Enter BENEDICK. D. Pedro. See, see; here comes the man we went to seek. Claud. Now, signior! what news? Bene. Good day, my lord. D. Pedro. Welcome, signior: You are almost come to part almost a fray. Claud. We had like to have had our two noses snapped off with two old men without teeth. D. Pedro. Leonato and his brother: What think'st thou? Had we fought, I doubt, we should have been too young for them. Bene. In a false quarrel there is no true valour. I came to seek you both. Claud. 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? Bene. It is in my scabbard; Shall I draw it? D. Pedro. Dost thou wear thy wit by thy side? Claud. 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 12. D. Pedro. As I am an honest man, he looks pale: -Art thou sick, or angry ? Claud. What! courage, man! What though care killed a cat, thou hast mettle enough in thee to kill care. Bene. Sir, I shall meet your wit in the career, an you charge it against me:-I pray you, choose another subject. Claud. Nay, then give him another staff; this last was broke cross 13. D. Pedro. By this light, he changes more and more; I think, he be angry indeed. 12 'I will bid thee draw thy sword, as we bid the minstrels draw the bows of their fiddles, merely to please us.' 13 The allusion is to tilting. See note, As You Like It, Act iii. Sc. 4. Claud. If he be, he knows how to turn his girdle 14. Bene. 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. Claud. Well, I will meet you, so I may have good cheer. D. Pedro. What, a feast? a feast? 15 Claud. 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 16 too. Bene. Sir, your wit ambles well; it goes easily. D. 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, says 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 17: Nay, said I, he hath the tongues; 14 There is a proverbial phrase, If he be angry let him turn the buckle of his girdle.' Mr. Holt White says, 'Large belts were worn with the buckle before, but for wrestling the buckle was turned behind, to give the adversary a fairer grasp at the girdle. To turn the buckle behind was therefore a challenge.' 15 Invited. 16 A woodcock, being supposed to have no brains, was a common phrase for a foolish fellow. It means here one caught in a springe or trap, alluding to the plot against Benedick. So, in Hamlet, Sc. ult. "Why, as a woodcock to my own springe, Osrick.' Sir Wm. Cecil in a letter to Secretary Maitland (penes me) says: 'I went to lay some lime twiggs for certen woodcoks which I have taken.' He alludes to an attempted escape of the French hostages. 17 Wise gentleman was probably used ironically for a silly fellow; as we still say a wise acre. 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, transshape thy particular virtues; yet, at last, she concluded with a sigh, thou wast the properest man in Italy. Claud. For the which she wept heartily, and said, she cared not. D. 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. Claud. All, all; and moreover, God saw him when he was hid in the garden. D. Pedro. But when shall we set the savage bull's horns on the sensible Benedick's head? Claud. Yea, and text underneath, Here dwells Benedick the married man? Bene. 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 Lack-beard, there, he and I shall meet; and till then, peace be with him. [Exit BENEDICK. D. Pedro. He is in earnest. Claud. In most profound earnest; And, I'll warrant you, for the love of Beatrice. D. Pedro. And hath challenged thee? Claud. Most sincerely. D. Pedro. What a pretty thing man is, when he goes in his doublet and hose, and leaves off his wit 18. 18 These words are probably meant to express what Rosaline, in As You Like It, calls the ' careless desolation' of a lover. Claud. He is then a giant to an ape: but then is an ape a doctor to such a man. D. Pedro. But, soft you, let be19; pluck up my heart, and be sad 20! Did he not say, my brother was fled? Enter DOGBERRY, VERGES, and the Watch, with CONRADE and BORACHIO. Dogb. 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 21, you must be looked to. 21 D. Pedro. How now, two of my brother's men bound! Borachio, one! Claud. Hearken after their offence, my lord! D. Pedro. Officers, what offence have these men done? Dogb. 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. D. 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? Claud. Rightly reasoned, and in his own division; and, by my troth, there's one meaning well suited 22. D. Pedro. Whom have you offended, masters, 19 The old copies read 'let me be,' the emendation is Malone's. Let be appears here to signify hold, rest there. It has the same signification in Saint Matthew, ch. xxvii. v. 49. 20 i. e. rouse thyself my heart and be prepared for serious consequences.' 21 See before in this play, p. 129, note 35. 22 That is, one meaning put into many different dresses; the Prince having asked the same question in four modes of speech. that you are thus bound to your answer? this learned constable is too cunning to be understood: What's your offence? you Bora. Sweet prince, let me go no further to mine' answer; do 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 23 me to slander the lady Hero; how you were brought into the orchard, and saw me court Margaret in Hero's garment; how you disgraced her, when you should marry her: my villany 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. D. Pedro. Runs not this speech like iron through your blood? Claud. I have drunk poison, whiles he utter'd it. D. Pedro. But did my brother set thee on to this? Bora. Yea, and paid me richly for the practice of it. D. Pedro. He is compos'd and fram'd of treachery : And fled he is upon this villany. Claud. Sweet Hero! now thy image doth appear In the rare semblance that I loved it first. Dogb. 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. Verg. Here, here comes master signior Leonato, and the Sexton too. 23 Incited, instigated. |