BENEDICK A most manly wit, Margaret, it will not hurt a woman. And so I pray thee call Beatrice. I give thee the bucklers.

MARGARET Give us the swords. We have bucklers of our own.

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

MARGARET Well, I will call Beatrice to you, who I think hath legs. Exit

BENEDICK And therefore will come.

(Sings)

The god of love

That sits above,

And knows me, and knows me,

How pitiful I deserve—

I mean in singing; but in loving, Leander the good

swimmer, Troilus the first employer of panders, and a

whole book full of these quondam carpet-mongers

whose names yet run 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, wouldst thou come when I called thee?

BEATRICE Yea, signor, and depart when you bid me.

BENEDICK O, stay but till then.

BEATRICE ‘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.

BENEDICK Only foul words, and thereupon I will kiss thee.

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

BENEDICK 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?

BEATRICE For them all together, which maintain so politic 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?

BENEDICK Suffer love—a good epithet. I do suffer love indeed, for I love thee against my will.

BEATRICE 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.

BENEDICK Thou and I are too wise to woo peaceably.

BEATRICE It appears not in this confession. There’s not one wise man among twenty that will praise himself.

BENEDICK 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.

BEATRICE And how long is that, think you?

BENEDICK Question—why, an hour in clamour and a quarter in rheum. Therefore is it most expedient for the wise, if Don Worm—his conscience—find no impediment to the contrary, to be the trumpet of his own virtues, as I am to myself. So much for praising myself who, I myself will bear witness, is praiseworthy. And now tell me, how doth your cousin?

BEATRICE Very ill.

BENEDICK And how do you?

BEATRICE Very ill too.

BENEDICK Serve God, love me, and mend. There will I leave you too, for here comes one in haste.

Enter Ursula

URSULA Madam, you must come to your uncle. Yonder’s old coil at home. It is proved my lady Hero hath been falsely accused, the Prince and Claudio mightily abused, and Don John is the author of all, who is fled and gone. Will you come presently?

BEATRICE Will you go hear this news, signor?

BENEDICK I will live in thy heart, die in thy lap, and be buried in thy eyes. And moreover, I will go with thee to thy uncle’s. Exeunt

5.3 Enter Claudio, Don Pedro the Prince, and three or four with tapers, all in black

CLAUDIO

Is this the monument of Leonato?

A LORD

It is, my lord.

⌈CLAUDIO (reading from a scroll)⌉

Done to death by slanderous tongues

Was the Hero that here lies.

Death in guerdon of her wrongs

Gives her fame which never dies.

So the life that died with shame

Lives in death with glorious fame.

He hangs the epitaph on the tomb

Hang thou there upon the tomb,

Praising her when I am dumb.

Now music sound, and sing your solemn hymn.

Song

Pardon, goddess of the night,

Those that slew thy virgin knight,

For the which with songs of woe

Round about her tomb they go.

Midnight, assist our moan,

Help us to sigh and groan,

Heavily, heavily.

Graves yawn, and yield your dead

Till death be utterèd,

Heavily, heavily.

⌈CLAUDIO⌉

Now, unto thy bones good night.

Yearly will I do this rite.

DON PEDRO

Good morrow, masters, put your torches out.

The wolves have preyed, and look, the gentle day

Before the wheels of Phoebus round about

Dapples the drowsy east with spots of grey.

Thanks to you all, and leave us. Fare you well.

CLAUDIO

Good morrow, masters. Each his several way.

DON PEDRO

Come, let us hence, and put on other weeds,

And then to Leonato’s we will go.

CLAUDIO

And Hymen now with luckier issue speed ’s

Than this for whom we rendered up this woe.

Exeunt

5.4 Enter Leonato, Antonio, Benedick, Beatrice, Margaret, Ursula, Friar Francis, and Hero

FRIAR

Did I not tell you she was innocent?

LEONATO

So are the Prince and Claudio who accused her

Upon the error that you heard debated.

But Margaret was in some fault for this,

Although against her will as it appears

In the true course of all the question.

ANTONIO

Well, I am glad that all things sorts so well.

BENEDICK

And so am I, being else by faith enforced

To call young Claudio to a reckoning for it.

LEONATO

Well, daughter, and you gentlewomen all,

Withdraw into a chamber by yourselves,

And when I send for you come hither masked.

Exeunt Beatrice, Hero, Margaret, and Ursula

The Prince and Claudio promised by this hour