LEON. Signior Benedick, no; you a child.

we

D. PEDRO. You have it full, Benedick: may guess by this what you are, being a man. Truly, the lady fathers herself. Be happy, lady! for you are like an honourable 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 turn-coat. 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.

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 humour 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 scratched face.

BEAT. Scratching could not make it worse, an 't were 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 o' God's name! I have done.

BEAT. You always end with a jade's trick; I know you of old.

D. PEDRO. This 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. Let me bid you welcome, my lord; being reconciled to the prince your brother, I owe you all duty.

(*) First folio omits, sir.

a The lady fathers herself.] This phrase, Steevens observes, is still common in Dorsetshire. "Jack fathers himself," is like his father. There was a French saying to the same effect, older than Shakespeare's time :-" Il pourtrait fort bien à son père." b Still be talking,-) Always be talking.

To tell us Cupid is a good hare-finder, and Vulcan a rare car

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 all but BENEDICK and CLAUDIO. CLAUD. Benedick, didst thou note the daughter of signior Leonato ?

BENE. I noted her not, but I looked 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 professed tyrant to their sex?

CLAUD. No, I pray thee, speak in sober judg

ment.

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 likest her.

BENE. Would you buy her, that you inquire after her?

But

CLAUD. Can the world buy such a jewel? BENE. Yea, and a case to put it into. speak you this with a sad brow? or do you play the flouting Jack, to tell us Cupid is a good harefinder, 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 looked on.

BENE. 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?

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; 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.

penter?] This, which has so puzzled all the commentators, is nothing more than an example of what Puttenham terms Antiphrasis, or the Broad floute." "Or when we deride by plaine and flat contradiction, as he that saw a dwarfe go in the streete said to his companion that walked with him; See yonder gyant; and to a Negro or woman blackemoore, In good sooth ye are a faire one."-The Arte of English Poesie, 1589.

Re-enter DON PEDRO.

D. PEDRO. What secret hath held you here, that you followed 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 uttered. BENE. Like the old tale, my lord: it is not so, nor 't was not so; but, indeed, God forbid it should be so.(3)

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 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.

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 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.

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

BENE. With anger, with sickness, or with hunger, my lord, not with love: prove that ever I lose

(*) First folio, speake.

a But that I wil. have a recheat winded in my forehead, or hang my bugle in an invisible baldrick,-] A recheat was a note upon the horn, usually employed to recal the dogs from the wrong scent. Benedick's meaning appears to be, I will neither be a wittol, glorying in my shame, nor a poor cuckold who must endure and conceal it.

b The fine-] The conclusion.

• Hang me in a bottle like a cat, and shoot at me:] This was one of the barbarous sports of former times. The practice was to enclose a cat in a suspended coop of open bars, and shoot at it

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 brothelhouse, for the sign of blind Cupid.

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

BENE. 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.(4) D. PEDRO. Well, as time shall try : In time the savage bull doth bear the yoke.

BENE. 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.

CLAUD. If this should ever happen, thou would'st be horn-mad.

D. PEDRO. Nay, if Cupid have not spent all his quiver in Venice, thou wilt quake for this shortly. BENE. I look for an earthquake too, then.

D. PEDRO. Well, you will temporize with the hours. In the mean time, good signior Benedick, repair to Leonato's; commend me to him, and tell him, I will not fail him at supper; for, indeed, he hath made great preparation.

BENE. I have almost matter enough in me for such an embassage; and so I commit youCLAUD. To the tuition of God. From my house, (if I had it,)—

D. PEDRO. The sixth of July: Your loving friend, Benedick."

BENE. Nay, mock not, mock not: the body of your discourse is sometime 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.

me good.

[Exit BENEDICK. CLAUD. My liege, your highness now may do [but how, D. PEDRO. My love is thine to teach; teach it And thou shalt see how apt it is to learn Any hard lesson that may do thee good. CLAUD. Hath Leonato any son, my lord? D. PEDRO. No child but Hero, she's his only heir.

Dost, thou affect her, Claudio?

with arrows till the poor animal was killed :

arrowes

flew faster than they did at a calle in a basket, when Prince Arthur, or the Duke of Shoreditch, strucke up drumme in field." -Warres; or, The Peace is Broken, a black-letter tract, quoted by Steevens.

d In time, &c.] A line from the old stage butt, "The Spanish Tragedy," by Thomas Kyd; but which originally occurs in Watson's Passionate Centurie of Love," printed in 1582.

e Your loving friend, Benedick.] The old ends," here ridi culed, were the formal conclusions of letters in the poet's time, which usually ran. "And so, wishing you health, I commend you to the tuition of God," &c. &c.

CLAUD. O my lord,

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

D. PEDRO. Thou wilt be like a lover presently,
And tire the hearer with a book of words:
If thou dost love fair Hero, cherish it,
And I will break with her, and with her father,
And thou shalt have her: was 't not to this end,
That thou began'st to twist so fine a story?
CLAUD. How sweetly do you minister to love,

That know love's grief by his complexion!
But lest my liking might too sudden seem,
I would have salv'd it with a longer treatise.

