Original subtitles

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[ ♪ '80s style pop ]

[ Music stops ] I learn in this letter

that Don Pedro of arragon comes this night to messina.

He is very near by this. He was not three leagues off when I left him.

How many gentlemen have you lost in this action?

But few of any sort, and none of name.

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.

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.

Beatrice: I pray you, is signior mountanto returned from the war or no?

(Audience laughs) I know none of that name, lady.

There was none such in the army of any sort.

Leonato: What is he that you ask for, niece?

Hero: My cousin means signior benedick of padua.

Messenger: Oh, he's returned, and as pleasant as ever he was.

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 killings.

Leonato: Faith niece, you tax signior benedick too much,

but he'll be meet with you, I doubt it not.

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

You had musty vittles, he hath helped to eat them.

He's a very Valiant trencherman, he hath an excellent stomach.

And a good soldier too, lady.

And a good soldier to a lady.

(Audience laughs) But what is he to a lord?

A lord to a lord, a man to a man,

stuffed with all honourable virtues.

It is so indeed, he is no less then a stuffed man,

but for the stuffing well... we are all mortal.

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.

Alas, he gets nothing by that.

In our last conflict, four of his five wits went halting off.

Now is the whole man governed with one.

Who is his companion now? He hath every month a new sworn brother.

Is't possible? Very easily possible.

He wears his faith but as the fashion of his hat,

it ever changes with the next block.

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

No, and he were, I would burn my study.

But I pray you, who is his companion?

Is there no young squarer now,

will make a voyage with him to the devil?

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

O, lord! (Audience laughs)

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.

Messenger: I will hold friends with you, lady.

Do. Ooh!

Beatrice: Good friend. Leonato: You'll never run mad, niece.

No, not till a hot January. Ah! Don Pedro is approached.

[ Women sigh with admiration ]

[ Dukes of Hazzard horn blares ]

Ahoy!

(Cheering/applause)

Prince: Good signior leonato, you are come to meet your trouble.

The fashion of the world is to avoid cost,

and you encounter it.

Never came trouble to my house in the likeness of your grace.

You embrace your charge too willingly.

I think this is your daughter.

Her mother hath many times told me so. (Audience laughs)

Benedick: Were you in doubt, sir, that you asked her?

Leonato: Signior benedick, no, for then were you a child.

Prince: You have it full, benedick. Truly the lady fathers herself.

Be happy, lady, for you are like an honourable father.

Benedick: If signior leonato be her father,

she would not have his head on her shoulders for all messina,

as like him as she is.

Beatrice: I wonder that you will still be talking,

signior benedick, nobody marks you.

(Audience laughs)

What?

My dear lady disdain.

Are you yet living?

(Audience laughs)

Is it possible disdain should die,

when she hath such meet food to feed it as signior benedick?

Courtesy itself must convert to disdain if you come in her presence.

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.

A dear happiness to women.

They would else have been troubled with a pernicious suitor.

I thank god and my cold blood, I am of your humour for that.

I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow

than a man swear he loves me.

God keep your ladyship still in that mind,

so some gentleman or other shall scape a predestinate scratched face.

Scratching could not make it worse

if t'were such a face as yours were.

Well, you are a rare parrot.

A bird of my tongue is better than a beast of yours.

I would my horse had the speed of your tongue, and so good a continuer, but,

keep your way in god's name, I have done.

You always end with a Jade's trick.

I know you of old.

Prince: This is the sum of all. 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.

Leonato: Don John, let me bid you welcome,

being reconciled to the prince, your brother. I owe you all duty.

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

Leonato: Please it your grace lead on? Prince: We will go together.

[ Both laugh ]

Benedick, didst thou note the daughter of signior leonato?

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

Do you question me as an honest man should do,

for my simple true judgement?

Or would you have me speak after my custom,

as being a professed tyrant to their sex?

No, I pray thee, speak in sober judgement.

Why?

(Audience laughs)

I'faith, methinks she's too tall for a great praise...

..Too brown for a fair praise,

and too lean for a large 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.

Thou think'st I am in sport.

I pray thee, tell me truly how thou lik'st her.

Would you buy her, that you inquire after her?

Can the world buy such a Jewel? Yeah!

(Audience laughs)

And a case to put it into.

But speak you this with a sad brow?

Come, in what key shall a man take you to go in the song?

In mine eye, she is the sweetest lady that ever I looked on.

I can see yet without spectacles and I see no such matter.

There's her cousin, and 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? I would scarce trust myself,

though I had sworn the contrary, if hero would be my wife.

Is't come to this?

Shall I never see a bachelor of three score again?

I'faith, if thou wilt needs thrust thy neck into a yoke,

wear the print of it and sigh away sundays, go to.

Prince: What secret hath held you here, that you followed not?

Benedick: I would, your grace would constrain me to tell.

I charge thee on thy allegiance.

You hear, count Claudio? I can be secret as a dumb man,

I'd have you think so, but on my allegiance...

Mark you this, "on my allegiance".

He is in love. [ Claudio exclaims ]

With who? Now that is your grace's part.

Mark how short his answer is...

With hero, leonato's long daughter.

If this were so, so were it uttered. Amen, if you love her,

for the lady is very well worthy.

You speak this to fetch me in, my lord.

By my troth, I speak my thought. And in faith, I speak mine.

And by my two faiths and troths, I speak mine.

That I love her, I feel. 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.

Thou wast ever an obstinate heretic in the despite of beauty.

And never could maintain his part, but in the force of his will.

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 which I may go the finer,

I will live... all: A bachelor.

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 balladmaker's pen.

Hang me up at the door of a brothel house for the sign of blind cupid.

Well, if ever thou dost fall from this faith,

thou wilt prove a notable argument.

If I do, hang me in a bottle, like a cat...

..And shoot at me.

Well, as time shall try.

"In time, the savage bull doth bear the yoke."

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."

In the mean time, 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.

I have almost matter enough in me for such an embassage,

and so I commit you...

"To the tuition of god. From my house, if I had it..."

"6th July. Your loving friend, benedick."

Nay, mock not, mock not,

the body of your discourse is sometime guarded with fragments.

[ Reversing alert beeps ]

And the guards are but slightly basted on neither.

[ Reversing alert beeps ]

Ere you flout old ends any further, examine your conscience.

And so, I leave you.

[ Prince chuckles ]

My liege, your highness now may do me good.

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.

Hath leonato any son, my lord? No child but hero.

She's his only heir. Dost thou affect her, Claudio?

O my lord, when you went onward on this ended action,

I looked 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 returned.

And that warthoughts 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.

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.

Wast not to this end that thou beganst to twist so fine a story?

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.

What need the bridge much broader then 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 tonight.

I will assume thy part in some disguise

and tell fair hero that 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.

[ Both laugh ]

(Audience laughs)

Leonato: How now wife, where's balthasar? Hath he provided the music?

Innogen: He is very busy about it.

But, husband, I can tell you news that you yet dreamt not of.

Are they good? They show well outward.

I overheard the prince discover to Claudio that he loved our daughter,

and means to acknowledge it this night, in a dance.

The prince?

If he finds her accordant,

he means to take the present time by the top,

and instantly break with you of it.

We will hold it as a dream, till it appear itself.

But we will acquaint our daughter withal,

that she may be the better prepared for an answer,

if peradventure this be true. Go you, and tell her of it.

Ah, balthasar, you know what you have to do.

I cry you mercy, Titus, go you with me and I will use your skill.

Yea! Have a care this busy time.

(Audience laughs)

Conrade: What the goodyear, my lord? Why are you thus out of measure sad?

There is no measure in the occasion that breeds,

therefore sadness is without limit. You should hear reason.

And when I've heard it, what blessing brings it?

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

I wonder that 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 humour.

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 root,

but by the fair weather you make yourself.

It is needful that you frame the season for your own harvest.

I'd 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.

Can you make no use of your discontent?

I will make all use of it, for I use it only.

Who comes here? What news, borachio?

I came yonder from a great supper.

The prince, your brother, is royally entertained by leonato,

and I can give you intelligence of an intended marriage.

Will it serve for any model to build mischief on?

What is he for a fool that betroths himself to unquietness?

Marry, it is your brother's right hand.

Who, the most exquisite Claudio? Even he.

A proper squire, and who... and who, which way looks he?

Marry on hero, the daughter and heir of leonato.

A very forward marchchick. How came you to this?

I overheard it agreed upon

that the prince should woo hero for himself, and having obtained her,

give her to count Claudio.

Come, come, let us thither, this may prove food to my displeasure.

That young startup 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?

To the death, my lord. Let us to the great supper.

Their cheer is the greater that I am subdued.

Would the cook were of my mind. [ He laughs ]

(Audience laughs)

Shall we go prove what's to be done? We'll wait upon your lordship.

[ ♪ Smooth jazz/pop ]

[ Whispering ]

Was not "count John" here at supper?

I saw him not. How tartly that gentleman looks.

I never can see him, but I am heartburned an hour after.

He is of a very melancholy disposition.

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,

the other too like my lady's eldest son, evermore tattling.

Then half signior benedick's tongue in count John's mouth,

and half count John's melancholy in signior benedick's face...

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 he could get her good will.

By my troth niece, thou wilt never get a husband

if thou be so shrewd of thy tongue. In faith she's too curst.

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.

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

Just, if he send me no husband, for the which blessing,

I am at him upon my knees every morning and evening.

Lord, I could not endure a husband with a beard on his face,

I'd rather lie in the woollen.

You may light upon a husband that hath no beard.

What should I do with him?

Dress him in my apparel, and make him my waiting gentlewoman?

He that hath a beard is more than a youth,

and he that hath no beard is less then a man,

and he that is more then a youth, is not for me.

And he that is less then a man, I am not for him.

Therefore, I shall even take sixpence in earnest of the bearkeeper,

and lead his apes into hell.

Well then, go you into hell? No, but to the gate.

And there will the devil meet me like an old cuckold

with horns on his head, and say...

[ As Frankie howerd ] "Get you to heaven, Beatrice!

"O, get you to heaven.

"Here's no place for you maids."

So deliver I up my apes, and away to Saint Peter for the heavens,

he shows me where the bachelors sit,

and there we live as merry as the day is long.

Well daughter, I trust you will be ruled by your father.

Yes faith, it is my cousin's duty to make curtsy,

and say, "father, as it please you." Yet for all that, cousin,

let him be a handsome fellow, or else make an other curtsy,

and say, "father, as it please me."

Well, niece, I hope to see you one day fitted with a husband.

Not till god make men of some other metal then earth.

