Act 1: Scene 3

I came yonder from a great supper: the prince your
brother is royally entertained by Leonato: and I
can give you intelligence of an intended marriage.

Marry, it is your brother’s right hand.

Even he.

Marry, on Hero, the daughter and heir of Leonato.

Being entertained for a perfumer, as I was smoking a
musty room, comes me the prince and Claudio, hand
in hand in sad conference: I whipt me behind the
arras; and there heard it agreed upon that the
prince should woo Hero for himself, and having
obtained her, give her to Count Claudio.

We’ll wait upon your lordship.

Act 2: Scene 1

And that is Claudio: I know him by his bearing.

So did I too; and he swore he would marry her to-night.

Act 2: Scene 2

Yea, my lord; but I can cross it.

Not honestly, my lord; but so covertly that no
dishonesty shall appear in me.

I think I told your lordship a year since, how much
I am in the favour of Margaret, the waiting
gentlewoman to Hero.

I can, at any unseasonable instant of the night,
appoint her to look out at her lady’s chamber window.

The poison of that lies in you to temper. Go you to
the prince your brother; spare not to tell him that
he hath wronged his honour in marrying the renowned
Claudio–whose estimation do you mightily hold
up–to a contaminated stale, such a one as Hero.

Proof enough to misuse the prince, to vex Claudio,
to undo Hero and kill Leonato. Look you for any
other issue?

Go, then; find me a meet hour to draw Don Pedro and
the Count Claudio alone: tell them that you know
that Hero loves me; intend a kind of zeal both to the
prince and Claudio, as,–in love of your brother’s
honour, who hath made this match, and his friend’s
reputation, who is thus like to be cozened with the
semblance of a maid,–that you have discovered
thus. They will scarcely believe this without trial:
offer them instances; which shall bear no less
likelihood than to see me at her chamber-window,
hear me call Margaret Hero, hear Margaret term me
Claudio; and bring them to see this the very night
before the intended wedding,–for in the meantime I
will so fashion the matter that Hero shall be
absent,–and there shall appear such seeming truth
of Hero’s disloyalty that jealousy shall be called
assurance and all the preparation overthrown.

Be you constant in the accusation, and my cunning
shall not shame me.

Act 3: Scene 3

What Conrade!

Conrade, I say!

Mass, and my elbow itched; I thought there would a
scab follow.

Stand thee close, then, under this pent-house, for
it drizzles rain; and I will, like a true drunkard,
utter all to thee.

Therefore know I have earned of Don John a thousand ducats.

Thou shouldst rather ask if it were possible any
villany should be so rich; for when rich villains
have need of poor ones, poor ones may make what
price they will.

That shows thou art unconfirmed. Thou knowest that
the fashion of a doublet, or a hat, or a cloak, is
nothing to a man.

I mean, the fashion.

Tush! I may as well say the fool’s the fool. But
seest thou not what a deformed thief this fashion
is?

Didst thou not hear somebody?

Seest thou not, I say, what a deformed thief this
fashion is? how giddily a’ turns about all the hot
bloods between fourteen and five-and-thirty?
sometimes fashioning them like Pharaoh’s soldiers
in the reeky painting, sometime like god Bel’s
priests in the old church-window, sometime like the
shaven Hercules in the smirched worm-eaten tapestry,
where his codpiece seems as massy as his club?

Not so, neither: but know that I have to-night
wooed Margaret, the Lady Hero’s gentlewoman, by the
name of Hero: she leans me out at her mistress’
chamber-window, bids me a thousand times good
night,–I tell this tale vilely:–I should first
tell thee how the prince, Claudio and my master,
planted and placed and possessed by my master Don
John, saw afar off in the orchard this amiable encounter.

Two of them did, the prince and Claudio; but the
devil my master knew she was Margaret; and partly
by his oaths, which first possessed them, partly by
the dark night, which did deceive them, but chiefly
by my villany, which did confirm any slander that
Don John had made, away went Claudio enraged; swore
he would meet her, as he was appointed, next morning
at the temple, and there, before the whole
congregation, shame her with what he saw o’er night
and send her home again without a husband.

We are like to prove a goodly commodity, being taken
up of these men’s bills.

Act 4: Scene 2

Borachio.

Sir, I say to you we are none.

Master constable,–

Act 5: Scene 1

Sweet prince, let me go no farther 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 villany 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.

Yea, and paid me richly for the practise of it.

If you would know your wronger, look on me.

Yea, even I alone.

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.