Act V
Scene I
Before Leonato’s house.
Enter Leonato and Antonio. | |
Antonio |
If you go on thus, you will kill yourself;
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Leonato |
I pray thee, cease thy counsel,
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Antonio | Therein do men from children nothing differ. |
Leonato |
I pray thee, peace. I will be flesh and blood;
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Antonio |
Yet bend not all the harm upon yourself;
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Leonato |
There thou speak’st reason: nay, I will do so.
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Antonio | Here comes the prince and Claudio hastily. |
Enter Don Pedro and Claudio. | |
Don Pedro | Good den, good den. |
Claudio | Good day to both of you. |
Leonato | Hear you, my lords— |
Don Pedro | We have some haste, Leonato. |
Leonato |
Some haste, my lord! well, fare you well, my lord:
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Don Pedro | Nay, do not quarrel with us, good old man. |
Antonio |
If he could right himself with quarrelling,
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Claudio | Who wrongs him? |
Leonato |
Marry, thou dost wrong me; thou dissembler, thou:—
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Claudio |
Marry, beshrew my hand,
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Leonato |
Tush, tush, man; never fleer and jest at me:
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Claudio | My villainy? |
Leonato | Thine, Claudio; thine, I say. |
Don Pedro | You say not right, old man, |
Leonato |
My lord, my lord,
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Claudio | Away! I will not have to do with you. |
Leonato |
Canst thou so daff me? Thou hast kill’d my child:
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Antonio |
He shall kill two of us, and men indeed:
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Leonato | Brother— |
Antonio |
Content yourself. God knows I loved my niece;
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Leonato | Brother Anthony— |
Antonio |
Hold you content. What, man! I know them, yea,
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Leonato | But, brother Anthony— |
Antonio |
Come, ’tis no matter:
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Don Pedro |
Gentlemen both, we will not wake your patience.
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Leonato | My lord, my lord— |
Don Pedro | I will not hear you. |
Leonato | No? Come, brother; away! I will be heard. |
Antonio | And shall, or some of us will smart for it. Exeunt Leonato and Antonio. |
Don Pedro | See, see; here comes the man we went to seek. |
Enter Benedick. | |
Claudio | Now, signior, what news? |
Benedick | Good day, my lord. |
Don Pedro | Welcome, signior: you are almost come to part almost a fray. |
Claudio | We had like to have had our two noses snapped off with two old men without teeth. |
Don Pedro | Leonato and his brother. What thinkest thou? Had we fought, I doubt we should have been too young for them. |
Benedick | In a false quarrel there is no true valour. I came to seek you both. |
Claudio | We have been up and down to seek thee; for we are high-proof melancholy and would fain have it beaten away. Wilt thou use thy wit? |
Benedick | It is in my scabbard: shall I draw it? |
Don Pedro | Dost thou wear thy wit by thy side? |
Claudio | Never any did so, though very many have been beside their wit. I will bid thee draw, as we do the minstrels; draw, to pleasure us. |
Don Pedro | As I am an honest man, he looks pale. Art thou sick, or angry? |
Claudio | What, courage, man! What though care killed a cat, thou hast mettle enough in thee to kill care. |
Benedick | Sir, I shall meet your wit in the career, and you charge it against me. I pray you choose another subject. |
Claudio | Nay, then, give him another staff: this last was broke cross. |
Don Pedro | By this light, he changes more and more: I think he be angry indeed. |
Claudio | If he be, he knows how to turn his girdle. |
Benedick | Shall I speak a word in your ear? |
Claudio | God bless me from a challenge! |
Benedick | Aside to Claudio. You are a villain; I jest not: I will make it good how you dare, with what you dare, and when you dare. Do me right, or I will protest your cowardice. You have killed a sweet lady, and her death shall fall heavy on you. Let me hear from you. |
