D. Pedro. In faith, lady, you have a merry heart. Beat. 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.

Claud. And so she doth, cousin.

Beat. Good lord, for alliance!-Thus goes every one to the world but I 20, and I am sun-burned; I may sit in a corner, and cry, heigh ho! for a husband. D. Pedro. Lady Beatrice, I will get you one. Beat. 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.

D. Pedro. Will you have me, lady?

Beat. 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.

D. Pedro. Your silence most offends me, and to be merry best becomes you; for, out of question, you were born in a merry hour.

Beat. No, sure, my lord, my mother cry'd; but then there was a star danced, and under that was I born. Cousins, God give you joy!

Leon. Niece, will you look to those things I told you of?

Beat. I cry you mercy, uncle.-By your grace's pardon. [Exit BEATRice. D. Pedro. By my troth, a pleasant-spirited lady. Leon. 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 daugh

20 i. e. good lord, how many alliances are forming! Every one is likely to be married but I. I am sun-burned means 'I have lost my beauty; and am consequently no longer an object to tempt a man to marry.'

ter say, she hath often dreamed of unhappiness 21, and waked herself with laughing.

D. Pedro. She cannot endure to hear tell of a busband.

Leon. O, by no means; she mocks all her wooers out of suit.

D. Pedro. She were an excellent wife for Benedick. Leon. O lord, my lord, if they were but a week married, they would talk themselves mad.

D. Pedro. Count Claudio, when mean you to go to church?

Claud. To-morrow, my lord: Time goes on crutches, till love have all his rites.

Leon. 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.

D. 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 22, the one with the other. I would fain have it a match; and I doubt not but to fashion

21 i. e. mischief. Unhappy was often used for mischievous, as we now say an unlucky boy for a mischievous boy. So, in All's Well that Ends Well, Act iv. Sc. 5:

'A shrewd knave and an unhappy.'

22A mountain of affection with one another' is, as Johnson observes, a strange expression; yet all that is meant appears to be a great deal of affection.' In the Renegado, by Massinger, we have:

Thus also in Hamlet, a sea of troubles;' and in Henry VIII. 'a sea of glory.' In the Comedy of Errors: the mountain of mad flesh that claims marriage of me.' And in other places, 'a storm of fortune,' 'the vale of years,' a tempest of provocation.' VOL. II.

6

it, if you three will but minister such assistance as I shall give you direction.

Leon. My lord, I am for you, though it cost me ten nights' watchings.

Claud. And I, my lord.

D. Pedro. And you too, gentle Hero?

Hero. I will do any modest office, my lord, to help my cousin to a good husband.

D. Pedro. And Benedick is not the unhopefullest husband that I know: thus far can I praise him; he is of a noble strain 3, of approved valour, and confirmed honesty. I will teach you how to humour your cousin, that she shall fall in love with Benedick:-and I, with your two helps, will so practice on Benedick, that, in despite of his quick wit and his queasy 24 stomach, he shall fall in love with Beatrice. If we can do this, Cupid is no longer an archer; his glory shall be ours, for we are the only love-gods. Go in with me, and I will tell drift. [Exeunt.

you my

SCENE II. Another Room in Leonato's House.

Enter DON JOHN and BORACHIO.

D. John. It is so: the count Claudio shall marry the daughter of Leonato.

Bora. Yea, my lord; but I can cross it.

D. John. Any bar, any cross, any impediment will be medicinable to me: I am sick in displeasure to him; and whatsoever comes athwart his affection, ranges evenly with mine. How canst thou cross this marriage?

in me.

Bora. Not honestly, my lord; but so covertly that no dishonesty shall appear D. John. Show me briefly how. 23 The same as strene, descent, lineage.

24 Squeamish.

Bora. I think, I told your lordship, a year since, how much I am in the favour of Margaret, the waiting-gentlewoman to Hero.

D. John. I remember.

Bora. I can, at any unseasonable instant of the night, appoint her to look out at her lady's chamberwindow.

D. John. What life is in that to be the death of this marriage?

Bora. The poison of that lies in you to temper. Go you to the prince your brother; spare not to tell him, that he hath wronged his honour in marrying the renowned Claudio (whose estimation do you mightily hold up) to a contaminated stale1, such a one as Hero.

D. John. What proof shall I make of that?

Bora. Proof enough to misuse the prince, to vex Claudio, to undo Hero, and kill Leonato: Look you for any other issue?

D. John. Only to despite them, I will endeavour any thing.

2

Bora. Go then, find me a meet hour to draw Don Pedro and the count Claudio alone: tell them, that you know that Hero loves me; intend a kind of zeal both to the prince and Claudio, as—in love of your brother's honour, who hath made this match; and his friend's reputation, who is thus like to be cozened with the semblance of a maid,-that you have discovered thus. They will scarcely believe this without trial: offer them instances; which shall bear no less likelihood, than to see me at her chamber-window; hear me call Margaret, Hero; hear

1 Shakspeare uses stale here, and in a subsequent scene, for an abandoned woman. A stale also meant a decoy or lure, but the two words had different origins. It is obvious why the term was applied to prostitutes.

2 Pretend.

Margaret term me Claudio3; and bring them to see this, the very night before the intended wedding; for, in the mean time I will so fashion the matter, that Hero shall be absent; and there shall appear such seeming truth of Hero's disloyalty, that jealousy shall be call'd assurance, and all the prepara

tion overthrown.

D. John. Grow this to what adverse issue it can, I will put it in practice: Be cunning in the working this, and thy fee is a thousand ducats.

Bora. Be you constant in the accusation, and my cunning shall not shame me.

D. John. I will presently go learn their day of marriage.

SCENE III. Leonato's Garden.

Enter BENEDICK and a Boy.

Bene. Boy,

Boy. Signior.

[Exeunt.

Bene. In my chamber-window lies a book; bring it hither to me in the orchard 1.

Boy. I am here, already, sir.

Bene. I know that;-but I would have thee hence, and here again. [Exit Boy.]—I do much wonder,

3 The old copies read Claudio here. Theobald altered it to Borachio; yet if Claudio be wrong, it is most probably the poet's oversight. Claudio might conceive that the supposed Hero, called Borachio by the name of Claudio in consequence of a secret agreement between them, as a cover in case she were overheard; and he would know without a possibility of error that it was not Claudio with whom in fact she conversed. For the other arguments pro and con we must refer to the variorum Shakspeare.

1 Orchard in Shakspeare's time signified a garden. So, in Romeo and Juliet:

'The orchard walls are high and hard to climb.' This word was first written hort-yard, then by corruption hortchard, and hence orchard.