Yea, signior, and depart when you bid me.
Bene. O, stay but till then!
Beat. ‘Then’ is spoken; fare you well now. And yet ere I go, let me go with that I came, which is, with knowing what hath pass’d between you and Claudio.
Bene. Only foul words—and thereupon I will kiss thee.
Beat. Foul words is but foul wind, and foul wind is but foul breath, and foul breath is noisome; therefore I will depart unkiss’d.
Bene. Thou hast frighted the word out of his right sense, so forcible is thy wit. But I must tell thee plainly, Claudio undergoes my challenge, and either I must shortly hear from him, or I will subscribe him a coward. And I pray thee now tell me, for which of my bad parts didst thou first fall in love with me?
Beat. For them all together, which maintain’d so politic a state of evil that they will not admit any good part to intermingle with them. But for which of my good parts did you first suffer love for me?
Bene. Suffer love! a good epithite! I do suffer love indeed, for I love thee against my will.
Beat. In spite of your heart, I think. Alas, poor heart, if you spite it for my sake, I will spite it for yours, for I will never love that which my friend hates.
Bene. Thou and I are too wise to woo peaceably.
Beat. It appears not in this confession; there’s not one wise man among twenty that will praise himself.
Bene. An old, an old instance, Beatrice, that liv’d in the time of good neighbors. If a man do not erect in this age his own tomb ere he dies, he shall live no longer in monument than the bell rings and the widow weeps.
Beat. And how long is that, think you?
Bene. Question: why, an hour in clamor and a quarter in rheum; therefore is it most expedient for the wise, if Don Worm (his conscience) find no impediment to the contrary, to be the trumpet of his own virtues, as I am to myself. So much for praising myself, who I myself will bear witness is praiseworthy. And now tell me, how doth your cousin?
Beat. Very ill.
Bene. And how do you?
Beat. Very ill too.
Bene. Serve God, love me, and mend. There will I leave you too, for here comes one in haste.
Enter Ursula.
Urs. Madam, you must come to your uncle, yonder’s old coil at home. It is prov’d my Lady Hero hath been falsely accus’d, the Prince and Claudio mightily abus’d, and Don John is the author of all, who is fled and gone. Will you come presently?
Beat. Will you go hear this news, signior?
Bene. I will live in thy heart, die in thy lap, and be buried in thy eyes; and moreover I will go with thee to thy uncle’s.
Exeunt.
¶
[Scene III]
Enter Claudio, Prince [Don Pedro], and three or four with tapers.
Claud. Is this the monument of Leonato?
[A] Lord. It is, my lord.
[Claud. Reading out of a scroll.]
Epitaph
“Done to death by slanderous tongues
Was the Hero that here lies.
Death, in guerdon of her wrongs,
Gives her fame which never dies.
So the life that died with shame
Lives in death with glorious fame.”
Hang thou there upon the tomb,
[Hangs up the scroll.]
Praising her when I am [dumb].
Now, music, sound, and sing your solemn hymn.
Song
Pardon, goddess of the night,
Those that slew thy virgin knight,
For the which, with songs of woe,
Round about her tomb they go.
Midnight, assist our moan,
Help us to sigh and groan,
Heavily, heavily.
Graves, yawn and yield your dead,
Till death be uttered,
Heavily, heavily.
[Claud.]
Now, unto thy bones good night!
Yearly will I do this rite.
D. Pedro.
Good morrow, masters, put your torches out.
The wolves have preyed, and look, the gentle day,
Before the wheels of Phoebus, round about
Dapples the drowsy east with spots of grey.
Thanks to you all, and leave us. Fare you well.
Claud.
Good morrow, masters—each his several way.
D. Pedro.
Come let us hence, and put on other weeds,
And then to Leonato’s we will go.
Claud.
And Hymen now with luckier issue speed’s
Than this for whom we rend’red up this woe.
Exeunt.
¶
[Scene IV]
Enter Leonato, Benedick, [Beatrice,] Margaret, Ursula, old man [Antonio], Friar [Francis], Hero.
Friar.
Did I not tell you she was innocent?
