Chapter 41
Part 41
TITANIA. I have a venturous fairy that shall seek The squirrel’s hoard, and fetch thee new nuts.
BOTTOM. I had rather have a handful or two of dried peas. But, I pray you, let none of your people stir me; I have an exposition of sleep come upon me.
TITANIA. Sleep thou, and I will wind thee in my arms. Fairies, be gone, and be all ways away. So doth the woodbine the sweet honeysuckle Gently entwist, the female ivy so Enrings the barky fingers of the elm. O, how I love thee! How I dote on thee!
[_They sleep._]
Oberon advances. Enter Puck.
OBERON. Welcome, good Robin. Seest thou this sweet sight? Her dotage now I do begin to pity. For, meeting her of late behind the wood, Seeking sweet favours for this hateful fool, I did upbraid her and fall out with her: For she his hairy temples then had rounded With coronet of fresh and fragrant flowers; And that same dew, which sometime on the buds Was wont to swell like round and orient pearls, Stood now within the pretty flouriets’ eyes, Like tears that did their own disgrace bewail. When I had at my pleasure taunted her, And she in mild terms begg’d my patience, I then did ask of her her changeling child; Which straight she gave me, and her fairy sent To bear him to my bower in fairyland. And now I have the boy, I will undo This hateful imperfection of her eyes. And, gentle Puck, take this transformèd scalp From off the head of this Athenian swain, That he awaking when the other do, May all to Athens back again repair, And think no more of this night’s accidents But as the fierce vexation of a dream. But first I will release the Fairy Queen.
[_Touching her eyes with an herb._]
Be as thou wast wont to be; See as thou was wont to see. Dian’s bud o’er Cupid’s flower Hath such force and blessed power. Now, my Titania, wake you, my sweet queen.
TITANIA. My Oberon, what visions have I seen! Methought I was enamour’d of an ass.
OBERON. There lies your love.
TITANIA. How came these things to pass? O, how mine eyes do loathe his visage now!
OBERON. Silence awhile.—Robin, take off this head. Titania, music call; and strike more dead Than common sleep, of all these five the sense.
TITANIA. Music, ho, music, such as charmeth sleep.
PUCK. Now when thou wak’st, with thine own fool’s eyes peep.
OBERON. Sound, music.
[_Still music._]
Come, my queen, take hands with me, And rock the ground whereon these sleepers be. Now thou and I are new in amity, And will tomorrow midnight solemnly Dance in Duke Theseus’ house triumphantly, And bless it to all fair prosperity: There shall the pairs of faithful lovers be Wedded, with Theseus, all in jollity.
PUCK. Fairy king, attend and mark. I do hear the morning lark.
OBERON. Then, my queen, in silence sad, Trip we after night’s shade. We the globe can compass soon, Swifter than the wand’ring moon.
TITANIA. Come, my lord, and in our flight, Tell me how it came this night That I sleeping here was found With these mortals on the ground.
[_Exeunt. Horns sound within._]
Enter Theseus, Hippolyta, Egeus and Train.
THESEUS. Go, one of you, find out the forester; For now our observation is perform’d; And since we have the vaward of the day, My love shall hear the music of my hounds. Uncouple in the western valley; let them go. Dispatch I say, and find the forester.
[_Exit an Attendant._]
We will, fair queen, up to the mountain’s top, And mark the musical confusion Of hounds and echo in conjunction.
HIPPOLYTA. I was with Hercules and Cadmus once, When in a wood of Crete they bay’d the bear With hounds of Sparta. Never did I hear Such gallant chiding; for, besides the groves, The skies, the fountains, every region near Seem’d all one mutual cry. I never heard So musical a discord, such sweet thunder.
THESEUS. My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind, So flew’d, so sanded; and their heads are hung With ears that sweep away the morning dew; Crook-knee’d and dewlap’d like Thessalian bulls; Slow in pursuit, but match’d in mouth like bells, Each under each. A cry more tuneable Was never holla’d to, nor cheer’d with horn, In Crete, in Sparta, nor in Thessaly. Judge when you hear.—But, soft, what nymphs are these?
EGEUS. My lord, this is my daughter here asleep, And this Lysander; this Demetrius is; This Helena, old Nedar’s Helena: I wonder of their being here together.
