SCENE II. A Room in LEONATO's House. Enter LEONATO and ANTONIO. Leon. How now, brother? Where is my cousin, your son? Hath he provided this music? Ant. He is very busy about it. But, brother, I can tell you strange news that you yet dreamed not of. Leon. Are they good? Ant. As the event stamps them; but they have a good cover, they show well outward. The prince and count Claudio, walking in a thick-pleached alley in my orchard, were thus much overheard by a man of mine: The prince discovered to Claudio, that he loved my niece your daughter, and meant to acknowledge it this night in a dance; and, if he found her accordant, he meant to take the present time by the top, and instantly break with you of it. Leon. Hath the fellow any wit, that told you this? Ant. A good sharp fellow: I will send for him, and question him yourself. Leon. No, no; we will hold it as a dream, till it appear itself:-but I will acquaint my daughter withal, that she may be the better prepared for an answer, if peradventure this be true. Go you, and tell her of it. [Several persons cross the stage.] Cousins, you know what you have to do.-O, I cry you mercy, friend; you go with me, and I will use your skill :-Good cousins, have a care this busy time. [Exeunt. SCENE III. CONRADE. Another room in LEONATO's house. Enter Don JOHN and Conr. What the gcodjere, my lord! why are you thus out of measure sad? D. John. There is no measure in the occasion that breeds it, therefore the sadness is without limit. Conr. You should hear reason. D. John. And when I have heard it, what blessing bringeth it? Conr. If not a present remedy, yet a patient sufferance. [2] Cousins were anciently enrolled among the dependants, if not the domestics, of great families, such as that of Leonato.-Petruchio, while intent on the subjec tion of Katharine, calls out in terms imperative, for his cousin Ferdinand. STEEVENS. D. John. I wonder, that thou being (as thou say'st thou art) born under Saturn, goest about to apply a mor. al medicine to a mortifying mischief. I cannot hide what I am:3 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 to no man's business; laugh when I am merry, and claw no man in his humour.* Conr. Yea, but you must not make the full show of this, till you may do it without controlment. You have of late stood out against your brother, and he hath ta'en you newly into his grace; where it is impossible you should take true root, but by the fair weather that you make yourself: it is needful that you frame the season for your own harvest. D. John. I had rather be a canker in a hedge, than a rose in his grace; and it better fits my blood to be disdain'd of all, than to fashion a carriage to rob love from any in this, though I cannot be said to be a flattering honest man, it must not be denied that I am a plaindealing 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 mean time, let me be that I am, and seek not to alter me. Conr. Can you make no use of your discontent? D. John. I make all use of it, for I use it only. Who comes here? what news, Borachio? Enter BORACHIO. Bora. 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. D. John. Will it serve for any model to build mischief on? What is he for a fool, that betroths himself to unquietness? [3] This is one of our author's natural touches. An envious and unsocial mind, too proud to give pleasure, and too sullen to receive it, always endeavours to hide its malignity from the world and from itself, under the plainness of simple honesty, or the dignity of haughty independence. JOHNSON.: [4] To clan is to flatter. So, the pope's claw-backs, in Bishop Jewel, are the pope's flatterers. The sense is the same in the proverb, Mulus mulum scabit. JOHNSON. [5] A canker is the canker-rose, dog-rose, cynosbatus, or hip. The sense is, I would rather live in obscurity the wild life of nature, than owe dignity or estimation to my brother. He still continues his wish of gloomy independence. JOHNSON. Bora. Marry, it is to your brother's right hand. D. John. A proper squire! And who, and who? which way looks he. Bora. Marry, on Hero, the daughter and heir of Leonato. D. John. A very forward March-chick! How came you to this? Bora. Being entertained for a perfumer, as I was smoking a musty room," comes me the prince and Claudio, hand in hand, in sad conference: I whipt me behind the arras; and there heard it agreed upon, that the prince should woo Hero for himself, and having obtained her, give her to count Claudio. D. John. Come, come, let us thither; this may prove food to my displeasure; that young start-up hath all the glory of my overthrow; if I can cross him any way, I bless myself every way: You are both sure, and will assist me ? Conr. To the death, my lord. D. John. Let us to the great supper; their cheer is the greater, that I am subdued: 'Would the cook were of my mind!