Claudio | Well, I will meet you, so I may have good cheer. |
Don Pedro | What, a feast, a feast? |
Claudio | I’ faith, I thank him; he hath bid me to a calf’s head and a capon; the which if I do not carve most curiously, say my knife’s naught. Shall I not find a woodcock too? |
Benedick | Sir, your wit ambles well; it goes easily. |
Don Pedro | I’ll tell thee how Beatrice praised thy wit the other day. I said, thou hadst a fine wit: “True,” says she, “a fine little one.” “No,” said I, “a great wit:” “Right,” said she, “a great gross one.” “Nay,” said I, “a good wit:” “Just,” said she, “it hurts nobody.” “Nay,” said I, “the gentleman is wise:” “Certain,” said she, “a wise gentleman.” “Nay,” said I, “he hath the tongues:” “That I believe,” said she, “for he swore a thing to me on Monday night, which he forswore on Tuesday morning; there’s a double tongue; there’s two tongues.” Thus did she, an hour together, trans-shape thy particular virtues: yet at last she concluded with a sigh, thou wast the properest man in Italy. |
Claudio | For the which she wept heartily and said she cared not. |
Don Pedro | Yea, that she did; but yet, for all that, an if she did not hate him deadly, she would love him dearly: the old man’s daughter told us all. |
Claudio | All, all; and, moreover, God saw him when he was hid in the garden. |
Don Pedro | But when shall we set the savage bull’s horns on the sensible Benedick’s head? |
Claudio | Yea, and text underneath, “Here dwells Benedick the married man?” |
Benedick | Fare you well, boy: you know my mind. I will leave you now to your gossip-like humour: you break jests as braggarts do their blades, which, God be thanked, hurt not. My lord, for your many courtesies I thank you: I must discontinue your company: your brother the bastard is fled from Messina: you have among you killed a sweet and innocent lady. For my Lord Lackbeard there, he and I shall meet: and, till then, peace be with him. Exit. |
Don Pedro | He is in earnest. |
Claudio | In most profound earnest; and, I’ll warrant you, for the love of Beatrice. |
Don Pedro | And hath challenged thee. |
Claudio | Most sincerely. |
Don Pedro | What a pretty thing man is when he goes in his doublet and hose and leaves off his wit! |
Claudio | He is then a giant to an ape; but then is an ape a doctor to such a man. |
Don Pedro | But, soft you, let me be: pluck up, my heart, and be sad. Did he not say, my brother was fled? |
Enter Dogberry, Verges, and the Watch, with Conrade and Borachio. | |
Dogberry | Come you, sir: if justice cannot tame you, she shall ne’er weigh more reasons in her balance: nay, an you be a cursing hypocrite once, you must be looked to. |
Don Pedro | How now? two of my brother’s men bound! Borachio one! |
Claudio | Hearken after their offence, my lord. |
Don Pedro | Officers, what offence have these men done? |
Dogberry | Marry, sir, they have committed false report; moreover, they have spoken untruths; secondarily, they are slanders; sixth and lastly, they have belied a lady; thirdly, they have verified unjust things; and, to conclude, they are lying knaves. |
Don Pedro | First, I ask thee what they have done; thirdly, I ask thee what’s their offence; sixth and lastly, why they are committed; and, to conclude, what you lay to their charge? |
Claudio | Rightly reasoned, and in his own division; and, by my troth, there’s one meaning well suited. |
Don Pedro | Who have you offended, masters, that you are thus bound to your answer? this learned constable is too cunning to be understood: what’s your offence? |
Borachio | Sweet prince, let me go no farther to mine answer: do you hear me, and let this count kill me. I have deceived even your very eyes: what your wisdoms could not discover, these shallow fools have brought to light; who in the night overheard me confessing to this man how Don John your brother incensed me to slander the Lady Hero, how you were brought into the orchard and saw me court Margaret in Hero’s garments, how you disgraced her, when you should marry her: my villainy they have upon record; which I had rather seal with my death than repeat over to my shame. The lady is dead upon mine and my master’s false accusation; and, briefly, I desire nothing but the reward of a villain. |