THESEUS. No doubt they rose up early to observe The rite of May; and, hearing our intent, Came here in grace of our solemnity. But speak, Egeus; is not this the day That Hermia should give answer of her choice?
EGEUS. It is, my lord.
THESEUS. Go, bid the huntsmen wake them with their horns.
Horns, and shout within. Demetrius, Lysander, Hermia and Helena wake and start up.
Good morrow, friends. Saint Valentine is past. Begin these wood-birds but to couple now?
LYSANDER. Pardon, my lord.
He and the rest kneel to Theseus.
THESEUS. I pray you all, stand up. I know you two are rival enemies. How comes this gentle concord in the world, That hatred is so far from jealousy To sleep by hate, and fear no enmity?
LYSANDER. My lord, I shall reply amazedly, Half sleep, half waking; but as yet, I swear, I cannot truly say how I came here. But, as I think (for truly would I speak) And now I do bethink me, so it is: I came with Hermia hither. Our intent Was to be gone from Athens, where we might be Without the peril of the Athenian law.
EGEUS. Enough, enough, my lord; you have enough. I beg the law, the law upon his head. They would have stol’n away, they would, Demetrius, Thereby to have defeated you and me: You of your wife, and me of my consent, Of my consent that she should be your wife.
DEMETRIUS. My lord, fair Helen told me of their stealth, Of this their purpose hither to this wood; And I in fury hither follow’d them, Fair Helena in fancy following me. But, my good lord, I wot not by what power, (But by some power it is) my love to Hermia, Melted as the snow, seems to me now As the remembrance of an idle gaud Which in my childhood I did dote upon; And all the faith, the virtue of my heart, The object and the pleasure of mine eye, Is only Helena. To her, my lord, Was I betroth’d ere I saw Hermia. But like a sickness did I loathe this food. But, as in health, come to my natural taste, Now I do wish it, love it, long for it, And will for evermore be true to it.
THESEUS. Fair lovers, you are fortunately met. Of this discourse we more will hear anon. Egeus, I will overbear your will; For in the temple, by and by with us, These couples shall eternally be knit. And, for the morning now is something worn, Our purpos’d hunting shall be set aside. Away with us to Athens. Three and three, We’ll hold a feast in great solemnity. Come, Hippolyta.
[_Exeunt Theseus, Hippolyta, Egeus and Train._]
DEMETRIUS. These things seem small and undistinguishable, Like far-off mountains turnèd into clouds.
HERMIA. Methinks I see these things with parted eye, When everything seems double.
HELENA. So methinks. And I have found Demetrius like a jewel, Mine own, and not mine own.
DEMETRIUS. Are you sure That we are awake? It seems to me That yet we sleep, we dream. Do not you think The Duke was here, and bid us follow him?
HERMIA. Yea, and my father.
HELENA. And Hippolyta.
LYSANDER. And he did bid us follow to the temple.
DEMETRIUS. Why, then, we are awake: let’s follow him, And by the way let us recount our dreams.
[_Exeunt._]
BOTTOM. [_Waking._] When my cue comes, call me, and I will answer. My next is ‘Most fair Pyramus.’ Heigh-ho! Peter Quince! Flute, the bellows-mender! Snout, the tinker! Starveling! God’s my life! Stol’n hence, and left me asleep! I have had a most rare vision. I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was. Man is but an ass if he go about to expound this dream. Methought I was—there is no man can tell what. Methought I was, and methought I had—but man is but a patched fool if he will offer to say what methought I had. The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man’s hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream was. I will get Peter Quince to write a ballad of this dream: it shall be called ‘Bottom’s Dream’, because it hath no bottom; and I will sing it in the latter end of a play, before the Duke. Peradventure, to make it the more gracious, I shall sing it at her death.
[_Exit._]
SCENE II. Athens. A Room in Quince’s House
Enter Quince, Flute, Snout and Starveling.
QUINCE. Have you sent to Bottom’s house? Is he come home yet?
STARVELING. He cannot be heard of. Out of doubt he is transported.
FLUTE. If he come not, then the play is marred. It goes not forward, doth it?
QUINCE. It is not possible. You have not a man in all Athens able to discharge Pyramus but he.
FLUTE. No, he hath simply the best wit of any handicraft man in Athens.
