Act 1: Scene 1

Benedick, didst thou note the daughter of Signior Leonato?

Is she not a modest young lady?

No; I pray thee speak in sober judgment.

Thou thinkest I am in sport: I pray thee tell me
truly how thou likest her.

Can the world buy such a jewel?

In mine eye she is the sweetest lady that ever I
looked on.

I would scarce trust myself, though I had sworn the
contrary, if Hero would be my wife.

If this were so, so were it uttered.

If my passion change not shortly, God forbid it
should be otherwise.

You speak this to fetch me in, my lord.

And, in faith, my lord, I spoke mine.

That I love her, I feel.

And never could maintain his part but in the force
of his will.

If this should ever happen, thou wouldst be horn-mad.

To the tuition of God: From my house, if I had it,–

My liege, your highness now may do me good.

Hath Leonato any son, my lord?

O, my lord,
When you went onward on this ended action,
I look’d upon her with a soldier’s eye,
That liked, 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 liked her ere I went to wars.

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 salved it with a longer treatise.

Act 2: Scene 1

You know me well; I am he.

How know you he loves her?

Thus answer I in the name of Benedick,
But hear these ill news with the ears of Claudio.
‘Tis certain so; the prince wooes for himself.
Friendship is constant in all other things
Save in the office and affairs of love:
Therefore, all hearts in love use their own tongues;
Let every eye negotiate for itself
And trust no agent; for beauty is a witch
Against whose charms faith melteth into blood.
This is an accident of hourly proof,
Which I mistrusted not. Farewell, therefore, Hero!

Yea, the same.

Whither?

I wish him joy of her.

I pray you, leave me.

If it will not be, I’ll leave you.

Not sad, my lord.

Neither, my lord.

Silence is the perfectest herald of joy: I were
but little happy, if I could say how much. Lady, as
you are mine, I am yours: I give away myself for
you and dote upon the exchange.

And so she doth, cousin.

To-morrow, my lord: time goes on crutches till love
have all his rites.

And I, my lord.

Act 2: Scene 3

Yea, my good lord. How still the evening is,
As hush’d on purpose to grace harmony!

O, very well, my lord: the music ended,
We’ll fit the kid-fox with a pennyworth.

O, ay: stalk on. stalk on; the fowl sits. I did
never think that lady would have loved any man.

Faith, like enough.

Bait the hook well; this fish will bite.

She did, indeed.

He hath ta’en the infection: hold it up.

‘Tis true, indeed; so your daughter says: ‘Shall
I,’ says she, ‘that have so oft encountered him
with scorn, write to him that I love him?’

Now you talk of a sheet of paper, I remember a
pretty jest your daughter told us of.

That.

Then down upon her knees she falls, weeps, sobs,
beats her heart, tears her hair, prays, curses; ‘O
sweet Benedick! God give me patience!’

To what end? He would make but a sport of it and
torment the poor lady worse.

And she is exceeding wise.

Hero thinks surely she will die; for she says she
will die, if he love her not, and she will die, ere
she make her love known, and she will die, if he woo
her, rather than she will bate one breath of her
accustomed crossness.

He is a very proper man.

Before God! and, in my mind, very wise.

And I take him to be valiant.

Never tell him, my lord: let her wear it out with
good counsel.

If he do not dote on her upon this, I will never
trust my expectation.

Act 3: Scene 2

I’ll bring you thither, my lord, if you’ll
vouchsafe me.

I hope he be in love.

You must hang it first, and draw it afterwards.

Yet say I, he is in love.

If he be not in love with some woman, there is no
believing old signs: a’ brushes his hat o’
mornings; what should that bode?

No, but the barber’s man hath been seen with him,
and the old ornament of his cheek hath already
stuffed tennis-balls.

That’s as much as to say, the sweet youth’s in love.

And when was he wont to wash his face?

Nay, but his jesting spirit; which is now crept into
a lute-string and now governed by stops.

Nay, but I know who loves him.

Yes, and his ill conditions; and, in despite of
all, dies for him.

‘Tis even so. Hero and Margaret have by this
played their parts with Beatrice; and then the two
bears will not bite one another when they meet.

If there be any impediment, I pray you discover it.

Who, Hero?

Disloyal?

May this be so?

If I see any thing to-night why I should not marry
her to-morrow in the congregation, where I should
wed, there will I shame her.

O mischief strangely thwarting!

Act 4: Scene 1

No.

Know you any, Hero?

