Are you so hasty now? well, all is one. DON PEDRO Nay, do not quarrel with us, good old man. ANTONIO If he could right himself with quarreling, Some of us would lie low. CLAUDIO Who wrongs him? LEONATO Marry, thou dost wrong me; thou dissembler, thou:--Nay, never lay thy hand upon thy sword;
I fear thee not. CLAUDIO Marry, beshrew my hand, If it should give your age such cause of fear:
In faith, my hand meant nothing to my sword. LEONATO Tush, tush, man; never fleer and jest at me:
I speak not like a dotard nor a fool, As under privilege of age to brag What I have done being young, or what would do Were I not old. Know, Claudio, to thy head, Thou hast so wrong'd mine innocent child and me That I am forced to lay my reverence by And, with grey hairs and bruise of many days, Do challenge thee to trial of a man.
I say thou hast belied mine innocent child;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 villany! CLAUDIO My villany? 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 practise, His May of youth and bloom of lustihood. CLAUDIO Away! I will not have to do with you. LEONATO Canst thou so daff me? Thou hast kill'd 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, slander'd 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,--Scrambling, out-facing, fashion-monging boys, That lie and cog and flout, deprave and slander, Go anticly, show 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 DON PEDRO See, see; here comes the man we went to seek.
Enter BENEDICK CLAUDIO Now, signior, what news? BENEDICK Good day, my lord. DON PEDRO Welcome, signior: you are almost come to part almost a fray. CLAUDIO We had like 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, and 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 Shall I speak a word in your ear? CLAUDIO God bless me from a challenge! BENEDICK [Aside to CLAUDIO] 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. 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? 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 Ibelieve,' 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, transshape 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.