QUINCE. Yea, and the best person too, and he is a very paramour for a sweet voice.
FLUTE. You must say paragon. A paramour is, God bless us, a thing of naught.
Enter Snug.
SNUG Masters, the Duke is coming from the temple, and there is two or three lords and ladies more married. If our sport had gone forward, we had all been made men.
FLUTE. O sweet bully Bottom! Thus hath he lost sixpence a day during his life; he could not have ’scaped sixpence a day. An the Duke had not given him sixpence a day for playing Pyramus, I’ll be hanged. He would have deserved it: sixpence a day in Pyramus, or nothing.
Enter Bottom.
BOTTOM. Where are these lads? Where are these hearts?
QUINCE. Bottom! O most courageous day! O most happy hour!
BOTTOM. Masters, I am to discourse wonders: but ask me not what; for if I tell you, I am not true Athenian. I will tell you everything, right as it fell out.
QUINCE. Let us hear, sweet Bottom.
BOTTOM. Not a word of me. All that I will tell you is, that the Duke hath dined. Get your apparel together, good strings to your beards, new ribbons to your pumps; meet presently at the palace; every man look o’er his part. For the short and the long is, our play is preferred. In any case, let Thisbe have clean linen; and let not him that plays the lion pare his nails, for they shall hang out for the lion’s claws. And most dear actors, eat no onions nor garlick, for we are to utter sweet breath; and I do not doubt but to hear them say it is a sweet comedy. No more words. Away! Go, away!
[_Exeunt._]
ACT V
SCENE I. Athens. An Apartment in the Palace of Theseus
Enter Theseus, Hippolyta, Philostrate, Lords and Attendants.
HIPPOLYTA. ’Tis strange, my Theseus, that these lovers speak of.
THESEUS. More strange than true. I never may believe These antique fables, nor these fairy toys. Lovers and madmen have such seething brains, Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend More than cool reason ever comprehends. The lunatic, the lover, and the poet Are of imagination all compact: One sees more devils than vast hell can hold; That is the madman: the lover, all as frantic, Sees Helen’s beauty in a brow of Egypt: The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven; And as imagination bodies forth The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing A local habitation and a name. Such tricks hath strong imagination, That if it would but apprehend some joy, It comprehends some bringer of that joy. Or in the night, imagining some fear, How easy is a bush supposed a bear?
HIPPOLYTA. But all the story of the night told over, And all their minds transfigur’d so together, More witnesseth than fancy’s images, And grows to something of great constancy; But, howsoever, strange and admirable.
Enter lovers: Lysander, Demetrius, Hermia and Helena.
THESEUS. Here come the lovers, full of joy and mirth. Joy, gentle friends, joy and fresh days of love Accompany your hearts!
LYSANDER. More than to us Wait in your royal walks, your board, your bed!
THESEUS. Come now; what masques, what dances shall we have, To wear away this long age of three hours Between our after-supper and bed-time? Where is our usual manager of mirth? What revels are in hand? Is there no play To ease the anguish of a torturing hour? Call Philostrate.
PHILOSTRATE. Here, mighty Theseus.
THESEUS. Say, what abridgment have you for this evening? What masque? What music? How shall we beguile The lazy time, if not with some delight?
PHILOSTRATE. There is a brief how many sports are ripe. Make choice of which your Highness will see first.
[_Giving a paper._]
THESEUS. [_Reads_] ‘The battle with the Centaurs, to be sung By an Athenian eunuch to the harp.’ We’ll none of that. That have I told my love In glory of my kinsman Hercules. ‘The riot of the tipsy Bacchanals, Tearing the Thracian singer in their rage?’ That is an old device, and it was play’d When I from Thebes came last a conqueror. ‘The thrice three Muses mourning for the death Of learning, late deceas’d in beggary.’ That is some satire, keen and critical, Not sorting with a nuptial ceremony. ‘A tedious brief scene of young Pyramus And his love Thisbe; very tragical mirth.’ Merry and tragical? Tedious and brief? That is hot ice and wondrous strange snow. How shall we find the concord of this discord?
