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.
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 you do 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.
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;
Then after to her father will I break,
And the conclusion is, she shall be thine.
In practice let us put it presently.
Exeunt.
¶
[Scene II]
Enter Leonato and an old man [Antonio], brother to Leonato, [meeting].
Leon. How now, brother, where is my cousin, your son? Hath he provided this music?
Ant. He is very busy about it. But, brother, I can tell you strange news that you yet dreamt not of.
Leon. Are they good?
Ant. As the [event] stamps them, but they have a good cover; they show well outward. The Prince and Count Claudio, walking in a thick-pleach’d alley in mine orchard, were thus much overheard by a man of mine. The Prince discover’d to Claudio that he lov’d 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.
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 prepar’d for an answer, if peradventure this be true. Go 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]
Enter [Don] John the Bastard and Conrade, his companion.
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.
D. John. I wonder that thou (being, as thou say’st thou art, born under Saturn) goest about to apply a moral medicine to a mortifying mischief. I cannot hide what I am: I must be sad when I have cause, and smile at no man’s jests; eat when I have stomach, and wait for no man’s leisure; sleep when I am drowsy, and tend on no man’s business; laugh when I am merry, and claw no man in his humor.
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.
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 disdain’d 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 enfranchis’d 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 mean time let me be that I am, and seek not to alter me.
Con.
