SCENE II-A Prison.

Enter DOGBERRY, VERGES, and Sexton, in gowns; and the Watch, with CONRADE and BORACHIO.

Dogb. Is our whole dissembly appeared? Verg. O, a stool and a cushion for the sexton! Sexton. Which be the malefactors? Dogb. Marry, that am I and my partner. Verg. Nay, that's certain; we have the exhibition to examine.

Sexton. But which are the offenders that are to be examined? let them come before master constable.

Dogb. Yea, marry, let them come before me. What is your name, friend?

Bora. Borachio.

Dogb. Pray write down-Borachio.-Yours, sirrah?

Con. I am a gentleman, sir, and my name is Conrade.

Dogb. Write down-master gentleman Conrade.-Masters, do you serve God?

Con. Bora. Yea, sir, we hope.

Dogb. Write down-that they hope they serve God:-and write God first; for God defend but God should go before such villains!Masters, it is proved already, that you are little better than false knaves; and it will go near to be thought so shortly. How answer you for yourselves?

Con. Marry, sir, we say we are none.

Degb. A inarvellous witty fellow, I assure you; but I will go about with him.-Come you hither, sirrah; a word in your ear, sir; I say to you, it is thought you are false knaves.

-Why this is flat perjury, to call a prince's brother-villain.

Bora. Master constable,

Dogh. Pray thee, fellow, peace; I do not like thy look, I promise thee.

Sexton. What heard you him say else?

2 Watch. Marry, that he had received a thou| sand ducats of Don John, for accusing lady Hero wrongfully.

Dogb. Flat burglary, as ever was committed.
Verg. Yea, by the inass, that it is.
Sexton. What else, fellow?

1 Watch. And that count Claudio did mean, upon his words, to disgrace Hero before the whole assembly, and not marry her.

Dogb. O villain! thou wilt be condemned into everlasting redemption for this. Sexton. What else?

Con. Off, coxcomb!

Dogb. God's my life! where's the sexton? let him write down-the prince's officer, coxcomb.-Come, bind them.--Thou naughty varlet!

Con. Away! you are an ass, you are an ass. Dogb. Dost thou not suspect my place? Dost thou not suspect my years? O, that he were here to write me down-an ass!—but, masters remember, that I am an ass; though it be not written down, yet forget not that I am an ass:

Sexton. Master constable, you go not the way to examine; you must call forth the watch, that are their accusers.

Dogb. Yea, marry, that's the eftest way:Let the watch come forth:-Masters, I charge you, in the prince's name, accuse these men.

1 Watch. This man said, sir, that Don John, the prince's brother, was a villain.

Dogb. Write down-prince John a villain:

shall be proved upon thee by good witness. I am a wise fellow; and, which is more, an officer; and, which is more, a householder; and which is more, as pretty a piece of flesh as any is in Messina; and one that knows the law, go to; and a rich fellow enough, go to; and a fellow that hath had losses; and one that hath two gowns, and every thing handsome about him :— Bring him away. O, that I had been writ down -an ass! [Exeunt.

SCENE I.-Before Leonato's house.

Enter LEONATO and ANTONIO.

Ant. If you go on thus, you will kill yourself; And 'tis not wisdom, thus to second grief Against yourself.

Leon. I pray thee, cease thy counsel, Which falls into mine ears as profitless As water in a sieve: give not me counsel; Nor let no comforter delight mine ear, But such a one, whose wrongs do suit with mine. Bring me a father, that so lov'd his child,

Whose joy of her is overwhelm'd like mine,
And bid him speak of patience;

Measure his woe the length and breadth of mine,
And let it answer every strain for strain;
As thus for thus, and such a grief for such,
In every lineament, branch, shape, and form:
If such a one will smile, and stroke his beard;
Cry-sorrow, wag! and hem, when he should
groan;

Patch grief with proverbs; make misfortune drunk

With candle-wasters; bring him yet to me,
And I of him will gather patience.