Don Pedro | Runs not this speech like iron through your blood? |
Claudio | I have drunk poison whiles he utter’d it. |
Don Pedro | But did my brother set thee on to this? |
Borachio | Yea, and paid me richly for the practice of it. |
Don Pedro |
He is composed and framed of treachery:
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Claudio |
Sweet Hero! now thy image doth appear
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Dogberry | Come, bring away the plaintiffs: by this time our sexton hath reformed Signior Leonato of the matter: and, masters, do not forget to specify, when time and place shall serve, that I am an ass. |
Verges | Here, here comes Master Signior Leonato, and the sexton too. |
Reenter Leonato and Antonio, with the Sexton. | |
Leonato |
Which is the villain? Let me see his eyes,
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Borachio | If you would know your wronger, look on me. |
Leonato |
Art thou the slave that with thy breath hast kill’d
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Borachio | Yea, even I alone. |
Leonato |
No, not so, villain; thou beliest thyself:
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Claudio |
I know not how to pray your patience;
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Don Pedro |
By my soul, nor I:
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Leonato |
I cannot bid you bid my daughter live;
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Claudio |
O noble sir,
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Leonato |
Tomorrow then I will expect your coming;
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Borachio |
No, by my soul, she was not,
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Dogberry | Moreover, sir, which indeed is not under white and black, this plaintiff here, the offender, did call me ass: I beseech you, let it be remembered in his punishment. And also, the watch heard them talk of one Deformed: they say he wears a key in his ear and a lock hanging by it, and borrows money in God’s name, the which he hath used so long and never paid that now men grow hard-hearted and will lend nothing for God’s sake: pray you, examine him upon that point. |
Leonato | I thank thee for thy care and honest pains. |
Dogberry | Your worship speaks like a most thankful and reverent youth; and I praise God for you. |
Leonato | There’s for thy pains. |
Dogberry | God save the foundation! |
Leonato | Go, I discharge thee of thy prisoner, and I thank thee. |
Dogberry | I leave an arrant knave with your worship; which I beseech your worship to correct yourself, for the example of others. God keep your worship! I wish your worship well; God restore you to health! I humbly give you leave to depart; and if a merry meeting may be wished, God prohibit it! Come, neighbour. Exeunt Dogberry and Verges. |
Leonato | Until tomorrow morning, lords, farewell. |
Antonio | Farewell, my lords: we look for you tomorrow. |
Don Pedro | We will not fail. |
Claudio | Tonight I’ll mourn with Hero. |
Leonato |
To the Watch. Bring you these fellows on. We’ll talk with Margaret,
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Scene II
Leonato’s garden.
Enter Benedick and Margaret, meeting. | |
Benedick | Pray thee, sweet Mistress Margaret, deserve well at my hands by helping me to the speech of Beatrice. |
Margaret | Will you then write me a sonnet in praise of my beauty? |
Benedick | In so high a style, Margaret, that no man living shall come over it; for, in most comely truth, thou deservest it. |
Margaret | To have no man come over me! why, shall I always keep below stairs? |
Benedick | Thy wit is as quick as the greyhound’s mouth; it catches. |
Margaret | And yours as blunt as the fencer’s foils, which hit, but hurt not. |
Benedick | A most manly wit, Margaret; it will not hurt a woman: and so, I pray thee, call Beatrice: I give thee the bucklers. |
Margaret | Give us the swords; we have bucklers of our own. |
Benedick | If you use them, Margaret, you must put in the pikes with a vice; and they are dangerous weapons for maids. |
Margaret | Well, I will call Beatrice to you, who I think hath legs. |
Benedick |
And therefore will come. Exit Margaret.