PHILOSTRATE. A play there is, my lord, some ten words long, Which is as brief as I have known a play; But by ten words, my lord, it is too long, Which makes it tedious. For in all the play There is not one word apt, one player fitted. And tragical, my noble lord, it is. For Pyramus therein doth kill himself, Which, when I saw rehears’d, I must confess, Made mine eyes water; but more merry tears The passion of loud laughter never shed.
THESEUS. What are they that do play it?
PHILOSTRATE. Hard-handed men that work in Athens here, Which never labour’d in their minds till now; And now have toil’d their unbreath’d memories With this same play against your nuptial.
THESEUS. And we will hear it.
PHILOSTRATE. No, my noble lord, It is not for you: I have heard it over, And it is nothing, nothing in the world; Unless you can find sport in their intents, Extremely stretch’d and conn’d with cruel pain To do you service.
THESEUS. I will hear that play; For never anything can be amiss When simpleness and duty tender it. Go, bring them in: and take your places, ladies.
[_Exit Philostrate._]
HIPPOLYTA. I love not to see wretchedness o’ercharged, And duty in his service perishing.
THESEUS. Why, gentle sweet, you shall see no such thing.
HIPPOLYTA. He says they can do nothing in this kind.
THESEUS. The kinder we, to give them thanks for nothing. Our sport shall be to take what they mistake: And what poor duty cannot do, noble respect Takes it in might, not merit. Where I have come, great clerks have purposed To greet me with premeditated welcomes; Where I have seen them shiver and look pale, Make periods in the midst of sentences, Throttle their practis’d accent in their fears, And, in conclusion, dumbly have broke off, Not paying me a welcome. Trust me, sweet, Out of this silence yet I pick’d a welcome; And in the modesty of fearful duty I read as much as from the rattling tongue Of saucy and audacious eloquence. Love, therefore, and tongue-tied simplicity In least speak most to my capacity.
Enter Philostrate.
PHILOSTRATE. So please your grace, the Prologue is address’d.
THESEUS. Let him approach.
Flourish of trumpets. Enter the Prologue.
PROLOGUE If we offend, it is with our good will. That you should think, we come not to offend, But with good will. To show our simple skill, That is the true beginning of our end. Consider then, we come but in despite. We do not come, as minding to content you, Our true intent is. All for your delight We are not here. That you should here repent you, The actors are at hand, and, by their show, You shall know all that you are like to know.
THESEUS. This fellow doth not stand upon points.
LYSANDER. He hath rid his prologue like a rough colt; he knows not the stop. A good moral, my lord: it is not enough to speak, but to speak true.
HIPPOLYTA. Indeed he hath played on this prologue like a child on a recorder; a sound, but not in government.
THESEUS. His speech was like a tangled chain; nothing impaired, but all disordered. Who is next?
Enter Pyramus and Thisbe, Wall, Moonshine and Lion as in dumb show.
PROLOGUE Gentles, perchance you wonder at this show; But wonder on, till truth make all things plain. This man is Pyramus, if you would know; This beauteous lady Thisbe is certain. This man, with lime and rough-cast, doth present Wall, that vile wall which did these lovers sunder; And through Wall’s chink, poor souls, they are content To whisper, at the which let no man wonder. This man, with lantern, dog, and bush of thorn, Presenteth Moonshine, for, if you will know, By moonshine did these lovers think no scorn To meet at Ninus’ tomb, there, there to woo. This grisly beast (which Lion hight by name) The trusty Thisbe, coming first by night, Did scare away, or rather did affright; And as she fled, her mantle she did fall; Which Lion vile with bloody mouth did stain. Anon comes Pyramus, sweet youth, and tall, And finds his trusty Thisbe’s mantle slain; Whereat with blade, with bloody blameful blade, He bravely broach’d his boiling bloody breast; And Thisbe, tarrying in mulberry shade, His dagger drew, and died. For all the rest, Let Lion, Moonshine, Wall, and lovers twain, At large discourse while here they do remain.
[_Exeunt Prologue, Pyramus, Thisbe, Lion and Moonshine._]
THESEUS. I wonder if the lion be to speak.
DEMETRIUS. No wonder, my lord. One lion may, when many asses do.
WALL. In this same interlude it doth befall That I, one Snout by name, present a wall: And such a wall as I would have you think That had in it a crannied hole or chink, Through which the lovers, Pyramus and Thisbe, Did whisper often very secretly. This loam, this rough-cast, and this stone, doth show That I am that same wall; the truth is so: And this the cranny is, right and sinister, Through which the fearful lovers are to whisper.
