The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. William Shakespeare
DON PEDRO.
See you where Benedick hath hid himself?
CLAUDIO.
O! very well, my lord: the music ended,
We’ll fit the kid-fox with a pennyworth.
DON PEDRO.
Come, Balthazar, we’ll hear that song again.
BALTHAZAR.
O! good my lord, tax not so bad a voice
To slander music any more than once.
DON PEDRO.
It is the witness still of excellency,
To put a strange face on his own perfection.
I pray thee, sing, and let me woo no more.
BALTHAZAR.
Because you talk of wooing, I will sing;
Since many a wooer doth commence his suit
To her he thinks not worthy; yet he wooes;
Yet will he swear he loves.
DON PEDRO.
Nay, pray thee come;
Or if thou wilt hold longer argument,
Do it in notes.
BALTHAZAR.
Note this before my notes;
There’s not a note of mine that’s worth the noting.
DON PEDRO.
Why these are very crotchets that he speaks;
Notes, notes, forsooth, and nothing!
[Music.]
BENEDICK. Now, divine air! now is his soul ravished! Is it not strange that sheep’s gutsshould hale souls out of men’s bodies? Well, a horn for my money, when all’s done.
[Balthasar sings.]
Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,
Men were deceivers ever;
One foot in sea, and one on shore,
To one thing constant never.
Then sigh not so,
But let them go,
And be you blithe and bonny,
Converting all your sounds of woe
Into Hey nonny, nonny.
Sing no more ditties, sing no mo
Of dumps so dull and heavy;
The fraud of men was ever so,
Since summer first was leavy.
Then sigh not so,
But let them go,
And be you blithe and bonny,
Converting all your sounds of woe
Into Hey nonny, nonny.
DON PEDRO.
By my troth, a good song.
BALTHAZAR.
And an ill singer, my lord.
DON PEDRO.
Ha, no, no, faith; thou singest well enough for a shift.
BENEDICK. [Aside.] An he had been a dog that should have howled thus, they would have hanged him; and I pray God his bad voice bode no mischief. I had as lief have heard the night-raven, come what plague could have come after it.
DON PEDRO.
Yea, marry; dost thou hear, Balthazar? I pray thee, get us some
excellent music, for tomorrow night we would have it at the Lady
Hero’s chamber-window.
BALTHAZAR.
The best I can, my lord.
DON PEDRO.
Do so: farewell.
[Exeunt BALTHAZAR and Musicians.]
Come hither, Leonato: what was it you told me of to-day, that your niece Beatrice was in love with Signior Benedick?
CLAUDIO.
O! ay:—
[Aside to DON PEDRO] Stalk on, stalk on; the fowl sits. I did never
think that lady would have loved any man.
LEONATO.
No, nor I neither; but most wonderful that she should so dote on
Signior Benedick, whom she hath in all outward behaviours seemed ever
to abhor.
BENEDICK.
[Aside.] Is’t possible? Sits the wind in that corner?
LEONATO. By my troth, my lord, I cannot tell what to think of it but that she loves him with an enraged affection: it is past the infinite of thought.
DON PEDRO.
May be she doth but counterfeit.
CLAUDIO.
Faith, like enough.
LEONATO. O God! counterfeit! There was never counterfeit of passion came so near the life of passion as she discovers it.
DON PEDRO.
Why, what effects of passion shows she?
CLAUDIO.
[Aside.] Bait the hook well: this fish will bite.
LEONATO. What effects, my lord? She will sit you; [To Claudio.] You heard my daughter tell you how.
CLAUDIO.
She did, indeed.
DON PEDRO. How, how, I pray you? You amaze me: I would have thought her spirit had been invincible against all assaults of affection.
LEONATO.
I would have sworn it had, my lord; especially against Benedick.
BENEDICK. [Aside] I should think this a gull, but that the white-bearded fellow speaks it: knavery cannot, sure, hide itself in such reverence.
CLAUDIO.
[Aside.] He hath ta’en the infection: hold it up.
DON PEDRO.
Hath she made her affection known to Benedick?
LEONATO.
No; and swears she never will: that’s her torment.
CLAUDIO. 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?’
LEONATO. This says she now when she is beginning to write to him; for she’ll be up twenty times a night, and there will she sit in her smock till she have writ a sheet of paper: my daughter tells us all.
CLAUDIO. Now you talk of a sheet of paper, I remember a pretty jest your daughter told us of.
LEONATO.
O! when she had writ it, and was reading it over, she found
Benedick and Beatrice between the sheet?
CLAUDIO.
That.
LEONATO. O! she tore the letter into a thousand halfpence; railed at herself, that she should be so immodest to write to one that she knew would flout her: ‘I measure him,’ says she, ‘by my own spirit; for I should flout him, if he writ to me; yea, though I love him, I should.’
CLAUDIO. Then down upon her knees she falls, weeps, sobs, beats her heart, tears her hair, prays, curses; ‘O sweet Benedick! God give me patience!’
LEONATO. She doth indeed; my daughter says so; and the ecstasy hath so much overborne her, that my daughter is sometimes afeard she will do a desperate outrage to herself. It is very true.
DON PEDRO. It were good that Benedick knew of it by some other, if she will not discover it.