Would it not grieve a woman

to be overmastered by a piece of Valiant dust?

To make account of her life to a clod of wayward marl?

No uncle, I'll none. Adam's sons are my brethren,

and truly I do hold it a sin to match in my kindred.

Daughter, remember what I told you,

if the prince do solicit in that kind, you know your answer.

Beatrice: The fault will be in the music, cousin,

if you be not wooed in good time. If the prince be too important,

tell him there is measure in everything,

and so dance out the answer.

For hear me, hero, wooing, wedding, and repenting,

is as scotch jig, a measure, and a cinquepace.

The first suite is all hot and hasty

like a scotch jig,

and full as fantastical.

The wedding mannerly,

modest as a measure, full of state and ancientry.

And then comes repentance. (Audience laughs)

And with his bad legs falls into the cinquepace,

faster and faster, till he sinks into his grave.

Cousin, you apprehend passing shrewdly.

I have a good eye, uncle, I can see a church by daylight.

Dj: The revellers are entering, make good room.

[ Laughter and voices ]

[ ♪ In the style of "holding out for a hero"]

♪ Who is hero? What is she? That all our swains commend her?

♪ Holy, fair and wise is she that heaven grace did lend her

♪ is she kind as she is fair? For beauty lives with kindness

♪ love doth to her eyes repair to save him from his blindness

♪ then let the music play let the music play

♪ let the music play let the music play...?

Come on!

♪ ..And to hero let us sing for hero is a wonder

♪ who warrants every thing that tears our hearts asunder

♪ and to hero let us sing for hero is a wonder

♪ who warrants every thing that tears our hearts asunder

♪ to hero! ♪

[ Music and voices fade ]

Prince: Lady, will you walk about with your friend?

Hero: So you walk softly, and look sweetly, and say nothing,

I am yours for the walk, and especially when I walk away.

Prince: With me in your company? Hero: I may say so, when I please.

Prince: And when please you to say so? Hero: When I like your favour.

Prince: Speak low, if you speak love.

Well... I would you did like me. So would not I, for your own sake,

for I have many ill qualities.

Which is one? I say my prayers aloud.

I love you the better, the hearers may cry "amen".

God match me with a good dancer.

Amen.

And god keep him out of my sight when the dance is done.

Borachio: No more words, the clerk is answered.

I know you well enough, you are my husband.

At a word, I am not.

I know you by the waggling of your head.

To tell you true, I counterfeit him.

You could not do him so ill well, unless you were the very man.

Here's his dry hand up and down. You are he, you are he.

Will you not tell me who told you so?

Benedick (high pitched): No, you shall pardon me.

(Audience laughs)

Nor will you not tell me who are you?

Not now. That I was disdainful,

and that I had my good wit out of the hundred merry tales.

Well, this was signior benedick that said so.

Ooh! What's he? I am sure you know him well enough.

Not I, believe me.

(Audience laughs)

Did he never make you laugh? I pray you, what is he?

Why he is the prince's Jester.

A very dull fool.

His only gift is in devising impossible slanders.

None but libertines delight in him,

and the commendation is not in his wit, but in his villainy,

for he both pleaseth men and angers them,

and then they laugh at him, and beat him.

I am sure he is in the fleet. I would he had boarded me.

When I know the gentleman, I'll tell him what you say.

Do, do, he'll but break a comparison or two on me,

which peradventure, not marked, or not laughed at,

strikes him into melancholy, and then there's a partridge wing saved,

for the fool will eat no supper that night.

We must follow the leaders.

[ Sighs ]

Both: Ah!

Sure my brother is amorous on hero,

and hath withdrawn her father to break with him about it.

Are not you signior benedick?

[ Affects Scottish accent ] Och! You know me well, I am he.

Signior, you are very near my brother in his love.

He is enamoured on hero, I pray you dissuade him from her,

she is no equal for his birth.

You may do the part of an honest man in it.

How know you he loves her? I heard him swear his affection.

So did I too, and he swore he'd marry with her tonight.

Come, let us to the banquet.

Thus answer I in name of benedick,

but hear these ill news with the ears of Claudio.

'Tis certain so, the prince woos for himself.

Friendship is constant in all other things

save in the office and affairs of love,

therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues.

Let every eye negotiate for itself, and trust no agent.

For beauty...

..Is a witch, against whose charms faith melteth into blood.

This is an accident of hourly proof, which I mistrusted not.

Farewell therefore, hero.

Benedick: Count Claudio! Yea, the same.

Come, will you go with me? Whither?

Even to the next Willow, about your own business, count.

What fashion will you wear the garland of?

About your neck like a usurer's chain?

Or under your arm, like a lieutenant's scarf?

You must wear it one way, for the prince hath got your hero.

I wish him joy of her.

Why, that's spoken like an honest drover, so they sell bullocks.

Did you think the prince would have served you thus?

I pray you leave me.

Hey, now you strike like the blindman.

'Twas the boy that stole your meat, you'll beat the post.

If it will not be, I'll leave you.

[ Music booms from next door ]

Alas, poor hurt fowl, now will he creep into sedges.

But that my lady Beatrice should know me, and not know me.

The prince's fool! Hah?

(Audience laughs)

It may be I go under that title because I am merry.

Yeah? But, so...

I am apt to do myself wrong.

I am not so reputed, it is the base, though bitter, disposition of Beatrice

that puts the world into her person, and so gives me out.

Well...

(Audience laughs)

I'll be revenged as I may.

Right?

Prince: Now, signior, where's the count, did you see him?

My lord, I told him, and I think I told him true,

that your grace hath got the will of his hero.

And I offered him my company to a Willow tree,

either to make him a garland, as being forsaken,

or to bind him a rod, as being worthy to be whipped.

To be whipped, what's his fault?

The flat transgression of a schoolboy,

who being overjoyed with finding a bird's nest,

shows it his companion, and he steals it.

Wilt thou make trust a transgression? The transgression is in the stealer.

Yet it had not been amiss the rod had been made and the garland too,

for the garland he might have worn himself,

and the rod he might have bestowed on you,

who, as I take it, have stolen his bird's nest.

[ Prince chuckles ]

I will but teach them to sing, and restore them to the owner.

If their singing answer your saying, by my faith you say honestly.

The lady Beatrice hath a quarrel to you.

The gentleman who danced with her said she is much wronged by you.

O, she misused me, past the endurance of a block.

An oak but with one green leaf on it would have answered her,

my very visor began to assume life and scold with her.

She told me, not thinking I had been myself...

..That I was the prince's Jester.

And that I was duller than a great thaw,

huddling jest upon jest, with such impossible conveyance upon me,

that I stood like a man at a Mark, with a whole army shooting at me.

She speaks poniards, and every word stabs.

If her breath were as terrible as her terminations,

there were no living near her, she would infect to the north star.

I would not marry her,

though she were endowed with all that Adam had left him,

before he transgressed, she would have made Hercules have turn the spit,

yea, and have cleft his club to make a fire too.

Come, talk not of her.

(Audience laughs)

I would to god some scholar would conjure her,

for certainly while she is here,

a man may live as quiet in hell as in a sanctuary,

and people sin upon purpose, because they would go thither,

so indeed all disquiet, horror, and perturbation follow her.

Oh, look, here she comes.

Will your grace command me any service to the world's end?

I will go on the slightest errand now to the antipodes

that you can devise to send me on.

I will fetch you a toothpicker now from the furthest inch of Asia.

Bring you the length of prester John's foot.

Fetch you a hair off the great cham's beard.

Do you any embassage to the pigmies.

Rather then endure three words conference with this harpy.

[ She mouths ]

You have no employment for me?

None, but to desire your good company.

O, god. Sir, here's a dish I love not,

I cannot endure my lady tongue.

Beatrice: Oh...

Come, lady. Come.

You have lost the heart of signior benedick.

Indeed, my lord, he lent it me a while...

..And I gave him use for it, a double heart for a single one.

Marry, once before he won it off me with false dice,

therefore your grace may well say I have lost it.

You have put him down, lady, you have put him down.

So I would not he should do me, my lord,

lest I should prove the mother of fools.

I have brought you count Claudio, whom you sent me to seek.

[ Chuckling ] Oooh!

How now, count, wherefore are you sad?

Not sad, my lord. How then? Sick?

Neither, my lord.

The count is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor well but...

..Civil, count, civil as an orange and something of that jealous complexion.

I'faith lady, I think your blazon to be true,

though I'll be sworn, if he be so, his conceit is false.

Here Claudio, I have wooed in thy name, and fair hero is won.

I have broke with her father, and his good will obtained.

Name the day of marriage, and god give thee joy.

Leonato: Count, take of me my daughter, and with her my fortunes.

His grace hath made the match, and all grace say amen to it.

(Audience laughs)

Speak, count, 'Tis your cue.

Silence is the perfectest herald of joy.

I were but little happy if I could say how much.

Lady, as you are mine, I am yours,

I give away my self for you, and dote upon the exchange.

Oh, speak, cousin, or if you cannot,

stop his mouth with a kiss, and let not him speak neither.

In faith lady, you have a merry heart.

Yea, my lord, I thank it, poor fool. It keeps on the windy side of care.

My cousin tells him in his ear that he is in her heart.

And so she doth, cousin. Good lord for alliance.

Thus goes everyone to the world but I...

..And I am sunburned.

I may sit in a corner and cry, "heigh ho for a husband."

Lady Beatrice, I will get you one.

I had rather have one of your father's getting.

Hath your grace ne'er a brother like you?

Your father got excellent husbands, if only a maid could come by them.

Will you have me, lady? [Beatrice laughs]

(Audience laughs)

No!

My lord, unless I might have another one for workingdays!

Your grace is too costly to wear every day!

[ Laughs nervously ] Ssh!

But I beseech your grace pardon me.

I was born to speak all mirth, and no matter.

Your silence most offends me, and to be merry best becomes you,

for out of question, you were born in a merry hour.

No sure, my lord, my mother cried.

But then there was a star danced, and under that was I born.

Cousins, god give you joy.

Niece, will you look to those things I told you of?

I cry you mercy, uncle.

By your grace's pardon.

[ Prince laughs awkwardly ]

By my troth, a pleasantspirited lady.

There's little of the melancholy element in her, my lord,

she is never sad but when she sleeps, and not ever sad then,

for I have heard my daughter say, she hath often dreamt of unhappiness,

and waked herself with laughing.

She cannot endure to hear tell of a husband.

O, by no means, she mocks all her wooers out of suit.

She were an excellent wife for benedick.

