Act II, Scene 3

LEONATO’S orchard.

[Enter BENEDICK]

• Benedick. Boy!

[Enter Boy]

• Boy. Signior? 815

• Benedick. In my chamber-window lies a book: bring it hither
  to me in the orchard.

• Boy. I am here already, sir.

• Benedick. I know that; but I would have thee hence, and here again.
  [Exit Boy] 820
  I do much wonder that one man, seeing how much
  another man is a fool when he dedicates his
  behaviors to love, will, after he hath laughed at
  such shallow follies in others, become the argument
  of his own scorn by failing in love: and such a man 825
  is Claudio. I have known when there was no music
  with him but the drum and the fife; and now had he
  rather hear the tabour and the pipe: I have known
  when he would have walked ten mile a-foot to see a
  good armour; and now will he lie ten nights awake, 830
  carving the fashion of a new doublet. He was wont to
  speak plain and to the purpose, like an honest man
  and a soldier; and now is he turned orthography; his
  words are a very fantastical banquet, just so many
  strange dishes. May I be so converted and see with 835
  these eyes? I cannot tell; I think not: I will not
  be sworn, but love may transform me to an oyster; but
  I'll take my oath on it, till he have made an oyster
  of me, he shall never make me such a fool. One woman
  is fair, yet I am well; another is wise, yet I am 840
  well; another virtuous, yet I am well; but till all
  graces be in one woman, one woman shall not come in
  my grace. Rich she shall be, that's certain; wise,
  or I'll none; virtuous, or I'll never cheapen her;
  fair, or I'll never look on her; mild, or come not 845
  near me; noble, or not I for an angel; of good
  discourse, an excellent musician, and her hair shall
  be of what colour it please God. Ha! the prince and
  Monsieur Love! I will hide me in the arbour.

[Withdraws]

[Enter DON PEDRO, CLAUDIO, and LEONATO]

• Don Pedro. Come, shall we hear this music?

• Claudio. Yea, my good lord. How still the evening is,
  As hush'd on purpose to grace harmony!

• Don Pedro. See you where Benedick hath hid himself? 855

• Claudio. O, very well, my lord: the music ended,
  We'll fit the kid-fox with a pennyworth.

[Enter BALTHASAR with Music]

• Don Pedro. Come, Balthasar, we'll hear that song again.

• Balthasar. O, good my lord, tax not so bad a voice 860
  To slander music any more than once.

• Don Pedro. It is the witness still of excellency
  To put a strange face on his own perfection.
  I pray thee, sing, and let me woo no more.

• Balthasar. Because you talk of wooing, I will sing; 865
  Since many a wooer doth commence his suit
  To her he thinks not worthy, yet he wooes,
  Yet will he swear he loves.

• Don Pedro. Now, pray thee, come;
  Or, if thou wilt hold longer argument, 870
  Do it in notes.

• Balthasar. Note this before my notes;
  There's not a note of mine that's worth the noting.

• Don Pedro. Why, these are very crotchets that he speaks;
  Note, notes, forsooth, and nothing. 875

[Air]

• Benedick. Now, divine air! now is his soul ravished! Is it
  not strange that sheeps' guts should hale souls out
  of men's bodies? Well, a horn for my money, when
  all's done. 880

[The Song]

• Balthasar. Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,
  Men were deceivers ever,
  One foot in sea and one on shore,
  To one thing constant never: 885
  Then sigh not so, but let them go,
  And be you blithe and bonny,
  Converting all your sounds of woe
  Into Hey nonny, nonny.
  Sing no more ditties, sing no moe, 890
  Of dumps so dull and heavy;
  The fraud of men was ever so,
  Since summer first was leafy:
  Then sigh not so, &c.

• Don Pedro. By my troth, a good song. 895

• Balthasar. And an ill singer, my lord.

• Don Pedro. Ha, no, no, faith; thou singest well enough for a shift.

• Benedick. An he had been a dog that should have howled thus,
  they would have hanged him: and I pray God his bad
  voice bode no mischief. I had as lief have heard the 900
  night-raven, come what plague could have come after
  it.

• Don Pedro. Yea, marry, dost thou hear, Balthasar? I pray thee,
  get us some excellent music; for to-morrow night we
  would have it at the Lady Hero's chamber-window. 905

• Balthasar. The best I can, my lord.

• Don Pedro. Do so: farewell.
  [Exit BALTHASAR]
  Come hither, Leonato. What was it you told me of
  to-day, that your niece Beatrice was in love with 910
  Signior Benedick?

• Claudio. O, ay: 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 she
  should so dote on Signior Benedick, whom she hath in 915
  all outward behaviors seemed ever to abhor.

• Benedick. Is't possible? Sits the wind in that corner?

• Leonato. By my troth, my lord, I cannot tell what to think
  of it but that she loves him with an enraged
  affection: it is past the infinite of thought. 920

• Don Pedro. May be she doth but counterfeit.

• Claudio. Faith, like enough.

• Leonato. O God, counterfeit! There was never counterfeit of
  passion came so near the life of passion as she
  discovers it. 925

• Don Pedro. Why, what effects of passion shows she?

• Claudio. Bait the hook well; this fish will bite.

• Leonato. What effects, my lord? She will sit you, you heard
  my daughter tell you how.

• Claudio. She did, indeed. 930

• Don Pedro. How, how, pray you? You amaze me: I would have I
  thought her spirit had been invincible against all
  assaults of affection.

• Leonato. I would have sworn it had, my lord; especially
  against Benedick. 935

• Benedick. I should think this a gull, but that the
  white-bearded fellow speaks it: knavery cannot,
  sure, hide himself in such reverence.

• Claudio. He hath ta'en the infection: hold it up.

• Don Pedro. Hath she made her affection known to Benedick? 940

• Leonato. No; and swears she never will: that's her torment.

• 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 945
  him; for she'll be up twenty times a night, and
  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. 950

• Leonato. O, when she had writ it and was reading it 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 immodest 955
  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, sobs, 960
  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 afeared she will do a desperate outrage 965
  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. 970

• Don Pedro. An 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 every thing but in loving Benedick. 975

• 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 me: I would 980
  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 she 985
  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 her 990
  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. 995

• 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 he
  avoids them with great discretion, or undertakes 1000
  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.

• Don Pedro. And so will he do; for the man doth fear God, 1005
  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 with
  good counsel. 1010

• 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; and I
  could wish he would modestly examine himself, to see
  how much he is unworthy so good a lady. 1015

• Leonato. My lord, will you walk? dinner is ready.

• Claudio. If he do not dote on her upon this, I will never
  trust my expectation.

• Don Pedro. Let there be the same net spread for her; and that
  must your daughter and her gentlewomen carry. The 1020
  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
  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 must be requited. I hear how I am censured: 1030
  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 detractions and can put 1035
  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 be 1040
  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. 1045
  Shall quips and 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! 1050
  she's a fair lady: I do spy 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. 1055

• Beatrice. I took no more pains for those thanks than 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 1060
  point and choke a daw withal. You have no 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 1065
  no more pains for those thanks than you took pains
  to thank me.' that's as much as to say, Any 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. 1070

[Exit]