-Shall we prove what's to be done? Bora. We'll wait upon your lordship. ACT II. SCENE I.—A Hall in LEONATO's House. [Exeunt. Enter LEONATO, ANTONIO, HERO, Beatrice, and others. Leonato. Was not count John here at supper? Ant. I saw him not. Beat. How tartly that gentleman looks! I never can see him, but I am heart-burned an hour after." [6] The neglect of cleanliness among our ancestors, rendered such precautions too often necessary. In the Harleian Collection of MSS. No. 6850, fol. 90, in the British Museum, is a paper of directions drawn up by Sir John Puckering's Steward, relative to Suffolk Place before Queen Elizabeth's visit to it in 1594. The 15th article is--" The swetynynge of the house in all places by any means." Again, in Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, "-the smoak of juniper is in great request with us at Oxford, to sweeten our chambers." See also King Henry IV. P II. act 5, sc. 4. STEEVENS. [7] The pain commonly called the heart-burn, proceeds from an acid humour in the stomach, and is therefore properly enough imputed to fart looks. JOHNSON Hero. He is of a very melancholy disposition. Beat. He were an excellent man, that were made just in the mid-way between him and Benedick: the one is too like an image, and says nothing; and the other, too like my lady's eldest son, evermore tattling. Leon. Then half signior Benedick's tongue in count John's mouth, and half count John's melancholy in signior Benedick's face, Beat. With a good leg, and a good foot, uncle, and money enough in his purse, such a man would win any woman in the world,-if he could get her good will. Leon. By my troth, niece, thou wilt never get thee a husband, if thou be so shrewd of thy tongue. Ant. In faith, she is too curst. Beat. Too curst is more than curst: I shall lessen God's sending that way: for it is said, God sends a curst cow sheet horns, but to a cow too curst, he sends none. Leon. So, by being too curst, God will send you no horns. Beat. Just, if he send me no husband; for the 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 had rather lie in the woollen. Leon. You may light upon a husband, that hath no beard. Beat. 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 than a man: and he that is more than a youth, is not for me; and he that is less than a man, I am not for him: Therefore I will even take six-pence in earnest of the bear-herd, and lead his apes into hell. Leon. Well then, go you into hell? Beat. No; but to the gate; and there will the devil meet me, like an old cuckold, with horns on his head, and say, Get you to heaven, Beatrice, 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 live we as merry as the day is long. Ant. Well, niece, I trust, you will be ruled by your father. [TO HERO. Beat. Yes, faith; it is my cousin's duty to make courtesy, and say, Father, as it please you :—but yet for VOL. II. 15 all that, cousin, let him be a handsome fellow, or else make another courtesy, and say, Father, as it please me. Leon. Well, niece, I hope to see you one day fitted with a husband. Beat. Not till God make men of some other metal than earth. Would it not grieve a woman to be overmastered with a piece of valiant dust? to make an account of her life to a clod of wayward marl? No, uncle, I'll none: Adam's sons are my brethren; and truly, I hold it a sin to match in my kindred. Leon. Daughter, remember, what I told you: if the prince do solicit you in that kind, you know your answer. 8 Beat. The fault will be in the music, cousin, if you be not woo'd in good time: if the prince be too important, tell him, there is measure in every thing, and so dance out the answer. For hear me, Hero; Wooing, wedding, and repenting, is as a Scotch jig, a measure," and a cinquepace: the first suit is 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, and, with his bad legs, falls into the cinquepace faster and faster, till he sink into his grave. Leon. Cousin, you apprehend passing shrewdly. Beat. I have a good eye, uncle; I can see a church by day-light. Leon. The revellers are entering; brother, make good room. Enter Don PEDRO, CLAUDIO, BENEDICK, BALTHAZAR; Don JOHN, BORACHIO, MARGARET, URSULA, and others, masked. D. Pedro. 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 D. Pedro. With me in your company ? Hero I may say so, when I please. D. Pedro. And when please you to say so? Hero. When I like your favour; for God defend, the lute should be like the case! D. Pedro. My visor is Philemon's roof; within the house is Jove. [8] Important here, and in many other places, is importunate. JOHNSON A measure in old language, beside its ordinary meaning, signified also a dance MALONE. |