[ Laughing ] O lord, my lord, if they were but a week married,

they would talk themselves mad.

How now, Claudio.

When means you to go to church? Tomorrow, my lord.

Time goes on crutches till love have all his rites.

Not till Monday, my dear son, and a time too brief, too,

to have all things ask for, mind.

Come, you shake the head at so long a breathing,

but I warrant thee Claudio, the time shall not go dully by us.

I will in the interim, undertake one of Hercules' labours

which is to bring signior benedick and the lady Beatrice

into a mountain of affection, the one with the other.

I fain would have it a match, and I doubt not but to fashion it,

if you all minister such assistance as I shall give you direction.

My lord, I am for you, though it cost me ten nights' watchings.

And I, my lord. And you too, gentle hero?

I will do any modest office, my lord, to help my cousin to a good husband.

And benedick is not the unhopefullest husband I know.

Thus far can I praise him.

He is of a noble strain, of approved valour and confirmed honesty.

I will teach you how to humour your cousin,

that she shall fall in love with him, and I, with your two helps,

will so practise on benedick that in despite of his quick wit

and his queasy stomach, he shall fall in love with Beatrice.

If we can do this, cupid no longer an Archer.

His glory shall be ours, for we are the only love gods.

[ Laughter ]

Go in with me, and I will tell you my drift.

It is so, the count Claudio shall marry the daughter of leonato.

Yea, my lord, but I can cross it.

Any bar, any cross, any impediment, will be medicinable to me.

I am sick in displeasure to him,

and whatsoever comes athwart his affection ranges evenly with mine.

How canst thou cross this marriage? Not honestly, my lord,

but so covertly that no dishonesty shall appear in me.

Show me briefly how.

I think I told your lordship, a year since,

how I am in the favour of Margaret, the waiting gentlewoman to hero.

I remember. What life is in that to be the death of this marriage?

The poison of that lies in you to temper.

Go you to the prince, your brother, spare not to tell him

that he hath wronged his honour in marrying the renowned Claudio,

whose estimation do you mightily hold up...

..To a contaminated stale, such a one as hero.

What proof shall I make of that?

Proof enough to misuse the prince, to vex Claudio,

to undo hero and kill leonato, look you for any other issue?

Only to despite them I will endeavour anything.

Go then.

Find me a meet hour to draw Don Pedro and count Claudio alone.

Tell them that you know that hero loves me.

They will scarcely believe it without trial.

Offer them instances which shall bear no less likelihood

than to see me court her privately, hear me call Margaret hero,

and bring them to see this the very night before the intended wedding,

and there shall appear such seeming truths in hero's disloyalty,

that jealousy shall be called assurance,

and all the preparation overthrown.

Grow this to what adverse issue it can, I will put it in practice.

Be cunning in the working this, and thy fee is... 1,000 ducats?

Be you constant in the accusation,

and my cunning shall not shame me.

I will presently go learn their day of marriage.

(Audience laughs)

[ ♪ '80s style pop ]

[ Music fades ]

[ Moans ]

(Audience laughs)

Boy?

Signior!

In my chamber window, lies a book.

Bring it... Hither to me.

I am here already, sir.

I know that. (Audience laughs)

I would have thee hence, and here again.

A book? A book.

I do much wonder, that one man,

seeing how much another man is a fool,

when he dedicates his behaviours to love, will,

after he hath laughed at such shallow follies in others,

become the argument of his own scorn by falling in love.

And such a man is Claudio.

I have known when there was no music with him but the drum and the fife.

And now, would he rather hear the tabor and the pipe.

I have known when he would have walked ten mile afoot to see a good armour.

And now will he lie ten nights awake, carving the fashion of a new doublet.

He was wont to speak plain and to the purpose,

like an honest man and a soldier, and now, is he turned... Orthography.

His words are a very fantastical banquet,

just so many strange dishes.

May I be so converted and see with these eyes?

I cannot tell, I think not.

(Audience laughs)

I will not be sworn, but love may transform me... To an oyster,

but I'll take my oath on it, till he have made an oyster of me,

he shall never make me such a fool.

One woman is fair, yet I am well.

Another is wise, yet I am well, another virtuous, yet I am well.

But till all graces be in one woman, one woman shall not come in my grace.

Rich she shall be, that's certain.

Wise, or I'll none.

Virtuous, or I'll never cheapen her.

Fair, or I'll never look on her.

Mild, or come not near me.

Noble, or not I for an angel.

Of good discourse, an excellent musician, and her hair shall be re...

..Of what colour it please god.

(Audience laughs)

Oh! The prince and monsieur love(!)

I will hide me.

Prince: Come, shall we hear the music? Claudio: Yea, my good lord.

How still the morning is. As hushed on purpose to grace Harmony.

See you where benedick hath hid himself?

O very well, my lord.

Prince: Come balthasar, we'll have that song again.

O good my lord, tax not so bad a voice

to slander music any more than once.

I pray thee sing, and let me woo no more.

Because you talk of wooing, I will sing.

[ Plays chord ]

[ ♪ Romantic melody ]

Claudio: Ah!

"Ah" (!) Now is his soul ravished.

(Audience laughs)

♪ Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more

♪ men were deceivers ever one foot in sea and one on shore

♪ to one thing constant never then sigh not so, but let them go

♪ and be you blithe and bonny

[ Claudio sings along ] ♪ converting all your sounds of woe

♪ into, "hey, nonny, nonny..." ♪

Is it not strange that sheep's guts should hale souls out of men's bodies?

♪ ..Sing no more, ditties, sing no more

♪ of dumps so dull and heavy the fraud of men were ever so

♪ since summer first was leavy then sigh not so, but let them go

♪ and be you blithe and bonny (applause)

♪ Converting all your sounds of woe

♪ into, "hey, nonny, nonny" ♪

Prince: By my troth a good song. Balthasar: And an ill singer, my lord.

No, thou singst well enough for a shift.

Had he been a dog that should have howled thus, they'd have hanged him!

Yea marry, balthasar, dost thou hear?

I pray thee get us some excellent music for tomorrow night.

The best I can, my lord. Do so, farewell.

Come hither, leonato. What was it you told me of today,

that your niece Beatrice was in love with signior benedick?

[Crash]

O ay, stalk on, stalk on, the fowl sits.

I did never think that lady would have loved any man.

Nor I neither, but most wonderful

that she should so dote on signior benedick,

whom she hath in all outward behaviours seemed ever to abhor.

Is't possible? Sits the wind in that corner?

By my troth, my lord, I cannot tell what to think of it,

but that she loves him with an enraged affection,

it is past the infinite of thought.

Maybe she doth but counterfeit. Faith, like enough.

Leonato: Counterfeit? There was never counterfeit of passion

came so near the life of passion as she discovers it.

Prince: Why, what effects of passion shows she?

Claudio: Bait the hook well, this fish will bite.

Um... (Audience laughs)

What effects, my lord?

She will sit you... you heard my daughter tell you how.

How?

How, I pray you? O, you amaze me!

I should have thought her spirit had been invincible

against all assaults of affection.

I should think this a gull, but that leonato speaks it.

Knavery cannot sure hide himself in such reverence.

Claudio: He hath taken th'infection, hold it up.

Prince: Hath she made her affection known to benedick?

Leonato: No, and swears she never will, that's her torment.

Claudio: 'Tis true indeed, so your daughter says.

"Shall I," says she, "that have so often encountered him with scorn,

"write to him that I love him?"

The letter, yeah! She tears the letter into a thousand pieces!

Then down upon her knees she falls, weeps, sobs, beats her heart,

tears her hair, prays, curses,

"o sweet benedick, god give me Patience."

(Audience laughs/applauds)

Leonato: She doth indeed, my daughter says so,

she rails at herself, that she should be so immodest

to write to one that she knows would flout her.

And the ecstasy hath so much overborne her that my daughter

is sometimes afeard she will do a desperate outrage to herself.

(Audience laughs)

Prince: It were good that he knew of it by some other,

if she will not discover it.

Claudio: To what end? He would but make sport of it,

and torment the poor lady worse.

Prince: And he should, it were an alms to hang him.

For she is an excellent sweet lady,

and, out of all suspicion, she is virtuous.

And she is exceeding wise. In every thing but loving benedick.

[ Splutters on drink ]

Leonato: I am sorry for her, as I have just cause,

being her uncle, and her guardian.

Prince: I would she had bestowed this dotage on me.

I would have doffed all other respects and made her half myself.

I pray you, tell benedick of it, and hear what he will say.

Were it good, think you? Hero thinks surely she will die,

for she says she will die if he love her not,

she will die ere she make her love known,

and she will die if he woo her, rather than she will bate

one breath of her accustomed... Crossness.

No...!

Well, she doth well. If she should make tender of her affection,

'Tis very possible he'll scorn it, for the man, as you know all,

hath a contemptible spirit.

He is a very proper man.

He does indeed have a good outward happiness.

'Fore god, and in my mind very wise.

Oh, my...

He doth indeed show some sparks that are like wit.

And I take him to be Valiant.

[ Benedick chokes ]

(Audience laughs)

(Applause)

Prince: Well, I am sorry for your niece.

Shall we go see benedick, and tell him of her love?

Never tell him, my lord. Let her wear it out with good counsel.

Nay that's impossible, she may wear her heart out first.

Well, we'll hear further of it by your daughter, let it cool the while.

I love benedick well, and could wish he would modestly examine himself,

to see how much he is unworthy to have so good a lady.

My lord, will you walk? Dinner's ready.

[ All laugh ]

If he do not dote on her upon this, I will never trust my expectation.

Let there be the same net spread for Beatrice,

and that must your daughter and her gentlewoman carry.

Let us send her to call him to dinner. [ All laugh ]

(Audience laughs)

[ Panting ]

This can be no trick.

The conference was sadly borne, they have the truth of this from hero.

They seem to pity the lady.

(Audience laughs)

It seems her affections have the full bent.

Love me?

Why?

It must be requited. I hear how I am censured.

They say I will bear myself proudly if I perceive the love come from her,

they say too, she would rather die than show any signs of affection.

I did never think to marry. I must not seem proud.

Happy are those that hear their detractions,

and can put them to mending.

They say the lady is fair...

'Tis a truth, I can bear them witness.

And virtuous, Tis so, I cannot reprove it.

And wise, but for loving me.

By my troth, that is no addition to her wit.

Nor no great argument of her folly.

For I will be... horribly in love with her!

(Audience applauds)

(Audience laughs)

I may chance have some odd quirks and remnants of wit broken on me,

because I have railed so long against marriage.

