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These two Antipholus', these two so like,
And these two Dromios, one in semblance,
Besides her urging of her wreck at sea;
These are the parents to these children,
Which accidentally are met together.
Antipholus, thou cam'st from Corinth first?
Ant. S. No, sir, not I; I came from Syracuse.
Duke. Stay, stand apart; I know not which
is which.

To go with us into the abbey here,
And hear at large discoursed all our fortunes;
360 And all that are assembled in this place,
That by this sympathized one day's error
Have suffer'd wrong, go keep us company,
And we shall make full satisfaction.
Thirty-three years have I but gone in travail
of you, my sons; and till this present hour
My heavy burden ne'er delivered.
The duke, my husband, and my children both,
And you the calendars of their nativity,
Go to a gossips' feast, and joy with me
After so long grief such festivity!

Ant. E. I came from Corinth, my most gracious lord.

Dro. E. And I with him.

Ant. E. Brought to this town by that most
famous warrior,

Duke Menaphon, your most renowned uncle. 369
Adr. Which of you two did dine with me to-day?
Ant. S. I, gentle mistress.

Adr.

And are not you my husband?
Ant. E. No; I say nay to that.

Ant. S. And so do I; yet did she call me so;
And this fair gentlewoman, her sister here,
Did call me brother. To LUCIANA.

told you then,

What I

I hope I shall have leisure to make good,
If this be not a dream I see and hear.

Ang. That is the chain, sir, which you had of me.
Ant. S. I think it be, sir; I deny it not.
Ant. E. And you, sir, for this chain arrested me.
Ang. I think I did, sir: I deny it not.
Adr. I sent you money, sir, to be your bail
By Dromio; but I think he brought it not.
Dro. E. No, none by me.

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Duke. It shall not need: thy father hath his life.
Cour. Sir, I must have that diamond from you.
Ant. E. There, take it; and much thanks for
my good cheer.

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I see by you I am a sweet-faced youth.
Will you walk in to see their gossiping?
Dro. S. Not I, sir; you are my elder.
Dro. E. That's a question: how shall we
try it?

Dro. S. We'll draw cuts for the senior: till
then, lead thou first.

Dro. E. Nay, then thus:

We came into the world like brother and brother; Abb. Renowned duke, vouchsafe to take the And now let's go hand in hand not one before pains

another.

Exeunt.

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Mess. But few of any sort, and none of name. Leon. A victory is twice itself when the achiever brings home full numbers. I find here that Don Pedro hath bestowed much honour on a young Florentine called Claudio.

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Mess. Much deserved on his part and equally remembered by Don Pedro. He hath borne himself beyond the promise of his age, doing in the figure of a lamb the feats of a lion: he hath indeed better bettered expectation than you must expect of me to tell you how.

Leon. He hath an uncle here in Messina will be very much glad of it. 19

Mess. I have already delivered him letters, and there appears much joy in him; even so much that joy could not show itself modest enough without a badge of bitterness.

Leon. Did he break out into tears?
Mess. In great measure.

Leon. A kind overflow of kindness. There are no faces truer than those that are so washed: how much better is it to weep at joy than to joy at weeping!

Beat. I pray you, is Signior Mountanto returned from the wars or no?

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Mess. I know none of that name, lady: there was none such in the army of any sort.

Leon. What is he that you ask for, niece? Hero. My cousin means Signior Benedick of Padua.

Gentlewomen attending or Hero.

Mess. O he's returned, and as pleasant as ever he was.

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Beat. He set up his bills here in Messina and challenged Cupid at the flight; and my uncle's fool, reading the challenge, subscribed for Cupid, and challenged him at the bird-bolt. I pray you, how many hath he killed and eaten in these wars? But how many hath he killed? for indeed I promised to eat all of his killing.

Leon. Faith, niece, you tax Signior Benedick too much; but he'll be meet with you, I doubt

it not.

Mess. He hath done good service, lady, in these wars.

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Beat. You had musty victual, and he hath holp to eat it: he is a very valiant trencher-man; he hath an excellent stomach.

Mess. And a good soldier too, lady.

Beat. And a good soldier to a lady; but what is he to a lord?

Mess. A lord to a lord, a man to a man; stuffed with all honourable virtues.

Beat. It is so, indeed; he is no less than a stuffed man; but for the stuffing,-well, we are all mortal.

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Leon. You must not, sir, mistake my niece. There is a kind of merry war betwixt Signior Benedick and her: they never meet but there's a skirmish of wit between them.

Beat. Alas! he gets nothing by that. In our last conflict four of his five wits went halting off, and now is the whole man governed with one; so that if he have wit enough to keep himself warm, let him bear it for a difference between himself and his horse; for it is all the wealth that he hath left to be known a reasonable creature. Who is his companion now? He hath every month a new sworn brother. Mess. Is 't possible?

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Beat. Very easily possible: he wears his faith but as the fashion of his hat; it ever changes with the next block.

Mess. I see, lady, the gentleman is not in your books. so

Beat. No; an he were, I would burn my study. But, I pray you, who is his companion? Is there no young squarer now that will make a voyage with him to the devil?