Sings. The god of love,
I mean, in singing; but in loving, Leander the good swimmer, Troilus the first employer of panders, and a whole book full of these quondam carpet-mongers, whose names yet run smoothly in the even road of a blank verse, why, they were never so truly turned over and over as my poor self in love. Marry, I cannot show it in rhyme; I have tried: I can find out no rhyme to “lady” but “baby,” an innocent rhyme; for “scorn,” “horn,” a hard rhyme; for “school,” “fool,” a babbling rhyme; very ominous endings: no, I was not born under a rhyming planet, nor I cannot woo in festival terms. |
Enter Beatrice. | |
Sweet Beatrice, wouldst thou come when I called thee? | |
Beatrice | Yea, signior, and depart when you bid me. |
Benedick | O, stay but till then! |
Beatrice | “Then” is spoken; fare you well now: and yet, ere I go, let me go with that I came; which is, with knowing what hath passed between you and Claudio. |
Benedick | Only foul words; and thereupon I will kiss thee. |
Beatrice | Foul words is but foul wind, and foul wind is but foul breath, and foul breath is noisome; therefore I will depart unkissed. |
Benedick | Thou hast frighted the word out of his right sense, so forcible is thy wit. But I must tell thee plainly, Claudio undergoes my challenge; and either I must shortly hear from him, or I will subscribe him a coward. And, I pray thee now, tell me for which of my bad parts didst thou first fall in love with me? |
Beatrice | For them all together; which maintained so politic a state of evil that they will not admit any good part to intermingle with them. But for which of my good parts did you first suffer love for me? |
Benedick | Suffer love! a good epithet! I do suffer love indeed, for I love thee against my will. |
Beatrice | In spite of your heart, I think; alas, poor heart! If you spite it for my sake, I will spite it for yours; for I will never love that which my friend hates. |
Benedick | Thou and I are too wise to woo peaceably. |
Beatrice | It appears not in this confession: there’s not one wise man among twenty that will praise himself. |
Benedick | An old, an old instance, Beatrice, that lived in the time of good neighbours. If a man do not erect in this age his own tomb ere he dies, he shall live no longer in monument than the bell rings and the widow weeps. |
Beatrice | And how long is that, think you? |
Benedick | Question: why, an hour in clamour and a quarter in rheum: therefore is it most expedient for the wise, if Don Worm, his conscience, find no impediment to the contrary, to be the trumpet of his own virtues, as I am to myself. So much for praising myself, who, I myself will bear witness, is praiseworthy: and now tell me, how doth your cousin? |
Beatrice | Very ill. |
Benedick | And how do you? |
Beatrice | Very ill too. |
Benedick | Serve God, love me and mend. There will I leave you too, for here comes one in haste. |
Enter Ursula. | |
Ursula | Madam, you must come to your uncle. Yonder’s old coil at home: it is proved, my Lady Hero hath been falsely accused, the prince and Claudio mightily abused; and Don John is the author of all, who is fled and gone. Will you come presently? |
Beatrice | Will you go hear this news, signior? |
Benedick | I will live in thy heart, die in thy lap and be buried in thy eyes; and moreover I will go with thee to thy uncle’s. Exeunt. |
Scene III
A church.
Enter Don Pedro, Claudio, and three or four with tapers. | |
Claudio | Is this the monument of Leonato? |
A Lord | It is, my lord. |
Claudio | Reading out of a scroll. |
Done to death by slanderous tongues
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Hang thou there upon the tomb,
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Song. | |
Pardon, goddess of the night,
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Claudio |
Now, unto thy bones good night!
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Don Pedro |
Good morrow, masters; put your torches out:
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Claudio | Good morrow, masters: each his several way. |
Don Pedro |
Come, let us hence, and put on other weeds;
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Claudio |
And Hymen now with luckier issue speed’s
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Scene IV
A room in Leonato’s house.
Enter Leonato, Antonio, Benedick, Beatrice, Margaret, Ursula, Friar Francis, and Hero. | |
Friar | Did I not tell you she was innocent? |
Leonato |
So are the prince and Claudio, who accused her
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Antonio | Well, I am glad that all things sort so well. |
Benedick |
And so am I, being else by faith enforced
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Leonato |
Well, daughter, and you gentlewomen all,
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Antonio | Which I will do with confirm’d countenance. |
Benedick | Friar, I must entreat your pains, I think. |
Friar | To do what, signior? |
Benedick |
To bind me, or undo me; one of them.