But...

..Doth not the appetite alter?

A man loves the meat in his youth, he cannot endure in his age.

Shall quips and sentences, and these paper bullets of the brain

awe a man from the career of his humour?

No!

The world must be peopled.

When I said I would die a bachelor,

I did not think I would live till I were married.

Here comes Beatrice. By this day, she is a fair lady.

(Audience laughs)

[ Beatrice groans ]

I do spy some marks of love in her.

Against my will, I am sent to bid you come in to dinner.

Fair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains.

I took no more pains for those thanks,

than you took pains to thank me.

If it had been painful, I would not have come.

(Audience laughs)

You take pleasure then in the message?

Yeah(!)

Just so much as you may take

upon a knife's point and choke a sparrow withal.

You have no stomach, signior? Fare you well.

Ha!

"Against my will, I am sent to bid you come in to dinner."

Double meaning in that!

(Audience laughs/applauds)

"I took no more pains for those thanks then you took pains to thank me."

Well...

That's as much as to say,

"any pains that I take for you is as easy as thanks."

If I do not take pity on her, I'm a villain.

If I do not love her...

..I'm a fool.

I will go...

..Get her picture.

(Applause)

[ ♪ Easy listening ]

[ Voices inaudible ]

Good Margaret, run thee to the parlour,

there shalt thou find my cousin Beatrice

proposing with the prince and Claudio.

Whisper her ear, and tell her I and your mother walk here about,

and that our whole discourse is all of her.

Say that thou overheardst us, and bid her steal

where she can hide her to listen our purpose.

This is thy office, bear thee well in it, and leave us alone.

I'll make her come, I warrant you, presently.

Now Ursula, when Beatrice doth come,

our talk must only be of benedick.

When I do name him,

let it be thy part to praise him more than ever man did merit.

My talk to thee must be how benedick is sick in love with Beatrice.

[ Ursula cackles ]

Of this matter, is little cupid's crafty arrow made,

that only wounds by hearsay.

Now begin, for look where Beatrice, like a lapwing

runs close by the ground, to hear our conference.

The pleasant'st angling is to see the fish cut

with her golden oars the silver stream,

and greedily devour the treacherous bait.

So angle you and I for Beatrice. Fear you not my part of the dialogue.

[ Clears throat ] No truly, Ursula, she is too disdainful.

I know her spirits are as coy and wild as haggards of the rock.

But are you sure that benedick loves Beatrice so entirely?

[Crash]

So says the prince, and my new trothed lord.

And did they bid you tell her of it, madam?

They did entreat me to acquaint her of it,

but I persuaded them...

If they loved benedick,

to wish him wrestle with affection, and never to let Beatrice know of it.

Why did you so? Doth not the gentleman deserve

as full as fortunate a bed as ever Beatrice shall couch upon?

O god of love! I know he doth deserve, as much as may be yielded to a man.

[ Ursula laughs ]

But nature never framed

a woman's heart of prouder stuff than that of Beatrice.

Disdain and scorn ride sparkling in her eyes,

misprising what they look on, and her wit values itself so highly,

that to her, all matter else seems weak.

She cannot love...

(Audience laughs/applauds)

..Nor take no shape nor project of affection,

she is so selfendeared.

Sure I think so, and therefore certainly it were not wise

she knew his love, lest she make sport at it.

Hero: Why, you speak truth.

I...

(Audience laughs)

I never yet saw man,

how wise, how noble...

(Audience laughs) ..Young, how rarely featured,

but she would spell him backward.

If fair faced, she would swear the gentleman should be her sister.

If black, why nature drawing of an antic, made a foul blot.

If tall, a Lance ill headed. If low, an agate very vilely cut.

If speaking, why a vane blown with all winds.

If silent, why a block moved with none.

So turns she every man the wrong side out.

Ursula: Sure, sure, such carping is not commendable.

No.

Not to be so odd and from all fashions as Beatrice is

cannot be commendable, but who dare tell her so?

If I should speak, she would mock me into air.

Ursula: Air! [ Cackles ]

She would laugh me out of myself, press me to death with wit.

Therefore, let benedick like covered fire,

consume away in sighs, waste inwardly.

It were better than die with mocks, which is as bad as die with tickling.

Yet tell her of it, hear what she will say.

No, rather I will go to benedick and counsel him

to fight against his passion.

And truly I'll devise some honest slanders to stain my cousin with.

One doth not know how much an ill word may empoison liking.

O, do not do your cousin such a wrong.

She cannot be so much without true judgement,

having so swift and excellent a wit as she is prized to have,

as to refuse so rare a gentleman as signior benedick.

Indeed, he hath an excellent good name.

His excellence did earn it ere he had it. Hahaha.

When are you married, madam? Why?

Every day tomorrow.

Come go in, I'll show thee some attires, and have thy counsel,

which is the best to furnish me tomorrow.

She's limed I warrant you, we've caught her, madam.

If it prove so, then loving goes by haps,

some cupid kills with arrows, some with traps.

(Audience laughs/applauds)

(Applause continues)

[ She mouths ]

What?

(Laughter/applause)

Fire is in mine ears. Can this be true?

Stand I condemned for pride and scorn so much?

Contempt, farewell, and maiden pride, adieu,

no glory lives behind the back of such.

And benedick?

Love on!

I will requite thee, taming my wild heart to thy loving hand.

If thou dost love, my kindness shall incite thee

to bind our loves up in a holy band.

For others say thou dost deserve,

and I believe it better than reportingly.

[ Screams ]

(Applause)

[ ♪ Flourish ]

[ Plays simple riff ]

Man: 95, 96, 97.

Come on! 98, 99,

99 and a half,

100! [ Cheering ]

[ Cheering ]

(Applause)

Are you good men and true? Yea, or else it were pity

but they should suffer salvation body and soul.

Nay, that were a punishment too good for 'em,

if they should have any allegiance in them,

being chosen for... The prince's watch.

Come on.

Welcome aboard. Well!

Give them their charge, neighbour dogberry.

First, who think you the most desertless man to be constable?

George seacoal, for he can write and read.

[ English accent ] Sí señor. Hablo UN poco español.

Come hither, neighbour seacoal, "seacoal".

God hath blest you with a good name. To be a wellfavoured man,

is the gift of fortune, but to write and read the language

comes by nature. Si?

Que es la dirección por estación, por favor?

I knew it would be your answer.

Why, for your favour sir, give god thanks,

and make no boast of it, and for your writing and reading,

let that appear when there is no need for such vanity.

You are thought here to be the most fit and senseless man

for the constable of the watch, therefore bear you the lantern.

Congratulations. Welcome aboard, thank you.

This is your charge. You are to comprehend all vagrom men.

You are to bid any man stand in the prince's name.

How if he will not stand?

Um... ah... why then take no note of him, but let him go...

..And presently call the rest of the watch together,

and thank god you are rid of a knave.

Both: Boom!

If he will not stand when he is bidden he is none of the prince's subjects.

True, and you are to meddle with none but the prince's subjects.

You shall also make no noise in the streets.

For the watch to babble and talk

is most tolerable, and not to be endured.

We will rather sleep than talk,

we know what belongs to a watch.

Why you speak like an ancient and most quiet watchman,

for I cannot see how sleeping should offend.

Only have a care your bills be not stolen.

Well, you are to call at all the alehouses...

[ Both cheer ]

Thank you. And bid those that are drunk get them to bed.

How if they will not?

Um... why then let them alone till they are sober.

If they make you not then the better answer,

you may say they are not the men you took them for.

Well, sir. Boom!

If you meet a thief, you may suspect him,

by virtue of your office, to be no true man.

And for such kind of men, the less you meddle or make with them,

why the more is for your honesty.

If we know him to be a thief, shall we not lay hands on him?

Truly by your office you may, but I think they that

touch pitch will be defiled.

The most peaceable way for you, if you do take a thief,

is to let him show himself what he is,

and steal... Out of your company!

You have been always called a merciful man, partner.

Truly I would not hang a dog by my will,

much more a man who hath any honesty in him.

'Tis very true.

This is the end of the charge.

You, constable, are to present the prince's own person.

If you meet the prince in the night, you may stay him.

Nay, by'r lady, that I think he cannot.

Five shillings to one on't with any man that knows the statutes,

he may stay him, marry not without the prince be willing,

for indeed the watch ought to offend no man,

and it is an offence to stay a man against his will.

By'r lady, I think it be so. Boom!

Well masters, good night, and there be any matter

of weight chances, call up me.

[ Radio crackles ] Ooh!

Keep your fellow's counsels, and your own, and good night.

[ Across radio ] 'Good night.'

good night. Over.

Come, neighbour.

Well, constable, we hear our charge.

Let us sit here till two, and then to bed.

Uno, pleaso. Si.

Er, what he said.

Dogberry [on radio]: 'One word more, honest neighbours. Over.'

over.

'I pray you keep a watch about the town,

'for the wedding being tomorrow, there is a great coil tonight.'

adieu, be vigitant, I beseech you.

Both: Boom!

[ ♪ '80s style pop ]

♪ By force I am fixed my fancie to write

♪ ingratitude willeth me not to reframe

♪ then blame me not, ladies, though I indite

♪ what light of love now amongst you doth raigne

♪ o, light of love, light of love o, light of love, light of love ♪

Prince: I do but stay till your marriage be consummate,

then go I toward arragon.

I'll bring you thither, my lord, if you'll vouchsafe me.

Nay, that would be as great a soil in the gloss of your new marriage

as to show a child his new coat and forbid him to wear it.

No, I shall only be bold with benedick for his company,

for from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot...

.. He is all mirth. Woo!

Ah, he hath a heart as sound as a bell and his tongue is the clapper,

for what his heart thinks, his tongue speaks.

[ Deliberately ] Gallants, I am not as I have been.

Leonato: So say I, methinks you are sadder.

Claudio: I hope he be in love.

Prince: There's no true drop of blood in him to be truly touched with love.

If he be sad, he wants money.

I...

..Have the toothache.

Prince: Draw it. Benedick: Hang it.

Claudio: You must hang it first, and draw it afterwards.

Prince: What? Sigh for the toothache?

Every man can master a grief but he that has it.

Claudio: Yet, say I, he is in love.

Prince: Hath any man seen him at the barber's?

Claudio: No, but the barber's man hath been seen with him.

Leonato: Indeed he looks younger than he did by the loss of a beard.

Claudio: And when was he wont to wash his face?

Prince: Yea, or to paint himself? For which I hear what they say of him.