THESEUS. Would you desire lime and hair to speak better?
DEMETRIUS. It is the wittiest partition that ever I heard discourse, my lord.
THESEUS. Pyramus draws near the wall; silence.
Enter Pyramus.
PYRAMUS. O grim-look’d night! O night with hue so black! O night, which ever art when day is not! O night, O night, alack, alack, alack, I fear my Thisbe’s promise is forgot! And thou, O wall, O sweet, O lovely wall, That stand’st between her father’s ground and mine; Thou wall, O wall, O sweet and lovely wall, Show me thy chink, to blink through with mine eyne.
[_Wall holds up his fingers._]
Thanks, courteous wall: Jove shield thee well for this! But what see I? No Thisbe do I see. O wicked wall, through whom I see no bliss, Curs’d be thy stones for thus deceiving me!
THESEUS. The wall, methinks, being sensible, should curse again.
PYRAMUS. No, in truth, sir, he should not. ‘Deceiving me’ is Thisbe’s cue: she is to enter now, and I am to spy her through the wall. You shall see it will fall pat as I told you. Yonder she comes.
Enter Thisbe.
THISBE. O wall, full often hast thou heard my moans, For parting my fair Pyramus and me. My cherry lips have often kiss’d thy stones, Thy stones with lime and hair knit up in thee.
PYRAMUS. I see a voice; now will I to the chink, To spy an I can hear my Thisbe’s face. Thisbe?
THISBE. My love thou art, my love I think.
PYRAMUS. Think what thou wilt, I am thy lover’s grace; And like Limander am I trusty still.
THISBE. And I like Helen, till the fates me kill.
PYRAMUS. Not Shafalus to Procrus was so true.
THISBE. As Shafalus to Procrus, I to you.
PYRAMUS. O kiss me through the hole of this vile wall.
THISBE. I kiss the wall’s hole, not your lips at all.
PYRAMUS. Wilt thou at Ninny’s tomb meet me straightway?
THISBE. ’Tide life, ’tide death, I come without delay.
WALL. Thus have I, Wall, my part discharged so; And, being done, thus Wall away doth go.
[_Exeunt Wall, Pyramus and Thisbe._]
THESEUS. Now is the mural down between the two neighbours.
DEMETRIUS. No remedy, my lord, when walls are so wilful to hear without warning.
HIPPOLYTA. This is the silliest stuff that ever I heard.
THESEUS. The best in this kind are but shadows; and the worst are no worse, if imagination amend them.
HIPPOLYTA. It must be your imagination then, and not theirs.
THESEUS. If we imagine no worse of them than they of themselves, they may pass for excellent men. Here come two noble beasts in, a man and a lion.
Enter Lion and Moonshine.
LION. You, ladies, you, whose gentle hearts do fear The smallest monstrous mouse that creeps on floor, May now, perchance, both quake and tremble here, When lion rough in wildest rage doth roar. Then know that I, one Snug the joiner, am A lion fell, nor else no lion’s dam; For if I should as lion come in strife Into this place, ’twere pity on my life.
THESEUS. A very gentle beast, and of a good conscience.
DEMETRIUS. The very best at a beast, my lord, that e’er I saw.
LYSANDER. This lion is a very fox for his valour.
THESEUS. True; and a goose for his discretion.
DEMETRIUS. Not so, my lord, for his valour cannot carry his discretion, and the fox carries the goose.
THESEUS. His discretion, I am sure, cannot carry his valour; for the goose carries not the fox. It is well; leave it to his discretion, and let us listen to the moon.
MOONSHINE. This lanthorn doth the hornèd moon present.
DEMETRIUS. He should have worn the horns on his head.
THESEUS. He is no crescent, and his horns are invisible within the circumference.
MOONSHINE. This lanthorn doth the hornèd moon present; Myself the man i’ the moon do seem to be.
THESEUS. This is the greatest error of all the rest; the man should be put into the lantern. How is it else the man i’ the moon?
DEMETRIUS. He dares not come there for the candle, for you see, it is already in snuff.
HIPPOLYTA. I am aweary of this moon. Would he would change!