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Leonato | That eye my daughter lent her: ’tis most true. |
Benedick | And I do with an eye of love requite her. |
Leonato |
The sight whereof I think you had from me,
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Benedick |
Your answer, sir, is enigmatical:
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Leonato | My heart is with your liking. |
Friar | And my help. Here comes the prince and Claudio. |
Enter Don Pedro and Claudio, and two or three others. | |
Don Pedro | Good morrow to this fair assembly. |
Leonato |
Good morrow, prince; good morrow, Claudio:
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Claudio | I’ll hold my mind, were she an Ethiope. |
Leonato | Call her forth, brother; here’s the friar ready. Exit Antonio. |
Don Pedro |
Good morrow, Benedick. Why, what’s the matter,
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Claudio |
I think he thinks upon the savage bull.
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Benedick |
Bull Jove, sir, had an amiable low;
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Claudio | For this I owe you: here comes other reckonings. |
Reenter Antonio, with the Ladies masked. | |
Which is the lady I must seize upon? | |
Antonio | This same is she, and I do give you her. |
Claudio | Why, then she’s mine. Sweet, let me see your face. |
Leonato |
No, that you shall not, till you take her hand
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Claudio |
Give me your hand: before this holy friar,
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Hero |
And when I lived, I was your other wife: Unmasking.
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Claudio | Another Hero! |
Hero |
Nothing certainer:
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Don Pedro | The former Hero! Hero that is dead! |
Leonato | She died, my lord, but whiles her slander lived. |
Friar |
All this amazement can I qualify;
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Benedick | Soft and fair, friar. Which is Beatrice? |
Beatrice | Unmasking. I answer to that name. What is your will? |
Benedick | Do not you love me? |
Beatrice | Why, no; no more than reason. |
Benedick |
Why, then your uncle and the prince and Claudio
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Beatrice | Do not you love me? |
Benedick | Troth, no; no more than reason. |
Beatrice |
Why, then my cousin Margaret and Ursula
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Benedick | They swore that you were almost sick for me. |
Beatrice | They swore that you were well-nigh dead for me. |
Benedick | ’Tis no such matter. Then you do not love me? |
Beatrice | No, truly, but in friendly recompense. |
Leonato | Come, cousin, I am sure you love the gentleman. |
Claudio |
And I’ll be sworn upon’t that he loves her;
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Hero |
And here’s another
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Benedick | A miracle! here’s our own hands against our hearts. Come, I will have thee; but, by this light, I take thee for pity. |
Beatrice | I would not deny you; but, by this good day, I yield upon great persuasion; and partly to save your life, for I was told you were in a consumption. |
Benedick | Peace! I will stop your mouth. Kissing her. |
Don Pedro | How dost thou, Benedick, the married man? |
Benedick | I’ll tell thee what, prince; a college of wit-crackers cannot flout me out of my humour. Dost thou think I care for a satire or an epigram? No: if man will be beaten with brains, a’ shall wear nothing handsome about him. In brief, since I do purpose to marry, I will think nothing to any purpose that the world can say against it; and therefore never flout at me for what I have said against it; for man is a giddy thing, and this is my conclusion. For thy part, Claudio, I did think to have beaten thee; but in that thou art like to be my kinsman, live unbruised and love my cousin. |
Claudio | I had well hoped thou wouldst have denied Beatrice, that I might have cudgelled thee out of thy single life, to make thee a double-dealer; which, out of question, thou wilt be, if my cousin do not look exceeding narrowly to thee. |
Benedick | Come, come, we are friends: let’s have a dance ere we are married, that we may lighten our own hearts and our wives’ heels. |
Leonato | We’ll have dancing afterward. |
Benedick | First, of my word; therefore play, music. Prince, thou art sad; get thee a wife, get thee a wife: there is no staff more reverent than one tipped with horn. |
Enter a Messenger. | |
Messenger |
My lord, your brother John is ta’en in flight,
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Benedick | Think not on him till tomorrow: I’ll devise thee brave punishments for him. Strike up, pipers. Dance. Exeunt. |