Mess. He is most in the company of the right noble Claudio.

Beat O Lord! he will hang upon him like a disease: he is sooner caught than the pestilence, and the taker runs presently mad. God help the noble Claudio! if he have caught the Benedick, it will cost him a thousand pound ere he be cured.

Mess. I will hold friends with you, lady.
Beat. Do, good friend.

Leon. You will never run mad, niece.
Beat. No, not till a hot January.
Mess. Don Pedro is approached.

Enter Don PEDRO, Don JOHN, CLAUDIO,
BENEDICK, BALTHAZAR, and others.

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D. Pedro. Good Signior Leonato, you are come to meet your trouble: the fashion of the world is to avoid cost, and you encounter it.

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Leon. Never came trouble to my house in the likeness of your grace, for trouble being gone, comfort should remain; but when you depart from me, sorrow abides and happiness takes his leave.

D. Pedro. You embrace your charge too willingly. I think this is your daughter.

Leon. Her mother hath many times told meso. Bene. Were you in doubt, sir, that you asked her? 110 Leon. Signior Benedick, no; for then were you a child.

D. Pedro. You have it full, Benedick: we may guess by this what you are, being a man. Truly, the lady fathers herself. Be happy, lady, for you are like an honourable father.

Bene. If Signior Leonato be her father, she would not have his head on her shoulders for all Messina, as like him as she is.

Beat. I wonder that you will still be talking, Signior Benedick: nobody marks you.

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Bene. What! my dear Lady Disdain, are you get living?

Beat. Is it possible disdain should die while she hath such meet food to feed it as Signior Benedick? Courtesy itself must convert to disdain, if you come in her presence.

Bene. Then is courtesy a turncoat. But it is certain I am loved of all ladies, only you excepted; and I would I could find in my heart that I had not a hard heart; for, truly, I love none.

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D. Pedro. This is the sum of all, Leonato : Signior Claudio, and Signior Benedick, my dear friend Leonato hath invited you all. I tell him we shall stay here at the least a month, and he heartily prays some occasion may detain us longer I dare swear he is no hypocrite, but prays from his heart.

Leon. If you swear, my lord, you shall not be forsworn. To Don JOHN. Let me bid you welcome, my lord: being reconciled to the prince your brother, I owe you all duty.

160

D. John. I thank you: I am not of many words, but I thank you.

Leon. Please it your grace lead on?

D. Pedro. Your hand, Leonato; we will go together.

Exeunt all but BENEDICK and CLAUDIO. Claud. Benedick, didst thou note the daughter of Signior Leonato ?

Bene. I noted her not; but I looked on her. Claud. Is she not a modest young lady?

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Bene. Do you question me, as an honest man should do, for my simple true judgment; or would you have me speak after my custom, as being a professed tyrant to their sex?

Claud. No; I pray thee speak in soberjudgment. Bene. Why, i' faith, methinks she's too low for a high praise, too brown for a fair praise, and too little for a great praise: only this commendation I can afford her, that were she other than she is, she were unhandsome, and being no other but as she is, I do not like her.

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Claud. Thou thinkest I am in sport: I pray thee tell me truly how thou likest her. Bene. Would you buy her, that you inquire after her?

But

Claud. Can the world buy such a jewel? Bene. Yea, and a case to put it into. speak you this with a sad brow, or do you play the flouting Jack, to tell us Cupid is a good harefinder, and Vulcan a rare carpenter? Come, in what key shall a man take you, to go in the song? Claud. In mine eye she is the sweetest lady that ever I looked on.

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Bene. I can see yet without spectacles and I see no such matter: there's her cousin, an she were not possessed with a fury, exceeds her as much in beauty as the first of May doth the last of December. But I hope you have no intent to turn husband, have you?

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

Bene. Is't come to this, i' faith? Hath not the world one man but he will wear his cap with suspicion? Shall I never see a bachelor of threescore again? Go to, i' faith; an thou wilt needs thrust thy neck into a yoke, wear the print of it, and sigh away Sundays. Look! Don Pedro is returned to seek you.

Re-enter Don PEDRO.

D. Pedro. What secret hath held you here, that you followed not to Leonato's? Bene. I would your grace would constrain me to tell.

D. Pedro. I charge thee on thy allegiance.

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Bene. You hear, Count Claudio: I can be secret as a dumb man; I would have you think so; but on my allegiance, mark you this, on my allegiance he is in love. With who? now that is your grace's part. Mark how short his answer is with Hero, Leonato's short daughter.

Claud. If this were so, so were it uttered. Bene. Like the old tale, my lord: 'it is not so, nor 'twas not so; but, indeed, God forbid it should be so.'

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

D. Pedro. Amen, if you love her; for the lady is very well worthy.

Claud. You speak this to fetch me in, my lord. D. Pedro. By my troth, I speak my thought. Claud. And in faith, my lord, I spoke mine. Bene. And by my two faiths and troths, my lord, I spoke mine.