Claudio: Ooh, indeed that tells a heavy tale for him.

Prince: Conclude, he is in love. Claudio: But I know who loves him.

Prince: I would know that, too, I warrant one that knows him not.

Claudio: Yes, and his ill conditions, and despite all, dies for him.

Prince: She shall be buried with her face upwards.

Benedick: Yet is this no charm for the toothache.

Old signior, walk aside with me. I have studied eight or nine

wise words to speak with you, which these hobbyhorses must not hear.

For my life, to break with him about Beatrice.

'Tis even so, hero and Ursula have played their part with Beatrice,

and these two bears will not bite one another when they meet.

[ ♪ Funky ]

[ Cheering ]

[ Rap ] ♪ two loves I have of comfort and despair

♪ which like two spirits do suggest me still

♪ the better angel is a man right fair

♪ the worser spirit a woman colour'd ill

♪ to win me soon to hell my female evil

♪ tempteth my better angel from my side

♪ and would corrupt my Saint to be a devil

♪ wooing his purity with her foul pride

♪ and whether that my angel be a turn'd fiend

♪ suspect I may, but not directly tell

♪ but being both from me, both to each friend

♪ I guess one angel in another's hell

♪ yet this shall I ne'er know but live in doubt

♪ till my bad angel find my good one out ♪

[ Music continues ]

[ Music fades ]

[ Claudio laughing ] Oh, no!

(Audience laughs)

My lord and brother, god save you. Good evening, brother.

If your leisure served, I would speak with you.

What, in private? If it please you.

Yet count Claudio may hear.

What I would speak of concerns him. What's the matter?

Means your lordship to be married tomorrow?

You know he does. I know not that

when he knows what I know. If there be any impediment,

I pray you discover it. You may think I love you not

let that appear hereafter,

and aim better at me by that I now will manifest.

For my brother, I think he holds you well and, in dearness of heart,

hath helped to effect your ensuing marriage.

Surely suit ill spent, and labour ill bestowed.

Why, what's the matter? I came hither to tell you,

and circumstances shortened,

for she hath been too long atalking of, the lady is disloyal.

Who, hero?

Even she, leonato's hero, your hero, every man's hero.

Disloyal?

The word is too good to paint out her wickedness.

I could say she were worse, think you of a worse title,

and I will fit her to it.

Wonder not till further warrant. Go but with me tonight,

you shall see the proof, even the night before her wedding day.

If you love her then, tomorrow wed her,

but it would better fit your honour to change your mind.

May this be so? I will not think it.

If you dare not trust that you see, confess not that you know.

If you will follow me, I will show you enough,

and when you have seen more and heard more, proceed accordingly.

If I see anything tonight why I should not marry her,

in the congregation tomorrow where I should wed, there will I shame her.

And as I wooed for thee to obtain her,

I will join with thee to disgrace her.

John: I will disparage her no further till you are my witnesses.

Bear it coldly but till midnight, and let the issue show itself.

O day, untowardly turned! O mischief, strangely thwarting!

O plague, right well prevented!

So will you say, when you have seen the sequel.

[ ♪ Pop ]

♪ Come away...

♪ Come away...

♪ Come away, come away, come away...

♪ Come away, come away, death and in sad cypress let me be laid

♪ fly away, fly away, breath I am slain by a fair cruel maid

♪ my shroud of white, stuck all with you

♪ o, prepare it

♪ my part of death, no one so true did share it

♪ Come away, come away come away, come away

♪ not a flower, not a bower on my black coffin let there be strewn

♪ not a friend, not a friend greet

♪ my poor corpse, where my bones shall be thrown

♪ come away, come away ♪

Borachio: Oh, hero, hero, hero!

♪ A thousand, a thousand sighs to save lay me, o where

♪ sad true lover never find my grave to weep there!

♪ Come away, come away ♪

Borachio: What, conrade?

Oatcake: Peace, stir not.

Conrade, I say. Here man, I am at thy elbow.

Ay, and my elbow itched, I thought there would a scab follow.

I will owe thee an answer for that, and now forward with thy tale.

Stand thee close then under this penthouse,

for it drizzles rain, and I will, like a true drunkard, utter all to thee.

Seacoal: Some treason. Stand close. Borachio: Did'st thou hear somebody?

Conrade: No, he marks us not. Borachio: Therefore know,

I have earned of Don John, a thousand ducats.

Is it possible that any villainy should be so dear?

Thou should'st rather ask if it were possible

any villainy should be so rich?

For when rich villains have need of poor ones,

poor ones may make what price they will.

I wonder at it. That shows thou art unconfirm'd.

Know that I have, tonight,

wooed Margaret, lady hero's gentlewoman...

By the name of hero.

[ Laughs ]

I tell this tale vilely.

I should first tell thee how the prince and Claudio

planted, placed and possessed by my master Don John,

saw afar off this amiable encounter.

And thought they Margaret was hero?

Two of them did, the prince and Claudio,

but that devil my master knew she was Margaret,

and partly by his oaths, which first possessed them,

partly by the dark night which did deceive them,

but chiefly, by my villainy,

which did confirm any slander Don John had made,

away went Claudio, enraged,

swore he would meet with her as appointed the next morning,

and there, before the whole congregation,

shame her with what he saw o'ernight,

and send her home again without a husband.

Oatcake: We charge you in the prince's name, stand.

Stand.

[ Both shriek with laughter ]

Call up the master, constable.

We have recovered the most dangerous piece of lechery,

that ever was seen in the commonwealth. Over.

Conrade: Masters, masters. Borachio: Masters(!)

Oatcake: Never speak, we charge you, let us obey you to go with us.

(Applause/cheering)

Good Ursula, wake my cousin Beatrice and desire her to rise.

I will, lady. And bid her come hither!

Ursula: Well.

Troth, I think your other rebato were better.

No pray thee good Meg, I'll wear this.

By my troth's not so good, and I warrant your cousin will say so.

My cousin's a fool, thou art another, I'll wear none but this.

I like the new tire excellently,

if the hair a thought browner. [ Hero squeaks ]

And your gown's a most rare fashion, i'faith.

I saw the duchess of Milan's gown that they praise so.

O, that exceeds, they say.

By my troth, it's but a nightgown in respect of yours.

Cloth of gold and set with pearls, down sleeves,

side sleeves and skirts with a blueish tinsel.

But for a fine, quaint, graceful

and excellent fashion, yours is worth ten on't.

God give me joy to wear it, for my heart is exceeding heavy.

'Twill be heavier soon by the weight of a man.

Fie upon thee, art not ashamed?

Of what, lady?

Of speaking honourably?

Is not marriage honourable in a beggar?

Is not your lord honourable without marriage?

If bad thinking do not twist true speaking, I'll offend nobody.

Now, is there any harm in the heavier for a husband?

None, I think, and it be the right husband,

and the right wife, otherwise 'Tis light and not heavy.

Ask my lady Beatrice else, here she comes.

Good morrow, cuz. Good morrow, sweet hero.

Why how now do you speak in the sick tune?

I am out of all other tune, methinks.

Clap us into... ♪ light of love ♪

That goes without a burden. Do you sing it and I'll dance it.

'Tis almost 12 o'clock cousin 'Tis time you were ready.

Ah...

By my troth I am exceeding ill.

Hey ho.

For a hawk, a horse, or a husband? What means the fool?

Nothing I, but god send everyone their heart's desire.

These gloves the count sent me, they are an excellent perfume.

I am stuffed cousin, I cannot smell.

A maid and stuffed! There's goodly catching of cold.

Oh, god help me!

[ Margaret giggles ]

O, god help me, how long have you professed apprehension?

Ever since you left it. Doth not my wit become me rarely?

'Tis not seen enough, you should wear it in your cap.

By my troth, I am sick.

Why, then, get you some of this new medicine, carduus benedictus?

[ Sneezes ]

It is the only thing for a qualm.

There thou prick'st her with a thistle.

Benedictus? [ Sneezes ] Why benedictus?

[ Sneezes ] You have some moral in this benedictus. [ Sneezes ]

Moral? No, by my troth,

I have no moral meaning with this carduus...

..Benedictus! [ Sneezes ]

I meant plain holy thistle.

You may think perchance that I think you are in love.

Nay by'r lady, I am not such a fool to think

what I list, nor I list not to think what I can,

nor indeed, I cannot think, if I would think my heart

out of thinking, that you are in love,

or that you will be in love, or that you can be in love.

Yet, benedick...

[ Beatrice sneezes ]

..Was such another, and now is he become a man.

He swore he would never marry, and yet now in despite of his heart,

he eats his meat without grudging, and how you may be converted I know not,

but methinks you look with your eyes as other women do.

What pace is this thy tongue keeps? Not a false gallop.

Ursula: Madam, I am to fetch you.

The prince, the count, Don John, signior benedick...

Atchoo!

..And all the gallants of the town are come.

Help to dress me, good Meg.

Friar Francis, be brief, only to the plain form of marriage,

and you shall recount their particular duties afterwards.

What would you with me, honest neighbour?

Dogberry: Marry, sir, I...

I would have some confidence with your worship that discerns you nearly.

With some haste, I pray you, for you see it is a busy time with me.

Marry, this it is, sir. Yes, in truth, it is, sir.

What is it, my good friends? Goodman verges, sir,

speaks a little off the matter, an old man sir,

and his wits are not as blunt as god help I would desire they were,

but in faith, sir, honest as the skin between his brows.

Yes, I thank god, I am as honest as any man living that is an old man,

and no honester than I.

Comparisons are odorous. Palabras, neighbour verges.

Neighbours, you are tedious.

It pleases your worship to say so, but truly,

for mine own part, if I were as tedious as a king,

I could find it in my heart to bestow it all on your worship.

All thy tediousness on me, ah? Both: Yea.

I'd fain know what you have to say. Marry, sir, our watch tonight,

excepting your worship's presence,

have ta'en a couple of as arrant knaves as any in messina.

A good old man sir, he will be talking, as they say,

when the age is in, the wit is out, god help us, it is a world to see.

Well said, i'faith, neighbour verges, well, god's a good man, sir,

and two men ride of a horse, one must ride behind,

an honest soul i'faith sir, by my troth he is,

as ever broke bread, but god is to be worshipped,

all men are not alike, alas good neighbour.

Leonato: Indeed neighbour, he comes too short of you.

Gifts that god gives. I must leave you.

One word, sir.

Our watch, sir, have indeed comprehended two auspicious persons,

and we would have them this morning examined before your worship.

Take their examination yourself and bring it me.

I am now in great haste, as it may appear unto you.