D. PEDRO. What need the bridge much broader
than the flood?

The fairest grant is the necessity:

Look, what will serve, is fit: 't is once, thou lov'st; And I will fit thee with the remedy.

I know, we shall have revelling to-night;

I will assume thy part in some disguise,

And tell fair Hero I am Claudio;
And in her bosom I'll unclasp my heart,
And take her hearing prisoner with the force
And strong encounter of my amorous tale:
Then, after, to her father will I break,
And, the conclusion is, she shall be thine:
In practice let us put it presently.

[Exeunt.

read "The fairest grant is to necessity, that is, necessitas qued cogit defendit," but surely the sense is clear enough -the best boon is that which answers the necessities of the case: or, as Don Pedro pithily explains it, "what will serve, is fit."

e 'Tis once,-] See note (a), p. 128.

ANT. As the event stamps them; but they have a good cover, they show well outward. The prince and count Claudio, walking in a thick-pleached alley in my orchard, were thus much† overheard by a man of mine. The prince discovered to Claudio, that he loved my niece your daughter, and meant to acknowledge it this night in a dance; and, if he found her accordant, he meant to take the present time by the top, and instantly break with you of it.

LEON. Hath the fellow any wit, that told you this?

ANT. A good sharp fellow: I will send for him, and question him yourself.

LEON. No, no; we will hold it as a dream, till it appear itself:-but I will acquaint my daughter withal, that she may be the better prepared for an answer, if peradventure this be true. Go you, and tell her of it. [Several persons cross the stage.] Cousins, you know what you have to do.-O, I cry you mercy, friend: go you with me, and I will use your skill.-Good cousins, have a care this busy time. [Exeunt.

SCENE III.-Another Room in Leonato's House.

Enter DoN JOHN and CONRADE.

CON. What the good year, my lord! why are you thus out of measure sad?

D. JOHN. There is no measure in the occasion that breeds, therefore the sadness is without limit.

CON. You should hear reason.

D. JOHN. And when I have heard it, what blessing bringeth it?

CON. If not a present remedy, yet a patient sufferance.

D. JOHN. I wonder that thou, being (as thou

(*) Old text, events.

(+) First folio omits, much. (1) Old copies, cousin.

a Enter Leonato and Antonio.] In the old copies, "Enter Leonato and an old man, brother to Leonato."

b Thick-pleached alley-] A thickly intertwined avenue.

e Enter Don John and Conrade.] The original stage-direction is, "Enter Sir John the Bastard, and Conrade, his companion." d And claw no man-] To claw or scratch, is, metaphorically, to flatter.

e What is he for a fool-] This construction, though no longer

say'st thou art) born under Saturn, goest about to apply a moral medicine to a mortifying mischief. I cannot hide what I am: I must be sad when I have cause, and smile at no man's jests; eat when I have stomach, and wait for no man's leisure; sleep when I am drowsy, and tend on no man's business; laugh when I am merry, and claw no man in his humour.

CON. Yea, but you must not make the full show of this, till you may do it without controlment. You have of late stood out against your brother, and he hath ta'en you newly into his grace; where it is impossible you should take true* root, but by the fair weather that you make yourself: it is needful that you frame the season for your own harvest.

D. JOHN. I had rather be a canker in a hedge, than a rose in his grace; and it better fits my blood to be disdained of all, than to fashion a carriage to rob love from any: in this, though I cannot be said to be a flattering honest man, it must not be denied but I am a plain-dealing villain. I am trusted with a muzzle, and enfranchised with a clog; therefore I have decreed not to sing in my cage: if I had my mouth, I would bite; if I had my liberty, I would do my liking in the meantime, let me be that I am, and seek not to alter me.

CON. Can you make no use of your discontent?

D. JOHN. It make all use of it, for I use it
Who comes here? what news. Borachio?

only.

Enter BORACHIO.

BORA. I came yonder from a great supper; the prince, your brother, is royally entertained by Leonato; and I can give you intelligence of an intended marriage.

D. JOHN. Will it serve for any model to build mischief on? What is he for a foole that betroths himself to unquietness?

BORA. Marry, it is your brother's right hand. D. JOHN. Who? the most exquisite Claudio? BORA. Even he.

D. JOHN. A proper squire! And who, and who? which way looks he?

BORA. Marry, on Hero, the daughter and heir of Leonato.

permissible, was trite enough in the poet's time. The meaning is, what kind of fool is he? It is found in Peele's "Edward I." Sc. 2: "What's he for a man?" in Ben Jonson's "Every Man out of his Humour," Act III. Sc. 6:

"What is he for a creature?" And in "Ram Alley," Act IV. Sc. 2:

"What is he for a man?"

"Nothing for a man, but much for a beast."