Claud. That I love her, I feel.

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Bene. 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. D. Pedro. I shall see thee, ere I die, look pale with love.

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Bene. 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 balladmaker's pen, and hang me up at the door of a brothel-house for the sign of blind Cupid.

D. Pedro. Well, if ever thou dost fall from this faith, thou wilt prove a notable argument. Bene. 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. D. Pedro. Well, as time shall try:

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Bene. I have almost matter enough in me for such an embassage; and so I commit you— Claud. To the tuition of God: from my house, if I had it,

D. Pedro. The sixth of July: your loving friend, Benedick.

Bene. 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. 3

Claud. My liege, your highness now may do me good.

D. 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.
Claud. Hath Leonato any son, my lord?
D. Pedro. No child but Hero; she's his only
heir.

Dost thou affect her, Claudio?
Claud.

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

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D. 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?

Claud. How sweetly do you minister to love, That know love's grief by his complexion! But lest my liking might too sudden seem, I would have salv'd it with a longer treatise. 320 D. 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 : 330
Then after to her father will I break ;
And the conclusion is, she shall be thine.
In practice let us put it presently.

Excunt.

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pleached alley in mine orchard, were thus much overheard by a man of mine: the prince discovered to Claudio that he loved my niece your daughter, and meant to acknowledge it this night in a dance; and if he found her accordant, he meant to take the present time by the top and instantly break with you of it.

Leon. Hath the fellow any wit that told you this?

Ant. A good sharp fellow: I will send for him; and question him yourself.

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Go

Leon. No, no; we will hold it as a dream till it appear itself: but I will acquaint my daughter withal, that she may be the better prepared for an answer, if peradventure this be true. you, and tell her of it. Several persons cross the stage. Cousins, you know what you have to do. O! I cry you mercy, friend; go you with me, and I will use your skill. Good cousin, have a care this busy time. Exeunt.

SCENE III-Another Room in LEONATO's House. Enter Don JOHN and CONRADE.

Con. What the good-year, my lord! why are you thus out of measure sad?

D. John. There is no measure in the occasion that breeds; therefore the sadness is without limit.

Con. You should hear reason.

D. John. And when I have heard it, what blessing brings it?

Con. If not a present remedy, at least a patient sufferance.

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Con. Yea; but you must not make the full show of this till you may do it without controlment. You have of late stood out against your brother, and he hath ta'en you newly into his grace; where it is impossible you should take true root but by the fair weather that you make yourself: it is needful that you frame the season for your own harvest. 27

D. John. I had rather be a canker in a hedge than a rose in his grace; and it better fits my blood to be disdained of all than to fashion a carriage to rob love from any: in this, though I cannot be said to be a flattering honest man, it must not be denied but I am a plain-dealing villain. I am trusted with a muzzle and enfranchised with a clog; therefore I have decreed not to sing in my cage. If I had my mouth, I would bite; if I had my liberty, I would do my liking in the meantime, let me be that I am, and seek not to alter me.

:

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Con. Can you make no use of your discontent? D. John. I make all use of it, for I use it only. Who comes here?

Enter BORACHIO.

What news, Borachio?

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Bora. Marry, it is your brother's right hand.
D. John. Who? the most exquisite Claudio ?
Bora. Even he.
And who, and

D. John. A proper squire! who? which way looks he? Bora. Marry, on Hero, the daughter and heir of Leonato.

D. John. A very forward March-chick! How came you to this?

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Bora. 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.

D. John. Come, come; let us thither: this may prove food to my displeasure. That young start-up hath all the glory of my overthrow: if I can cross him any way, I bless myself every way. You are both sure, and will assist me? 71 Con. To the death, my lord.

D. John. Let us to the great supper: their cheer is the greater that I am subdued. Would the cook were of my mind! Shall we go prove what's to be done?

Bora. We'll wait upon your lordship.

ACT II.

Excunt.

SCENE I.-A Hall in LEONATO's House.

Enter LEONATO, ANTONIO, HERO, BEATRICE, and others.

Leon. Was not Count John here at supper? Ant. I saw him not.

Beat. How tartly that gentleman looks! I never can see him but I am heart-burned an hour after.

Ilcro. He is of a very melancholy disposition.

Beat. He were an excellent man that were made just in the midway between him and Benedick: the one is too like an image, and says nothing; and the other too like my lady's eldest son, evermore tattling.

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Leon. Then half Signior Benedick's tongue in Count John's mouth, and half Count John's melancholy in Signior Benedick's face.—

Beat. With a good leg and a good foot, uncle, and money enough in his purse, such a man would win any woman in the world, if a' could get her good will.

Leon. By my troth, niece, thou wilt never get thee a husband, if thou be so shrewd of thy tongue. Ant. In faith, she's too curst.

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Beat. Too curst is more than curst: I shall lessen God's sending that way; for it is said, 'God sends a curst cow short horns'; but to a cow too curst he sends none.

Leon, So, by being too curst, God will send you no horns?

Beat. Just, if he send me no husband; for the

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