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CLAUDIO
If my passion change not shortly, God forbid it
should be otherwise.
DON PEDRO
Amen, if you love her; for the lady is very well worthy.
CLAUDIO
You speak this to fetch me in, my lord.
DON PEDRO
By my troth, I speak my thought.
CLAUDIO
And, in faith, my lord, I spoke mine.
BENEDICK
And, by my two faiths and troths, my lord, I spoke mine.
CLAUDIO
That I love her, I feel.
DON PEDRO
That she is worthy, I know.
BENEDICK
That I neither feel how she should be loved nor
know how she should be worthy, is the opinion that
fire cannot melt out of me: I will die in it at the stake.
DON PEDRO
Thou wast ever an obstinate heretic in the despite
of beauty.
CLAUDIO
And never could maintain his part but in the force
of his will.
BENEDICK
That a woman conceived me, I thank her; that she
brought me up, I likewise give her most humble
thanks: but that I will have a recheat winded in my
forehead, or hang my bugle in an invisible baldrick,
all women shall pardon me. Because I will not do
them the wrong to mistrust any, I will do myself the
right to trust none; and the fine is, for the which
I may go the finer, I will live a bachelor.
DON PEDRO
I shall see thee, ere I die, look pale with love.
BENEDICK
With anger, with sickness, or with hunger, my lord,
not with love: prove that ever I lose more blood
with love than I will get again with drinking, pick
out mine eyes with a ballad-maker's pen and hang me
up at the door of a brothel-house for the sign of
blind Cupid.
DON PEDRO
Well, if ever thou dost fall from this faith, thou
wilt prove a notable argument.
BENEDICK
If I do, hang me in a bottle like a cat and shoot
at me; and he that hits me, let him be clapped on
the shoulder, and called Adam.
DON PEDRO
Well, as time shall try: 'In time the savage bull
doth bear the yoke.'
BENEDICK
The savage bull may; but if ever the sensible
Benedick bear it, pluck off the bull's horns and set
them in my forehead: and let me be vilely painted,
and in such great letters as they write 'Here is
good horse to hire,' let them signify under my sign
'Here you may see Benedick the married man.'
CLAUDIO
If this should ever happen, thou wouldst be horn-mad.
DON PEDRO
Nay, if Cupid have not spent all his quiver in
Venice, thou wilt quake for this shortly.
BENEDICK
I look for an earthquake too, then.
DON PEDRO
Well, you temporize with the hours. In the
meantime, good Signior Benedick, repair to
Leonato's: commend me to him and tell him I will
not fail him at supper; for indeed he hath made
great preparation.
BENEDICK
I have almost matter enough in me for such an
embassage; and so I commit you--
CLAUDIO
To the tuition of God: From my house, if I had it,--
DON PEDRO
The sixth of July: Your loving friend, Benedick.
BENEDICK
Nay, mock not, mock not. The body of your
discourse is sometime guarded with fragments, and
the guards are but slightly basted on neither: ere
you flout old ends any further, examine your
conscience: and so I leave you.
Exit
CLAUDIO
My liege, your highness now may do me good.
DON PEDRO
My love is thine to teach: teach it but how,
And thou shalt see how apt it is to learn
Any hard lesson that may do thee good.
CLAUDIO
Hath Leonato any son, my lord?
DON PEDRO
No child but Hero; she's his only heir.
Dost thou affect her, Claudio?
CLAUDIO
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.
DON PEDRO
Thou wilt be like a lover presently
And tire the hearer with a book of words.
If thou dost love fair Hero, cherish it,
And I will break with her and with her father,
And thou shalt have her. Was't not to this end
That thou began'st to twist so fine a story?
CLAUDIO
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.
DON PEDRO
What need the bridge much broader than the flood?
The fairest grant is the necessity.
Look, what will serve is fit: 'tis once, thou lovest,
And I will fit thee with the remedy.
I know we shall have revelling to-night:
I will assume thy part in some disguise
And tell fair Hero I am Claudio,
And in her bosom I'll unclasp my heart
And take her hearing prisoner with the force
And strong encounter of my amorous tale:
Then after to her father will I break;
And the conclusion is, she shall be thine.
In practise let us put it presently.
Exeunt
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