, sir, that you ask’d her?
Leon. Signior Benedick, no, for then were you a child.
D. Pedro. You have it full, Benedick. We may guess by this what you are, being a man. Truly the lady fathers herself. Be happy, lady, for you are like an honorable father.
Bene. If Signior Leonato be her father, she would not have his head on her shoulders for all Messina, as like him as she is.
Beat. I wonder that you will still be talking, Signior Benedick, nobody marks you.
Bene. What, my dear Lady Disdain! are you yet living?
Beat. Is it possible disdain should die while she hath such meet food to feed it as Signior Benedick? Courtesy itself must convert to disdain, if you come in her presence.
Bene. Then is courtesy a turncoat. But it is certain I am lov’d 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.
Beat. A dear happiness to women, they would else have been troubled with a pernicious suitor. I thank God and my cold blood, I am of your humor for that: I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me.
Bene. God keep your ladyship still in that mind! so some gentleman or other shall scape a predestinate scratch’d face.
Beat. Scratching could not make it worse, and ’twere such a face as yours were.
Bene. Well, you are a rare parrot-teacher.
Beat. A bird of my tongue is better than a beast of yours.
Bene. I would my horse had the speed of your tongue, and so good a continuer. But keep your way a’ God’s name, I have done.
Beat. You always end with a jade’s trick, I know you of old.
D. Pedro. That is the sum of all: Leonato—Signior Claudio and Signior Benedick—my dear friend Leonato hath invited you all. I tell him we shall stay here at the least a month, and he heartily prays some occasion may detain us longer. I dare swear he is no hypocrite, but prays from his heart.
Leon. If you swear, my lord, you shall not be forsworn. [To Don John.] Let me bid you welcome, my lord, being reconcil’d to the Prince your brother: I owe you all duty.
D. John. I thank you. I am not of many words, but I thank you.
Leon. Please it your Grace lead on?
D. Pedro. Your hand, Leonato, we will go together.
Exeunt. Manent Benedick and Claudio.
Claud. Benedick, didst thou note the daughter of Signior Leonato?
Bene. I noted her not, but I look’d on her.
Claud. Is she not a modest young lady?
Bene. 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 profess’d tyrant to their sex?
Claud. No, I pray thee speak in sober judgment.
Bene. 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.
Claud. Thou thinkest I am in sport. I pray thee tell me truly how thou lik’st her.
Bene. Would you buy her, that you inquire after her?
Claud. Can the world buy such a jewel?
Bene. 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?
Claud. In mine eye, she is the sweetest lady that ever I look’d on.
Bene. I can see yet without spectacles, and I see no such matter. There’s her cousin, and she were not possess’d 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?
Claud. I would scarce trust myself, though I had sworn the contrary, if Hero would be my wife.
Bene. 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, and thou wilt needs thrust thy neck into a yoke, wear the print of it, and sigh away Sundays. Look, Don Pedro is return’d to seek you.
Enter Don Pedro.
D. Pedro. What secret hath held you here, that you follow’d not to Leonato’s?
Bene. I would your Grace would constrain me to tell.
D. Pedro. I charge thee on thy allegiance.
Bene. 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.
Claud. If this were so, so were it utt’red.
Bene. Like the old tale, my lord: “It is not so, nor ’twas not so, but indeed, God forbid it should be so.”
Claud. If my passion change not shortly, God forbid it should be otherwise.
D. Pedro. Amen, if you love her, for the lady is very well worthy.
Claud. You speak this to fetch me in, my lord.
D. Pedro. By my troth, I speak my thought.
Claud. And in faith, my lord, I spoke mine.
Bene. And by my two faiths and troths, my lord, I spoke mine.
Claud. That I love her, I feel.
D. Pedro: That she is worthy, I know.
Bene. That I neither feel how she should be lov’d, 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.
D. Pedro. Thou wast ever an obstinate heretic in the despite of beauty.
Claud. And never could maintain his part but in the force of his will.
Bene. That a woman conceiv’d me, I thank her; that she brought me up, I likewise give her most humble thanks; but that I will have a rechate 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