Pedro. With me in your company?
Hero. I may say so when I please.
D. Pedro. And when please you to say so?
Hero. When I like your favor, for God defend the lute should be like the case!
D. Pedro. My visor is Philemon’s roof, within the house is Jove.
Hero. Why then your visor should be thatch’d.
D. Pedro. Speak low if you speak love.
[They move aside.]
[Bora.] Well, I would you did like me.
Marg. So would not I for your own sake, for I have many ill qualities.
[Bora.] Which is one?
Marg. I say my prayers aloud.
[Bora.] I love you the better; the hearers may cry amen.
Marg. God match me with a good dancer!
[Bora.] Amen.
Marg. And God keep him out of my sight when the dance is done! Answer, clerk.
[Bora.] No more words; the clerk is answer’d.
[They move aside.]
Urs. I know you well enough, you are Signior Antonio.
Ant. At a word, I am not.
Urs. I know you by the waggling of your head.
Ant. To tell you true, I counterfeit him.
Urs. You could never do him so ill-well, unless you were the very man. Here’s his dry hand up and down. You are he, you are he.
Ant. At a word, I am not.
Urs. Come, come, do you think I do not know you by your excellent wit? Can virtue hide itself? Go to, mum, you are he. Graces will appear, and there’s an end.
[They move aside.]
Beat. Will you not tell me who told you so?
Bene. No, you shall pardon me.
Beat. Nor will you not tell me who you are?
Bene. Not now.
Beat. That I was disdainful, and that I had my good wit out of the “Hundred Merry Tales”—well, this was Signior Benedick that said so.
Bene. What’s he?
Beat. I am sure you know him well enough.
Bene. Not I, believe me.
Beat. Did he never make you laugh?
Bene. I pray you, what is he?
Beat. Why, he is the Prince’s jester, a very dull fool; only his gift is in devising impossible slanders. None but libertines delight in him, and the commendation is not in his wit, but in his villainy, for he both pleases men and angers them, and then they laugh at him and beat him. I am sure he is in the fleet; I would he had boarded me.
Bene. When I know the gentleman, I’ll tell him what you say.
Beat. Do, do, he’ll but break a comparison or two on me, which peradventure, not mark’d, or not laugh’d at, strikes him into melancholy, and then there’s a partridge wing sav’d, for the fool will eat no supper that night. [Music for the dance begins.] We must follow the leaders.
Bene. In every good thing.
Beat. Nay, if they lead to any ill, I will leave them at the next turning.
Dance. [Then] exeunt [all but Don John, Borachio, and Claudio].
D. John. Sure my brother is amorous on Hero, and hath withdrawn her father to break with him about it. The ladies follow her, and but one visor remains.
Bora. And that is Claudio. I know him by his bearing.
D. John. Are not you Signior Benedick?
Claud. You know me well, I am he.
D. John. Signior, you are very near my brother in his love. He is enamor’d on Hero. I pray you dissuade him from her, she is no equal for his birth. You may do the part of an honest man in it.
Claud. How know you he loves her?
D. John. I heard him swear his affection.
Bora. So did I too, and he swore he would marry her to-night.
D. John. Come let us to the banquet.
Exeunt. Manet Claudio.
Claud.
Thus answer I in name of Benedick,
But hear these ill news with the ears of Claudio.
’Tis certain so, the Prince woos for himself.
Friendship is constant in all other things
Save in the office and affairs of love;
Therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues.
Let every eye negotiate for itself,
And trust no agent; for beauty is a witch
Against whose charms faith melteth into blood.
This is an accident of hourly proof,
Which I mistrusted not. Farewell therefore Hero!
Enter Benedick.
Bene. Count Claudio?
Claud. Yea, the same.
Bene. Come, will you go with me?
Claud. Whither?
Bene. Even to the next willow, about your own business, County. What fashion will you wear the garland of? about your neck, like an usurer’s chain? or under your arm, like a lieutenant’s scarf? You must wear it one way, for the Prince hath got your Hero.
Claud. I wish him joy of her.
Bene. Why, that’s spoken like an honest drovier; so they sell bullocks. But did you think the Prince would have serv’d you thus?
Claud. I pray you leave me.
Bene. Ho, now you strike like the blind man. ’Twas the boy that stole your meat, and you’ll beat the post.
Claud. If it will not be, I’ll leave you.
Exit.
Bene. Alas, poor hurt fowl, now will he creep into sedges. But that my Lady Beatrice should know me, and not know me! The Prince’s fool! hah, it may be I go under that title because I am merry. Yea, but so I am apt to do myself wrong. I am not so reputed. It is the base (though bitter) disposition of Beatrice that puts the world into her person, and so gives me out. Well, I’ll be reveng’d as I may.
Enter the Prince [Don Pedro].
D. Pedro. Now, signior, where’s the Count? Did you see him?
Bene. Troth, my lord, I have play’d the part of Lady Fame. I found him here as melancholy as a lodge in a warren. I told him, and I think I told him true, that your Grace had got the good will of this young lady, and I off’red him my company to a willow- either to make him a garland, as being forsaken, or to bind him up a rod, as being worthy to be whipt.
D. Pedro. To be whipt? What’s his fault?