Much Ado About Nothing | Page 6

is,--for the which I may go the finer,--I will live a bachelor.
DON PEDRO. I shall see thee, ere I die, look pale with love.
BENEDICK. With anger, with sickness, or with hunger, my lord; not
with love: prove that ever I lose more blood with love than I will get
again with drinking, pick out mine eyes with a ballad-maker's pen and

hang me up at the door of a brothel-house for the sign of blind Cupid.
DON PEDRO. Well, if ever thou dost fall from this faith, thou wilt
prove a notable argument.
BENEDICK. If I do, hang me in a bottle like a cat and shoot at me; and
he that hits me, let him be clapped on the shoulder and called Adam.
DON PEDRO. Well, as time shall try: 'In time the savage bull doth
bear the yoke.'
BENEDICK. The savage bull may; but if ever the sensible Benedick
bear it, pluck off the bull's horns and set them in my forehead; and let
me be vilely painted, and in such great letters as they write, 'Here is
good horse to hire,' let them signify under my sign 'Here you may see
Benedick the married man.'
CLAUDIO. If this should ever happen, thou wouldst be horn-mad.
DON PEDRO. Nay, if Cupid have not spent all his quiver in Venice,
thou wilt quake for this shortly.
BENEDICK. I look for an earthquake too then.
DON PEDRO. Well, you will temporize with the hours. In the
meantime, good Signior Benedick, repair to Leonato's: commend me to
him and tell him I will not fail him at supper; for indeed he hath made
great preparation.
BENEDICK. I have almost matter enough in me for such an embassage;
and so I commit you--
CLAUDIO. To the tuition of God: from my house, if I had it,--
DON PEDRO. The sixth of July: your loving friend, Benedick.
BENEDICK. Nay, mock not, mock not. The body of your discourse is
sometime guarded with fragments, and the guards are but slightly
basted on neither: ere you flout old ends any further, examine your
conscience: and so I leave you.
[Exit.]
CLAUDIO. My liege, your highness now may do me good.
DON PEDRO. My love is thine to teach: teach it but how, And thou
shalt see how apt it is to learn hard lesson that may do thee good.
CLAUDIO. Hath Leonato any son, my lord?
DON PEDRO. No child but Hero;s he's his only heir. Dost thou affect
her, Claudio?
CLAUDIO. O! my lord, When you went onward on this ended action, I
looked upon her with a soldier's eye, That lik'd, but had a rougher task

in hand Than to drive liking to the name of love; But now I am return'd,
and that war-thoughts Have left their places vacant, in their rooms
Come thronging soft and delicate desires, All prompting me how fair
young Hero is, Saying, I lik'd her ere I went to wars.
DON PEDRO. Thou wilt be like a lover presently, And tire the hearer
with a book of words. If thou dost love fair Hero, cherish it, And I will
break with her, and with her father, And thou shalt have her. Was't not
to this end That thou began'st to twist so fine a story?
CLAUDIO. How sweetly you do minister to love, That know love's
grief by his complexion! But lest my liking might too sudden seem, I
would have salv'd it with a longer treatise.
DON PEDRO. What need the bridge much broader than the flood? The
fairest grant is the necessity. Look, what will serve is fit: 'tis once, thou
lov'st, And I will fit thee with the remedy. I know we shall have
revelling to-night: I will assume thy part in some disguise, And tell fair
Hero I am Claudio; And in her bosom I'll unclasp my heart, And take
her hearing prisoner with the force And strong encounter of my
amorous tale: Then, after to her father will I break; And the conclusion
is, she shall be thine. In practice let us put it presently.
[Exeunt.]

Scene II. --A room in LEONATO'S house.
[Enter LEONATO and ANTONIO, meeting.]
LEONATO. How now, brother! Where is my cousin your son? Hath he
provided this music?
ANTONIO. He is very busy about it. But, brother, I can tell you
strange news that you yet dreamt not of.
LEONATO. Are they good?
ANTONIO. As the event stamps them: but they have a good cover;
they show well outward. The prince and Count Claudio, walking in a
thick-pleached alley in my orchard, were thus much overheard by a
man of mine: the prince discovered to Claudio that he loved my niece
your daughter and meant to acknowledge it this night in a dance; and if
he