O, what men dare do! what men may do! what men daily
do, not knowing what they do!

Stand thee by, friar. Father, by your leave:
Will you with free and unconstrained soul
Give me this maid, your daughter?

And what have I to give you back, whose worth
May counterpoise this rich and precious gift?

Sweet prince, you learn me noble thankfulness.
There, Leonato, take her back again:
Give not this rotten orange to your friend;
She’s but the sign and semblance of her honour.
Behold how like a maid she blushes here!
O, what authority and show of truth
Can cunning sin cover itself withal!
Comes not that blood as modest evidence
To witness simple virtue? Would you not swear,
All you that see her, that she were a maid,
By these exterior shows? But she is none:
She knows the heat of a luxurious bed;
Her blush is guiltiness, not modesty.

Not to be married,
Not to knit my soul to an approved wanton.

I know what you would say: if I have known her,
You will say she did embrace me as a husband,
And so extenuate the ‘forehand sin:
No, Leonato,
I never tempted her with word too large;
But, as a brother to his sister, show’d
Bashful sincerity and comely love.

Out on thee! Seeming! I will write against it:
You seem to me as Dian in her orb,
As chaste as is the bud ere it be blown;
But you are more intemperate in your blood
Than Venus, or those pamper’d animals
That rage in savage sensuality.

Leonato, stand I here?
Is this the prince? is this the prince’s brother?
Is this face Hero’s? are our eyes our own?

Let me but move one question to your daughter;
And, by that fatherly and kindly power
That you have in her, bid her answer truly.

To make you answer truly to your name.

Marry, that can Hero;
Hero itself can blot out Hero’s virtue.
What man was he talk’d with you yesternight
Out at your window betwixt twelve and one?
Now, if you are a maid, answer to this.

O Hero, what a Hero hadst thou been,
If half thy outward graces had been placed
About thy thoughts and counsels of thy heart!
But fare thee well, most foul, most fair! farewell,
Thou pure impiety and impious purity!
For thee I’ll lock up all the gates of love,
And on my eyelids shall conjecture hang,
To turn all beauty into thoughts of harm,
And never shall it more be gracious.

Act 5: Scene 1

Good day to both of you.

Who wrongs him?

Marry, beshrew my hand,
If it should give your age such cause of fear:
In faith, my hand meant nothing to my sword.

My villany?

Away! I will not have to do with you.

Now, signior, what news?

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

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?

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.

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

Nay, then, give him another staff: this last was
broke cross.

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

God bless me from a challenge!

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

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?

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

All, all; and, moreover, God saw him when he was
hid in the garden.

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

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

Most sincerely.

He is then a giant to an ape; but then is an ape a
doctor to such a man.

Hearken after their offence, my lord.

Rightly reasoned, and in his own division: and, by
my troth, there’s one meaning well suited.

I have drunk poison whiles he utter’d it.

Sweet Hero! now thy image doth appear
In the rare semblance that I loved it first.

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.

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

To-night I’ll mourn with Hero.

Act 5: Scene 3

Is this the monument of Leonato?

[Reading out of 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.
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 uttered,
Heavily, heavily.

Now, unto thy bones good night!
Yearly will I do this rite.

Good morrow, masters: each his several way.

And Hymen now with luckier issue speed’s
Than this for whom we render’d up this woe.

Act 5: Scene 4

I’ll hold my mind, were she an Ethiope.

I think he thinks upon the savage bull.
Tush, fear not, man; we’ll tip thy horns with gold
And all Europa shall rejoice at thee,
As once Europa did at lusty Jove,
When he would play the noble beast in love.

For this I owe you: here comes other reckonings.
[Re-enter ANTONIO, with the Ladies masked]
Which is the lady I must seize upon?

Why, then she’s mine. Sweet, let me see your face.

Give me your hand: before this holy friar,
I am your husband, if you like of me.

Another Hero!

And I’ll be sworn upon’t that he loves her;
For here’s a paper written in his hand,
A halting sonnet of his own pure brain,
Fashion’d to Beatrice.

I had well hoped thou wouldst have denied Beatrice,
that I might have cudgelled thee out of thy single
life, to make thee a double-dealer; which, out of
question, thou wilt be, if my cousin do not look
exceedingly narrowly to thee.

I had well hoped thou wouldst have denied Beatrice,
that I might have cudgelled thee out of thy single
life, to make thee a double-dealer; which, out of
question, thou wilt be, if my cousin do not look
exceedingly narrowly to thee.