But there is no such man: For, brother, men
Can counsel, and speak comfort to that grief,
Which they themselves not feel; but, tasting it,
Their counsel turns to passion, which before
Would give preceptial medicine to rage,
Fetter strong madness in a silken thread,
Charm ach with air, and agony with words:
No, no; 'tis all men's office to speak patience
To those that wring under the load of sorrow;
But no man's virtue nor sufficiency,
To be so moral, when he shall endure
The like himself: therefore give me no counsel:
My griefs cry louder than advertisement.

Ant. Therein do men from children nothing differ.

Leon. I pray thee, peace: I will be flesh and blood;

For there was never yet philosopher,
That could endure the tooth-ach patiently:
However they have writ the style of gods,
And made a pish at chance and sufferance.
Ant. Yet bend not all the harm upon yourself:
Make those, that do offend you, suffer too.
Leon. There thou speak'st reason: nay, I will
do so:

My soul doth tell me Hero is belied;
And that shall Claudio know, so shall the prince,
And all of them, that thus dishonour her.

Enter Don PEDRO and CLAUDIO.

Ant. Here comes the prince, and Claudio, hastily.

D. Pedro. Good den, good den.
Claud. Good day to both of you.
Leon. Hear you, my lords,—

D. Pedro. We have some haste, Leonato. Leon. Some haste, my lord !-well, fare you well, my lord:

Are you so hasty now?-well, all is one.

D. Pedro. Nay do not quarrel with us, good old man.

Ant. If he could right himself with quarrelling,

Some of us would lie low.

Claud. Who wrongs him?

Leon. Marry,

Claud. Marry, beshrew my hand, If it should give your age such cause of fear: In faith, my hand meant nothing to my sword. Leon. Tush, tush, man, never fleer and jest

at me:

I speak not like a dotard, nor a fool;
As, under privilege of age, to brag
What I have done being young, or what would
do,

Were I not old: Know, Claudio, to thy head,
Thou hast so wrong'd mine innocent child and

me,

That I am forc'd to lay my reverence by;
And, with grey hairs, and bruise of many days,
Do challenge thee to trial of a man.

I say, thou hast belied mine innocent child; Thy slander hath gone through and through her heart,

And she lies buried with her ancestors:
O! in a tomb, where never scandal slept,
Save this of her's, fram'd by thy villainy.
Claud. My villainy!

Leon. Thine, Claudio; thine, I say.
D. Pedro. You say not right, old man.
Leon. My lord, my lord,

I'll prove it on his body, if he dare;
Despite his nice fence, and his active practice,
His May of youth, and bloom of lustyhood.

Claud. Away, I will not have to do with you.
Leon. Canst thou so daff me? Thou hast

And this is all.

Leon. But, brother Antony,

Ant. Come, 'tis no matter;

Do not you meddle, let me deal in this.

D. Pedro. Gentlemen both, we will not wake your patience.

My heart is sorry for your daughter's death; But, on my honour, she was charg'd with nothing

But what was true, and very full of proof.
Leon. My lord, my lord,—

D. Pedro. I will not hear you.

Leon. No?

Brother, away :-I will be heard ;

Ant. And shall,

Or some of us will smart for it.

Claud. Now, signior! what news!

Bene. Good day, my

lord.

which he forswore on Tuesday morning; there's a double tongue; there's two tongues. Thus did she, an hour together, trans-shape thy particu

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 plea

stire us.

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.

D. Pedro. By this light, he changes more and more; I think, he be angry indeed.

Claud. If he be, he knows how to turn his girdle.

Bene. Shall I speak a word in your ear? Claud. God bless me from a challenge! 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?

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!

Enter DOGBERRY, VERGES, and the Watch, with CONRADE and BORACHIO.

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 be; pluck up, my heart, and be sad! Did he not say, my brother was fled?

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, you must be looked to.

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.

D. Pedro. Whom 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?

Bora. Sweet prince, let me go no further 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.

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 villainy.
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.

That, when I note another man like him,
I may avoid him: Which of these is he?
Bora. If you would know your wronger, look

on me.

Leon. Art thou the slave, that with thy breath hast kill'd

Mine innocent child?

Bora. Yea, even I alone.

Leon. No, not so, villain; thou bely'st thyself; Here stand a pair of honourable men, A third is fled, that had a hand in it :— I thank you, princes, for my daughter's death; Record it with your high and worthy deeds; 'Twas bravely done, if you bethink you of it.