THESEUS. It appears by his small light of discretion that he is in the wane; but yet, in courtesy, in all reason, we must stay the time.
LYSANDER. Proceed, Moon.
MOON. All that I have to say, is to tell you that the lantern is the moon; I the man i’ the moon; this thorn-bush my thorn-bush; and this dog my dog.
DEMETRIUS. Why, all these should be in the lantern, for all these are in the moon. But silence; here comes Thisbe.
Enter Thisbe.
THISBE. This is old Ninny’s tomb. Where is my love?
LION. Oh!
[_The Lion roars, Thisbe runs off._]
DEMETRIUS. Well roared, Lion.
THESEUS. Well run, Thisbe.
HIPPOLYTA. Well shone, Moon. Truly, the moon shines with a good grace.
[_The Lion tears Thisbe’s mantle, and exit._]
THESEUS. Well moused, Lion.
DEMETRIUS. And then came Pyramus.
LYSANDER. And so the lion vanished.
Enter Pyramus.
PYRAMUS. Sweet Moon, I thank thee for thy sunny beams; I thank thee, Moon, for shining now so bright; For, by thy gracious golden, glittering gleams, I trust to take of truest Thisbe sight. But stay! O spite! But mark, poor knight, What dreadful dole is here! Eyes, do you see? How can it be? O dainty duck! O dear! Thy mantle good, What, stained with blood? Approach, ye Furies fell! O Fates, come, come; Cut thread and thrum; Quail, rush, conclude, and quell!
THESEUS. This passion, and the death of a dear friend, would go near to make a man look sad.
HIPPOLYTA. Beshrew my heart, but I pity the man.
PYRAMUS. O wherefore, Nature, didst thou lions frame, Since lion vile hath here deflower’d my dear? Which is—no, no—which was the fairest dame That liv’d, that lov’d, that lik’d, that look’d with cheer. Come, tears, confound! Out, sword, and wound The pap of Pyramus; Ay, that left pap, Where heart doth hop: Thus die I, thus, thus, thus. Now am I dead, Now am I fled; My soul is in the sky. Tongue, lose thy light! Moon, take thy flight! Now die, die, die, die, die.
[_Dies. Exit Moonshine._]
DEMETRIUS. No die, but an ace, for him; for he is but one.
LYSANDER. Less than an ace, man; for he is dead, he is nothing.
THESEUS. With the help of a surgeon he might yet recover and prove an ass.
HIPPOLYTA. How chance Moonshine is gone before Thisbe comes back and finds her lover?
THESEUS. She will find him by starlight.
Enter Thisbe.
Here she comes, and her passion ends the play.
HIPPOLYTA. Methinks she should not use a long one for such a Pyramus. I hope she will be brief.
DEMETRIUS. A mote will turn the balance, which Pyramus, which Thisbe, is the better: he for a man, God warrant us; she for a woman, God bless us!
LYSANDER. She hath spied him already with those sweet eyes.
DEMETRIUS. And thus she means, _videlicet_—
THISBE. Asleep, my love? What, dead, my dove? O Pyramus, arise, Speak, speak. Quite dumb? Dead, dead? A tomb Must cover thy sweet eyes. These lily lips, This cherry nose, These yellow cowslip cheeks, Are gone, are gone! Lovers, make moan; His eyes were green as leeks. O Sisters Three, Come, come to me, With hands as pale as milk; Lay them in gore, Since you have shore With shears his thread of silk. Tongue, not a word: Come, trusty sword, Come, blade, my breast imbrue; And farewell, friends. Thus Thisbe ends. Adieu, adieu, adieu.
[_Dies._]
THESEUS. Moonshine and Lion are left to bury the dead.
DEMETRIUS. Ay, and Wall too.
BOTTOM. No, I assure you; the wall is down that parted their fathers. Will it please you to see the epilogue, or to hear a Bergomask dance between two of our company?
THESEUS. No epilogue, I pray you; for your play needs no excuse. Never excuse; for when the players are all dead there need none to be blamed. Marry, if he that writ it had played Pyramus, and hanged himself in Thisbe’s garter, it would have been a fine tragedy; and so it is, truly; and very notably discharged. But come, your Bergomask; let your epilogue alone.