It shall be sufficigance. Maria: My lord...

Leonato: Drink some wine ere you go. Fare you well.

..They stay for you to give your daughter to her husband.

I wait upon them, I am ready.

Dogberry: Go, good neighbour, go get you to the gaol.

We are now to examination those men. And we must do it wisely.

We will spare for no wit, I warrant you.

[ She sneezes ]

[ Music strikes up ]

[ ♪ Electric guitar plays Wagner's "bridal chorus"]

You come hither, my lord, to marry this lady?

No.

Leonato: To be married to her. Friar, you come to marry her.

Lady, you come hither to be married to this count?

I do.

If either of you know any inward impediment

why you should not be conjoined, I charge you on your souls to utter it.

Know you any, hero? None, my lord.

Friar: Know you any, count? Leonato: I dare make his answer. None.

Claudio: O what men dare do! What men may do!

What men daily do! Not knowing what they do.

Benedick: How now, interjections? Claudio: Stand thee by, friar.

Father, by your leave, will you, with free and unconstrained soul,

give me this maid, your daughter?

As freely, son, as god did give her me.

And what have I to give you back,

whose worth may counterpoise this rich and precious gift?

Prince: Nothing, unless you render her again.

Claudio: Sweet prince, you learn me noble thankfulness.

There leonato, take her back again,

give not this rotten orange to your friend.

She's but the sign and semblance of her honour.

Behold, how like a maid she blushes here!

O, what authority and show of truth can cunning sin cover itself withal!

Comes not that blood as modest evidence to witness simple virtue?

Would you not swear, all you that see her,

that she were a maid by these exterior shows?

But she is none!

She knows the heat of a luxurious bed. Her blush is guiltiness, not modesty.

What do you mean, my lord? Not to be married!

Not to knit my soul to an approved wanton.

Leonato: Dear my lord, if you in your own proof,

have vanquished the resistance of her youth, made defeat of her virginity...

I know what you would say. If I have known her, you will say

she did embrace me as a husband and so extenuate the forehand sin.

No, leonato!

I never tempted her with word too large

but as a brother to his sister, showed bashful sincerity and comely love.

And seemed I ever otherwise to you?

Out on thee! Seeming! I will write against it.

You seem to me, as Diane in her orb...

.. As chaste as is the bud ere it be blown.

But you are more intemperate in your blood than Venus,

or like those pampered animals that rage in savage sensuality.

Is my lord well, that he doth speak so wide?

Sweet prince, why speak not you? What should I speak?

I stand dishonoured that I have gone about to link my dear friend

to a common stale.

Are these things spoken, or do I but dream?

John: Sir, they are spoken, and these things are true.

Benedick: This looks not like a nuptial.

Hero: True, o god! Claudio: Leonato, stand I here?

Is this the prince? Is this the prince's brother?

Is this face hero's? Are our eyes our own?

Leonato: All this is so, but what of this, my lord?

Claudio: Let me but move one question to your daughter,

and by that fatherly and kindly power you have in her, bid her answer truly.

I charge thee do so, as thou art my child.

O god defend me, how am I beset?

What kind of catechising call you this?

To make you answer truly to your name.

Is it not hero?

Who can blot that name with any just reproach?

Marry, that can hero, hero itself can blot out hero's virtue.

What man was he, talked with you yesternight, in private,

twixt the hours of 12 and 1?

Now if you are a maid, answer to this.

I talked with no man at that hour, my lord.

Prince: Why then you are no maiden. Leonato, I am sorry you must hear.

Upon mine honour, myself,

my brother and this grieved count did see her, hear her,

at that hour last night, talk with a ruffian in the open air,

who hath indeed, most like a liberal villain,

confessed the vile encounters they have had a thousand times in secret.

Fie, fie, they are not to be named, my lord, not to be spoken of.

There is not chastity enough in language

without offence to utter them.

Thus, pretty lady, I am sorry for thy much misgovernment.

Claudio: O, hero!

What a hero hadst thou been if half thy outward graces

had been placed about thy thoughts and counsels of thy heart?

But fare thee well, most foul, most fair,

farewell thou pure impiety, and impious purity,

for thee I'll lock up all the gates of love,

and on my eyelids shall conjecture hang to turn all

beauty into thoughts of harm, and never shall it more be gracious.

Leonato: Hath no man's dagger here a point for me?

Beatrice: Why, how now hero, wherefore sink you down?

John: Come, let's go.

These things, come thus to light, smother her spirits up.

Benedick: How doth the lady? Beatrice: Dead, I think. Uncle, help!

Hero, hero. Uncle.

Signior benedick. Friar.

Leonato: O, fate! Take not away thy heavy hand.

Death is the fairest cover for her shame, that may be wished for.

Friar: Have comfort, lady. Leonato: Dost thou look up?

Yea, wherefore should she not? Wherefore?

Why doth not every earthly thing cry shame upon her?

Could she here deny the story that is printed in her blood?

Do not live hero, do not open thine eyes.

For did I think thou wouldst not quickly die,

thought I thy spirit stronger than thy shame,

myself would on the rearward of reproaches strike at thy life.

Grieved I, I had but one?

O, one too much by thee.

Why had I one?

Why ever wast thou lovely in mine eyes?

Why had I not with charitable hand took up a beggar's issue at my gates,

who smirched thus, and mired with infamy,

I might have said, "no part of it is mine.

"This shame derives itself from unknown loins."

But mine,

and mine I loved, and mine I praised,

and mine that I was proud on, mine so much, that I myself,

was to myself not mine.

Valuing of her, why she...! O, she is fallen into a pit of ink,

that the wide sea hath drops too few to wash her clean again,

and salt too little, which may season give to her foultainted flesh.

Benedick: Sir, sir, be patient.

For my part, I am so attired in wonder, I know not what to say.

O, on my life, my cousin is belied.

Lady, were you her bedfellow last night?

No, truly not, although till last night,

I have these 12 months been her bedfellow.

Leonato: Confirmed, confirmed,

o, that is stronger made which was before barred up with ribs of iron.

Would the two princes lie, and Claudio lie, who loved her so,

that speaking of her foulness washed it with tears?

Hence from her, let her die!

Friar: Hear me a little.

For I have only been silent so long,

and given way unto this course of fortune, by noting of the lady.

I have marked a thousand blushing apparitions to start into her face,

a thousand innocent shames in angel whiteness beat away those blushes,

and in her eye, there hath appeared a fire

to burn the errors that these princes hold against her maiden truth.

Call me a fool, trust not my reading, nor my observation,

my reverence, calling, nor divinity,

if this sweet lady lie not guiltless here under some biting error.

Friar, it cannot be. Thou seest that all the grace that she hath left

is that she will not add to her damnation a sin of perjury.

She not denies it.

Lady, what man is he you are accused of?

They know that do accuse me, I know none.

If I know more of any man alive

than that which maiden modesty doth warrant,

let all my sins lack mercy.

O, my father,

prove you that any man with me conversed at hours unmeet,

or that I yesternight maintained the change of words with any creature

refuse me, hate me, torture me to death.

Friar: There is some strange misprision in the princes.

Benedick: Two of them have the very bent of honour,

and if their wisdoms be misled in this,

the practice of it lives in John the bastard,

whose spirits toil in frame of villainies.

Leonato: I know not.

If they speak but truth of her, these hands shall tear her...

If they wrong her honour,

the proudest of them shall well hear of it.

Time hath not yet so dried this blood of mine,

but they shall find, awaked in such a kind,

both strength of limb and policy of mind, ability in means...

..And choice of friends, to quit me of them thoroughly.

Friar: Pause awhile, and let my counsel sway you in this case.

Your daughter here, the princes left for dead.

Let her awhile be secretly kept in, and publish it that she is dead,

indeed, maintain a mourning ostentation,

and on your family's old monument hang mournful epitaphs,

and do all rites that appertain unto a burial.

What shall become of this? What will this do?

She dying, as it must be so maintained,

upon the instant that she was accused, shall be lamented, pitied,

and excused of every hearer.

For it so falls out that what we have,

we prize not to the worth whiles we enjoy it,

but being lacked and lost, why, then we rack the value,

then we find the virtue

that possession would not show us whiles it was ours.

So will it fare with Claudio.

When he shall hear she died upon his words,

the idea of her life shall sweetly creep into his study of imagination,

and every lovely organ of her life

shall come apparelled in more precious habit,

more moving, delicate and full of life, than when she lived indeed.

Then shall he mourn, and wish he had not so accused her.

Signior leonato, let the friar advise you,

and though you know my inwardness and love

is very much unto the prince and Claudio, yet by mine honour,

I will deal in this as secretly and justly

as your soul should with your body.

Leonato: Being that I flow in grief, the smallest twine may lead me.

Come lady, die to live, this wedding day perhaps is but prolonged.

Have Patience and endure.

Benedick: Lady Beatrice.

Have you wept all this while?

Yea, and I will weep a while longer.

I will not desire that. You have no reason. I do it freely.

Surely. I do believe your fair cousin is wronged.

O, how much might the man deserve of me that would right her!

Is there any way to show such friendship?

A very even way, but no such friend.

May a man do it?

It is a man's office, but not yours.

[ She sobs ]

I do love nothing in the world so well as you.

(Audience gasps/laughs)

Is not that strange?

As strange as the thing I know not.

[ She clears her throat ]

It were as possible for me to say I loved nothing so well as you.

(Audience laughs)

But believe me not.

And yet I lie not.

I confess nothing.

Nor I deny nothing.

(Laughter)

I am sorry for my cousin.

By my sword, Beatrice, thou lov'st me.

Do not swear by it and eat it.

I will swear by it that you love me.

I will make him eat it that says I love not you.

Will you not eat your word?

With no sauce that can be devised to it.

I protest...

I love thee.

[ She shrieks ]

Sssh!

Why then, o, may god forgive me.

What offence, sweet Beatrice?

You have stayed me in a happy hour,

I was about to protest I love you.

And do it with all thy heart.

I love you with so much of my heart there is none left to protest.

[ She gasps ]

Come, bid me do anything for thee.

[ She bursts out laughing ]

Kill Claudio.

Not for the wide world.

You kill me to deny it. Farewell. Tarry, sweet Beatrice.

I'm gone, though I'm here, there is no love in you.

Nay, I pray you, let me go. Beatrice.

In faith, I will go. We'll be friends first.

You dare easier be friends with me, than fight with mine enemy.

Is Claudio thine enemy?

Is he not approved in the height a villain,

that hath slandered, scorned, dishonoured my kinswoman?