Claud. I know not how to pray your patience,
Yet I must speak: Choose your revenge yourself;
Impose me to what penance your invention
Can lay upon my sin: yet sinn'd I not,
But in mistaking.

D. Pedro. By my soul, nor I;
And yet, to satisfy this good old man,
I would bend under any heavy weight,
That he'll enjoin me to.

Leon. I cannot bid you bid my daughter live,
That were impossible; but I pray you both,
Possess the people in Messina here
How innocent she died: and, if your love
Can labour aught in sad invention,
Hang her an epitaph upon her tomb,
And sing it to her bones; sing it to-night :-
To-morrow morning come you to my house;
And since you could not be my son-in-law,
Be yet my nephew: my brother hath a daughter,
Almost the copy of my child that's dead,
And she alone is heir to both of us;
Give her the right you should have given her
cousin,

And so dies my revenge.

Claud. O, noble sir,

Your over-kindness doth wring tears from me!
I do embrace your offer; and dispose
For henceforth of poor Claudio.

Leon. To-morrow then I will expect your
coming;

To-night I take my leave.-This naughty man Shall face to face be brought to Margaret, Who, I believe, was pack'd in all this wrong, Hir'd to it by your brother.

Bora. No, by my soul, she was not; Nor knew not what she did, when she spoke to me; But always hath been just and virtuous, In any thing that I do know by her.

you,

Re-enter LEONATO and ANTONIO, with the

eyes;

Sexton.

mine hin upon that point.

Leon. I thank thee for thy care and honest pains.

Dogb. Your worship speaks like a most thankful and reverend youth; and I praise God for

you.

Leon. There's for thy pains. Dogb. God save the foundation! Leon Go, I discharge thee of thy prisoner, and I thank thee.

Dogb. 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, Verges, and Watch. Leon. Until to-morrow morning, lords, farewell.

Ant. Farewell, my lords; we look for you to

Enter BENEDICK and MARGARET, meeting.

Bene. Pray thee, sweet mistress Margaret, deserve well at my hands, by helping me to the speech of Beatrice.

Marg. Will you then write me a sonnet in praise of my beauty?

Bene. In so high a style, Margaret, that no man living shall come over it; for, in most comely truth, thou deservest it.

Marg. To have no man come over me? why, shall I always keep below stairs?

Bene. Thy wit is as quick as the greyhound's mouth, it catches.

Marg. And your's as blunt as the fencer's foils, which hit, but hurt not.

Bene. A most manly wit, Margaret, it will not hurt a woman; and so, I pray thee, call Beatrice: I give thee the bucklers. Marg. Give us the swords, we have bucklers of our own.

Bene. If you use them, Margaret, you must put in the pikes with a vice; and they are dangerous weapons for maids.

Marg. Well, I will call Beatrice to you, who, I think, hath legs. [Exit Margaret.

Bene. And therefore will come.

I mean, in singing; but in loving,-Leander the good swimmer, Troilus the first employer of pandars, and a whole book full of these quondam carpet-mongers, whose names yet un 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, would'st thou come when I called thee?

me.

Beat. Yea, signior, and depart when you bid

Bene. O, stay but till then!

Beat. Then, is spoken; fare you well now :and yet, ere I go, let me go with that I came for, which is, with knowing what hath passed between you and Claudio.

Bene. Only foul words; and thereupon I will kiss thee.

Beat. Foul words is but foul wind, and foul wind is but foul breath, and foul breath is noisome; therefore I will depart unkissed.

Bene. 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?

Beat. For them altogether; which maintained so politick 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?

Bene. Suffer love; a good epithet! I do suffer love, indeed, for I love thee against my will.

Beat. 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.

Bene. Thou and I are too wise to woo peaceably.

Beat. It appears not in this confession: there's not one wise man among twenty that will praise himself.

Fene. 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.

Beat. And how long is that, think you?

Rene. Question ?-Why, an hour in clamour, and a quarter in rheum: Therefore it is mest expedient for the wise, (if Don Worm, his conscience, find no impediment to the contrary,) to