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 hers, framed by thy villainy.

CLAUDIO

My villainy?

LEONATO Thine, Claudio, thine I say.

DON PEDRO

You say not right, old man.

LEONATO 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 lustihood.

CLAUDIO

Away, I will not have to do with you.

LEONATO

Canst thou so doff me? Thou hast killed my child.

If thou kill’st me, boy, thou shalt kill a man.

ANTONIO

He shall kill two of us, and men indeed.

But that’s no matter, let him kill one first.

Win me and wear me. Let him answer me.

Come follow me boy, come sir boy, come follow me,

Sir boy, I’ll whip you from your foining fence.

Nay, as I am a gentleman, I will.

LEONATO Brother.

ANTONIO

Content yourself. God knows, I loved my niece,

And she is dead, slandered to death by villains

That dare as well answer a man indeed

As I dare take a serpent by the tongue.

Boys, apes, braggarts, jacks, milksops!

LEONATO Brother Antony—

ANTONIO

Hold you content. What, man, I know them, yea

And what they weigh, even to the utmost scruple.

Scambling, outfacing, fashion-monging boys,

That lie, and cog, and flout, deprave, and slander,

Go anticly, and show an outward hideousness,

And speak off half a dozen dangerous words,

How they might hurt their enemies, if they durst,

And this is all.

LEONATO But brother Antony—

ANTONIO Come, ’tis no matter,

Do not you meddle, let me deal in this.

DON PEDRO

Gentlemen both, we will not wake your patience.

My heart is sorry for your daughter’s death,

But on my honour she was charged with nothing

But what was true and very full of proof.

LEONATO

My lord, my lord—

DON PEDRO I will not hear you.

LEONATO

No? Come brother, away. I will be heard.

ANTONIO

And shall, or some of us will smart for it.

Exeunt Leonato and Antonio

Enter Benedick

DON PEDRO

See, see, here comes the man we went to seek.

CLAUDIO Now signor, what news?

BENEDICK (to Don Pedro) Good day, my lord.

DON PEDRO Welcome, signor. You are almost come to part almost a fray.

CLAUDIO We had liked to have had our two noses snapped off with two old men without teeth.

DON PEDRO Leonato and his brother. What thinkest thou? Had we fought, I doubt we should have been too young for them.

BENEDICK In a false quarrel there is no true valour. I came to seek you both.

CLAUDIO 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?

BENEDICK It is in my scabbard. Shall I draw it?

DON PEDRO Dost thou wear thy wit by thy side?

CLAUDIO 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.

DON PEDRO As I am an honest man he looks pale. Art thou sick, or angry?

CLAUDIO What, courage, man. What though care killed a cat, thou hast mettle enough in thee to kill care.

BENEDICK Sir, I shall meet your wit in the career an you charge it against me. I pray you choose another subject.

CLAUDIO Nay then, give him another staff. This last was broke cross.

DON PEDRO By this light, he changes more and more. I think he be angry indeed.

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

BENEDICK (aside to Claudio) Shall I speak a word in your ear?

CLAUDIO God bless me from a challenge.

BENEDICK 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. 149

CLAUDIO Well, I will meet you, so I may have good cheer.

DON PEDRO What, a feast, a feast?

CLAUDIO 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 too? 155

BENEDICK Sir, your wit ambles well, it goes easily.

DON PEDRO I’ll tell thee how Beatrice praised thy wit the other day. I said thou hadst a fine wit. ‘True,’ said 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.’ ‘Nay,’ said I, ‘he hath the tongues.‘ ‘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 trans-shape thy particular virtues, yet at last she concluded with a sigh thou wast the properest man in Italy.

CLAUDIO For the which she wept heartily and said she cared not.

DON 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.

CLAUDIO All, all. And moreover, God saw him when he was hid in the garden.

DON PEDRO But when shall we set the savage bull’s horns on the sensible Benedick’s head?

CLAUDIO Yea, and text underneath, ‘Here dwells Benedick the married man’.

BENEDICK 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. (To Don Pedro) 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 Lackbeard there, he and I shall meet, and till then, peace be with him. Exit

DON PEDRO He is in earnest.

CLAUDIO In most profound earnest, and, I’ll warrant you, for the love of Beatrice.

DON PEDRO And hath challenged thee.

CLAUDIO Most sincerely.

DON PEDRO What a pretty thing man is when he goes in his doublet and hose and leaves off his wit! 196

Enter Dogberry and Verges the constables, the Watch, Conrad, and Borachio

CLAUDIO He is then a giant to an ape. But then is an ape a doctor to such a man.

DON PEDRO But soft you, let me be. Pluck up, my heart, and be sad. Did he not say my brother was fled?

DOGBERRY 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.

DON PEDRO How now, two of my brother’s men bound? Borachio one.

CLAUDIO Hearken after their offence, my lord.

DON PEDRO Officers, what offence have these men done?