O, that I were a man!

What, bear her in hand until they come to take hands,

and then with public accusation,

uncovered slander, unmitigated rancour?

O, god, that I were a man!

I would eat his heart in the marketplace.

Hear me, Beatrice. "Talk" with a man in the open air?

A proper saying. Nay, but Beatrice...

Sweet hero, she is wronged, she is slandered, she is undone.

Bea... princes and counts!

Surely, a princely testimony, a goodly count, count comfect,

a sweet gallant surely(!)

O, that I were a man for his sake!

Or that I had any friend would be a man for my sake!

But manhood is melted into curtsies, valour into compliment,

and men are only turned into tongue, and trim ones too.

He is now as Valiant as Hercules who only tells a lie.

And swears it.

I cannot be a man with wishing,

therefore I will die a woman with grieving.

Tarry, good Beatrice, by this hand, I love thee.

Use it for my love some other way than swearing by it.

Think you in your soul the count Claudio hath wronged hero?

Yea, as sure as I do have a thought or a soul.

Enough I am engaged, I will challenge him.

I will kiss your hand, and so leave you.

By this hand, Claudio shall render me a dear account.

As you hear of me, so think of me.

Go, comfort your cousin. I must say she is dead.

And so...

Farewell.

[ ♪ Sombre music ]

Dogberry: Make way! Coming through!

Excuse me, please! Forsooth.

Is our whole dissembly appeared?

Sexton: Quiénes son los acusados?

Qué?

[ Sighs ] Which be the malefactors? Marry, that am I, and my partner.

Nay that's certain, we have the exhibition to examine.

But which are the offenders that are to be examined?

Let them come before master constable.

Dogberry: Yea marry, let them come before me.

What is your name, friend? Borachio.

Pray write down "borachio". Yours, sirrah?

Conrade: I am a gentleman, sir, my name is conrade.

Dogberry: Write down "master gentleman conrade".

Masters, do you serve god?

Conrade: Yea, sir. Borachio: We hope.

Dogberry: Write down that they hope they serve god.

Write god first, for god defend but god should go before such villains.

Masters, it is proved already that you are little better

than false knaves. How answer you for yourselves?

Conrade: Señor, decimos que es falso. Dogberry: Oh, oh oh!

A marvellous witty fellow, I assure you, but I shall go about with him.

Come you hither, sirrah. A word in your ear, sir.

I say to you, it is thought you are false knaves.

Sir, I say to you, we are none.

Well, stand aside, 'fore god they are both in a tale.

Have you writ down that they are none?

Sexton: Master constable, you go not the way to examine.

You must call forth the watch that are their accusers.

Yea marry, that's the eftest way, let the watch come forth.

Masters, I charge you in the prince's name, accuse these men.

This man said, sir, that Don John the prince's brother was a villain.

Write down, "prince John a villain." Why, this is flat perjury,

to call the prince's brother villain.

Borachio: Master constable. Dogberry: Pray thee fellow, peace!

I do not like thy look, I promise thee.

Sexton: What heard you him say else? Seacoal: Marry, that he had received

a thousand ducats of Don John for accusing the lady hero wrongfully.

Dogberry: Flat burglary, as ever was committed.

Verges: By the mass, that it is. Sexton: What else, fellow?

Seacoal: And that count Claudio did mean upon his words,

to disgrace hero before the whole assembly, and not marry her.

Dogberry: O, villain!

Thou wilt be condemned into everlasting redemption for this.

Sexton: What else? Seacoal: This is all.

Sexton: And this is more, masters, than you can deny.

Prince John is this morning secretly stolen away.

Hero was in this manner accused, in this very manner refus'd.

[ Borachio laughs ]

And upon the grief of this, suddenly died.

Master constable, let these men be brought to leonato.

I will go before, and show him their examination.

Conrade: Off, coxcomb!

Dogberry: God's my life, where's the sexton?

Let him write down the prince's officer coxcomb.

Conrade: Away! You are an ass, you are an ass.

Dost thou not suspect my place? Dost thou not suspect my years?

O, that he were here to write me down an ass!

But masters, remember that I am an ass.

Though it not be writ down, yet forget not that I am an ass.

No, thou villain, thou art full of piety

as shall be proved upon thee by good witness.

I am a wise fellow and, which is more, an officer.

And which is more, a householder.

And which is more, a pretty a piece of flesh as any in messina.

And, and... verges: Law!

..One that knows the law, go to. Rich.

And a rich fellow enough, go to. And losses.

A fellow that had losses. And one that hath...

Coats. Two coats,

and every thing handsome about him. Come, bring him away.

O, that I had been writ down an ass!

If you go on thus you will kill yourself,

and 'Tis not wisdom thus to second grief against yourself.

I pray thee, cease thy counsel,

which falls into mine ears as profitless as water in a sieve.

Give not me counsel...

..Nor let no comforter delight mine ear,

but such a one whose wrongs doth suit with mine.

Bring me a father that so loved his child,

whose joy of her is overwhelmed like mine.

Bid him speak of Patience, measure his woe the length and breadth of mine

and let it answer every strain for strain

as thus for thus, and such a grief for such.

If such a one will smile and stroke his beard,

patch grief with proverb, make misfortune drunk,

with candlewasters, bring him yet to me,

and I of him will gather Patience.

But there is no such man.

Give me no counsel, my griefs cry louder than advertisement.

Therein do men from children nothing differ.

I pray thee, peace, I will be flesh and blood,

for there was never yet philosopher that could

endure the toothache patiently.

Yet bend not all the harm upon yourself!

Make those that do offend you suffer, too.

There thou speak'st reason, nay I will do so.

My soul doth tell me hero is belied, that shall Claudio know,

so shall the prince and all of them that thus dishonour her.

Good day. Good day to both of you.

Hear you, my lords? We have some haste, leonato.

Some haste my lord! Well, fare you well my lord, are you so hasty now?

Well, all is one. Do not quarrel with us,

good old man.

Innogen: If he could right himself with quarrelling,

some of us would lie low. 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.

Thou hast so wronged my 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 villainy. My villainy?

Thine Claudio, thine I say. You sayest not right, old man.

My lord, I'll prove it on his body if he dare.

I will not have to do with you. Canst thou so doff me?

Thou hast killed my child.

If thou kill'st me, boy, thou shalt kill a man.

Prince: Peace, leonato! Innogen: Let him answer me.

Come follow me boy, come sir boy, come follow me, sir boy,

I'll whip you from your foining fence.

Wife... content yourself. God...

Knows I loved my child, and she is dead.

Slandered to death by villain that dare as well

answer a man indeed as I dare take a serpent by the tongue.

Innogen. Hold you content. What man?

I know them, yea, and what they weigh, even to the utmost scruple.

A scambling, outfacing, fashionmonging boy...

..That lies and cogs and flouts,

depraves and slanders, and speaks of half a dozen dangerous words,

how he may hurt his enemies, if he durst.

And this is all. But innogen...

Do not you meddle, let me deal in this.

Prince: Good sir and madam, 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. Prince: I will not hear you.

No?

Come, innogen, away.

I will be heard.

[ Prince laughs ]

See, see, here comes the man we went to seek.

Now signior, what news?

Prince: Welcome signior, you are almost come to part almost a fray.

In a false quarrel there is no true valour. I came to seek you both.

We have been up and down to seek thee,

for we're high proof melancholy, and would fain have it beaten away.

Wilt thou use thy wit? It's in my scabbard shall I draw it?

Dost thou wear thy wit by thy side? As I'm an honest man, he looks pale.

Art thou sick, or angry?

Sir, I shall meet your wit in the career,

and you charge it against me, I pray you choose another subject.

By this light, he changes more and more. I think he be angry indeed.

Shall I speak a word in your ear?

God bless me from a challenge. 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. Well, I will meet you,

so I may have good cheer. Sir, your wit ambles well.

It goes easily.

Prince: I'll tell thee how Beatrice praised thy wit the other day.

[ He chuckles ]

I said thou hadst a fine wit. "True," says she, "a fine little one."

"Nay," said I, "a good wit.""Just," said she, "it hurts no body."

"Nay," said I, "he hath the tongues."

"That I believe," 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.

Yet at last, she concluded, with a sigh,

thou wast the properest man in messina.

My lord, for your many courtesies I thank you.

I must discontinue your company.

Your brother, the bastard, is fled from messina.

You have among you killed a sweet and innocent lady.

For my lord lackbeard there, he and I shall meet.

And till we do, peace be with him.

He is in earnest. In most profound earnest,

and I'll warrant you, for the love of Beatrice.

He challenged thee. Most sincerely.

Did he not say my brother was fled?

Dogberry: Come you sir, you must be looked to.

Prince: Two of my brother's men bound? What offence have these men done?

My lord, this man... marry... marry sir,

they have committed false report.

Moreover, they have spoken untruths, secondarily, they are slanders,

sixthly and lastly they have belied a lady,

thirdly, they have verified unjust things,

and to conclude, they are lying knaves.

(Audience laughs)

Firstly, I ask thee what they have done.

Thirdly, I ask thee what's their offence.

Sixthly and lastly why they are committed,

and to conclude, what you lay to their charge?

Well, when they... I was just going to...

I was just going to... all right!

Masters, this learned constable is too cunning to be understood.

What's your offence? Sweet prince, do you hear me...

..And let this count kill me.

I have deceived even your very eyes.

What your wisdoms could not discover,

these shallow fools have brought to light,

who in the night overheard me confessing to this man,

how your brother, Don John incensed me to slander the lady hero,

and how you saw me court Margaret in hero's garments.

My villainy they have upon record,

which I had rather seal with my death than repeat over to my shame.

The lady is dead upon mine and my master's false accusation,

and briefly, I desire nothing but the reward of a villain.

Runs not this speech like iron through your blood?

I have drunk poison while he uttered it.

Did my brother set thee on to this? Yea.

And paid me for the practice of it. And fled he is upon this villainy!

Claudio: Sweet hero, now thy image doth appear

in the rare semblance that I loved it first.

Come, bring away the plaintiffs,

by this time our sexton hath reformed signior leonato of the matter,

and masters, do not forget to specify when time and place shall serve

that I... Am an ass.

Leonato: Which is the villain? Which of these is he?

Borachio: If you would know your wronger, look on me.

Art thou the slave that with thy breath

hast killed mine innocent child? Yea, even I alone.

Nay, not so villain, thou beliest thyself.

Here stand a pair of honourable men, a third is fled that had a hand in it.

I thank you, princes, for my daughter's death.

Record it with your high and worthy deeds,

'twas bravely done, if you bethink you of it.

I know not how to pray your Patience, yet I must speak.

Choose your revenge yourself, impose me to what penance your invention

can lay upon my sin, yet sinned I not but in mistaking.

Prince: By my soul nor I, and yet to satisfy this good old man,

I would bend under any heavy weight, that he'll enjoin me to.

I cannot bid you bid my daughter live.

That were impossible.

But I pray you both,

possess the people in messina here how innocent she died, do so tonight.

Tomorrow morning come you to my house,

and since you could not be my soninlaw, be yet my nephew.

My wife hath a niece, almost the copy of our child that's dead.

(Audience laughs)

Give her the right you should have given her cousin,

and so dies my revenge. O, noble sir!

Your overkindness doth wring tears from me.

Tomorrow we will expect your coming, tonight we take our leave.

This guilty man shall face to face be brought to Margaret,

who I believe was packed in all this wrong, hired to it by your brother.

Borachio: No, by my soul, she was not,

nor knew not what she did when she spoke to me.

Moreover sir, which is not under white and black,

this plaintiff here,

the offender, did call me ass.

I beseech you let it be remembered in his punishment.

Pray you, examine him upon that point.

I thank thee for thy care and honest pains.

Your worship speaks like a thankful and reverend youth,

and I praise god for you.

There's for thy pains. God save the foundation!

Go, I discharge thee of thy prisoners, and I thank thee.

I leave an arrant knave with your worship,

which I beseech thee to correct yourself, for the example of others.

God keep your worship. I wish your worship well.

God restore you to health, I humbly give you leave to depart,

and if a merry meeting may be wished, god prohibit it.

Boom.

Come neighbours.

Leonato: Until tomorrow morning, lords, farewell.

We will not fail. Tonight I'll mourn with hero.

Bring you these fellows on, we'll talk with Margaret,

how her acquaintance grew with this lewd fellow.

[ ♪ Melancholy melody ]

[ Tentatively plays keyboard ]

♪ The god of love...

(Audience laughs)

♪ That...

♪ Sits above...

[ Keyboard plays jolly melody ]

[ Music off ]

(Audience laughs)

(Applause)

[ Final musical flourish ]

I pray thee, sweet mistress Margaret!

Deserve well at my hands, by helping me to the speech of Beatrice.

Will you then write me a sonnet in praise of my beauty?

In so high a style, Margaret, that no man living shall come over it,

for in most comely truth, thou deservest it.

To have no man come over me, why, shall I always keep below stairs?

Thy wit is as quick as the greyhound's mouth, it catches.

And yours as blunt as a fencer's foils which hit but hurt not.

A most manly wit, Margaret, it will not hurt a woman.

So I pray thee, call Beatrice, I give thee the bucklers.

Give us the swords, we have bucklers of our own.

Well, I will call Beatrice to you, who I think hath legs.

And therefore will come.

[ Plays keyboard ]? The god of love, that sits above...

[ ♪ Morphs into "when the saints go marching in"]

(Audience laughs)

Leander the good swimmer, troilus the first employer of panders,

and a whole book full of these quondam carpetmongers,

whose names yet run smoothly in the even rode of a blank verse,

why they were never so truly turned over and over

as my poor self in love.

Marry I cannot show it in rhyme, I have tried.

I can find out no rhyme to "lady"...

..But "baby".

An innocent rhyme, to "scorn".

"Horn"?

A hard rhyme, very ominous ending.

No, I was not born under a rhyming planet.

For I cannot woo in festival terms.

[ Keyboard plays "greensleeves"]

[ Music speeds up]

[ Music slows down ]

[ Music speeds up ]

[ Music stops ]

(Laughter/applause)

Sweet Beatrice, would'st thou come when I called?

Yea signior, and depart when you bid me.

O, stay but till then.

Then, is spoken.

Fare you well.

No...

And yet ere I go, let me go with that I came, which is,

with knowing what hath passed between you and Claudio.

Only foul words, and there upon I will kiss thee.

Foul words is but foul wind, and foul wind is but foul breath,

and foul breath is noisome, therefore I will depart unkissed.

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.

Either I must shortly hear from him, or I will subscribe him a coward.

But I pray thee now tell me,

for which of my bad parts...

..Didst thou first fall in love with me?

For them all together.

Which maintained so politic a state of evil,

they would not admit any good part to intermingle with them.

But I pray you, for which of my good parts

did you first suffer love for me?

Suffer love! A good epithet.

I do suffer love indeed, for I love thee against my will.

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.

Thou and I are too wise to woo peaceably.

Now tell me, how doth your cousin?

Very ill. And how do you?

Very ill, too.

Serve god, love me, and mend.

Madam, you must come to your uncle,

yonder's old coil at home.

It is proved my lady hero hath been falsely accused,

the prince and Claudio mightily abused,

and Don John is the author of all, who is fled and gone.

Will you come presently?

Will you come hear this news, signior?

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.

(Laughter/applause)

[ ♪ Soft piano ]

[ ♪ Mournful organ ]

Done to death by slanderous tongues,

was the hero that here lies.

Death, in guerdon of her wrongs, gives her fame which never dies.

[ Voice breaking ] So the life that died with shame,

lives in death with glorious fame.

Lie thou there upon the tomb, praising her when I am dumb.

Now unto thy bones good night.

Yearly will I do this rite.

[ ♪ Rock intro ]

♪ Pardon goddess of the night those that slew thy virgin knight

♪ midnight assist our moan help us to sigh and groan

♪ heavily, heavily heavily, heavily

[ moans ]

♪ Graves yawn and yield your dead 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

♪ heavily, heavily heavily, heavily

♪ till death be uttered... ♪

[ Rock track fades ]

[ Music stops ]

Good morrow, Claudio.

You and I must go.

Leonato waits upon us both.

Good morrow to this fair assembly.

Good morrow, prince. Good morrow, Claudio.

We here attend you, are you yet determined,

today to marry with innogen's niece?

I am. Go, innogen, and call her forth.

[ Whispers ] Friar...

I must entreat your pains, I think.

To do what, signior? To bind me.

Or undo me, one of them.

Signior leonato, truth is, good signior, your niece regards me...

With an eye of favour.

That eye my daughter lent her, 'Tis most true.

And I do, with an eye of love, requite it.

The sight whereof I think you had from me, from Claudio, and the prince,

but what's your will?

Your answer sir is enigmatical, but for my will my will is,

your good will may stand with ours, this day to be conjoined...

In the state of honourable marriage. [ Margaret screams ]

In which, good friar, I shall desire your help.

My heart is with your liking. And my help.

[ ♪ Electric guitar plays Wagner's "bridal chorus"]

Which is the lady I must seize upon? This same is she.

And I do give you her. Why then she is mine.

Sweet, let me see your face.

No, that you shall not, till you take her hand

before this friar, and swear to marry her.

Give me your hand before this holy friar.

I am your husband, if you like of me.

And when I lived, I was your other wife,

and when you loved, you were my other husband.

Another hero? Nothing certainer.

One hero died defiled, but I do live, and surely as I live, I am a maid.

[ Prince ] The former hero? Hero that is dead?

She died my lord, but whiles her slander lived.

All this amazement can I qualify, meantime, let wonder seem familiar.

Benedick: Soft and fair lady...

..Which is Beatrice? (Audience laughs)

I answer to that name, what is your will?

[ Applause stops ]

Do not you love me? No...

No more than reason.

Why then your uncle and the prince and Claudio

have been deceived, they swore you did.

Do not you love me? Troth no.

No... more than reason.

Why then my cousin, Margaret and Ursula were much deceived,

for they did swear you did.

They swore you were almost sick for me.

They swore you were wellnigh dead for me.

'Tis no matter then, you do not love me?

Truly, no, but in friendly recompence.

Leonato: Come cousin, I am sure you love the gentleman.

Claudio: And I'll be sworn upon it that he loves her,

for here's a paper written in his hand,

a halting sonnet of his own pure brain fashioned to Beatrice.

And here's another, writ in my cousin's hand,

stolen from her pocket, containing her affection unto benedick.

(Audience laughs)

A miracle, here's our own hands against our hearts.

Come, I will have thee.

(Audience laughs/applauds)

But, by this light, I take thee for pity.

I would not deny you, but by this good day

I yield under great persuasion, and partly to save your life,

for I was told you were in a consumption.

Peace.

I will stop your mouth.

(Audience cheers/applauds)

(Audience laughs)

How dost thou benedick, the married man?

I'll tell thee what, prince.

A college of witcrackers cannot flout me out of my humour.

Dost thou think I care for a satire or an epigram?

No.

If a man will be beaten with brains, he'll wear nothing handsome about him.

In brief, since I do purpose to marry...

..I will think nothing to any purpose that the world can say against it.

For man is a giddy thing, and this is my conclusion.

For thy part, Claudio...

..I did think to have beaten thee.

But, in that thou art like to be my kinsman,

live unbruised...

Argh!

And love my cousin.

I had well hoped thou would've denied Beatrice,

that I might've cudgelled thee out of thy single life,

to make thee a double dealer. Come, come.

We're friends.

We'll have a dance ere we are married, that we may lighten our own hearts,

and our wives' heels.

Leonato: We'll have dancing afterward. Benedick: First, of my word.

Therefore, play music.

Prince. Uh.

Thou art sad. Ah.

Get thee a wife. (Audience laughs)

Get thee a wife.

My lord, your brother John is ta'en in flight,

and brought with armed men back to messina.

Think not on him till tomorrow.

I'll devise brave punishments for him.

Strike up!

Oh... pipers!

[ ♪ Upbeat pop ]

[ Revellers whoop and cheer ]

♪ Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more men were deceivers ever

♪ one foot in sea and one on shore

♪ to one thing constant never then sigh not so, but let them go

♪ and be you blithe and bonny converting all your sounds of woe

♪ into, "hey, nonny, nonny" into, "hey, nonny, nonny"

♪ "hey, nonny, nonny" yeah, yeah, yeah!

♪ "Hey, nonny, nonny"

♪ "hey, nonny, nonny"

♪ sing no more ditties, sing no more of dumps so dull and heavy

♪ the fraud of men was ever so since summer first was leafy

♪ then sigh not so, but let them go and be you blithe and bonny

♪ converting all your sounds of woe

♪ into, "hey, nonny, nonny" into, "hey, nonny, nonny"

♪ into, "hey... Nonny, nonny" ♪

All: Nonny!

(Applause)

(Cheering and applause)

(Cheering and applause)

(Huge cheer)

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