[_Here a dance of Clowns._]
The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve. Lovers, to bed; ’tis almost fairy time. I fear we shall outsleep the coming morn As much as we this night have overwatch’d. This palpable-gross play hath well beguil’d The heavy gait of night. Sweet friends, to bed. A fortnight hold we this solemnity In nightly revels and new jollity.
[_Exeunt._]
Enter Puck.
PUCK. Now the hungry lion roars, And the wolf behowls the moon; Whilst the heavy ploughman snores, All with weary task fordone. Now the wasted brands do glow, Whilst the screech-owl, screeching loud, Puts the wretch that lies in woe In remembrance of a shroud. Now it is the time of night That the graves, all gaping wide, Every one lets forth his sprite, In the church-way paths to glide. And we fairies, that do run By the triple Hecate’s team From the presence of the sun, Following darkness like a dream, Now are frolic; not a mouse Shall disturb this hallow’d house. I am sent with broom before, To sweep the dust behind the door.
Enter Oberon and Titania with their Train.
OBERON. Through the house give glimmering light, By the dead and drowsy fire. Every elf and fairy sprite Hop as light as bird from brier, And this ditty after me, Sing and dance it trippingly.
TITANIA. First rehearse your song by rote, To each word a warbling note; Hand in hand, with fairy grace, Will we sing, and bless this place.
[_Song and Dance._]
OBERON. Now, until the break of day, Through this house each fairy stray. To the best bride-bed will we, Which by us shall blessèd be; And the issue there create Ever shall be fortunate. So shall all the couples three Ever true in loving be; And the blots of Nature’s hand Shall not in their issue stand: Never mole, hare-lip, nor scar, Nor mark prodigious, such as are Despised in nativity, Shall upon their children be. With this field-dew consecrate, Every fairy take his gait, And each several chamber bless, Through this palace, with sweet peace; And the owner of it blest. Ever shall it in safety rest, Trip away. Make no stay; Meet me all by break of day.
[_Exeunt Oberon, Titania and Train._]
PUCK. If we shadows have offended, Think but this, and all is mended, That you have but slumber’d here While these visions did appear. And this weak and idle theme, No more yielding but a dream, Gentles, do not reprehend. If you pardon, we will mend. And, as I am an honest Puck, If we have unearnèd luck Now to ’scape the serpent’s tongue, We will make amends ere long; Else the Puck a liar call. So, good night unto you all. Give me your hands, if we be friends, And Robin shall restore amends.
[_Exit._]
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING
Contents
ACT I
Scene I. Before Leonato’s House.
Scene II. A room in Leonato’s house.
Scene III. Another room in Leonato’s house.
ACT II
Scene I. A hall in Leonato’s house.
Scene II. Another room in Leonato’s house.
Scene III. Leonato’s Garden.
ACT III
Scene I. Leonato’s Garden.
Scene II. A Room in Leonato’s House.
Scene III. A Street.
Scene IV. A Room in Leonato’s House.
Scene V. Another Room in Leonato’s House.
ACT IV
Scene I. The Inside of a Church.
Scene II. A Prison.
ACT V
Scene I. Before Leonato’s House.
Scene II. Leonato’s Garden.
Scene III. The Inside of a Church.
Scene IV. A Room in Leonato’s House.
Dramatis Personæ
DON PEDRO, Prince of Arragon. DON JOHN, his bastard Brother. CLAUDIO, a young Lord of Florence. BENEDICK, a young Lord of Padua. LEONATO, Governor of Messina. ANTONIO, his Brother. BALTHASAR, Servant to Don Pedro. BORACHIO, follower of Don John. CONRADE, follower of Don John. DOGBERRY, a Constable. VERGES, a Headborough. FRIAR FRANCIS. A Sexton. A Boy.
HERO, Daughter to Leonato. BEATRICE, Niece to Leonato. MARGARET, Waiting gentlewoman attending on Hero. URSULA, Waiting gentlewoman attending on Hero.
Messengers, Watch, Attendants, &c.
SCENE. Messina.
ACT I
SCENE I. Before Leonato’s House.
Enter Leonato, Hero, Beatrice and others, with a Messenger.
LEONATO. I learn in this letter that Don Pedro of Arragon comes this night to Messina.
MESSENGER. He is very near by this: he was not three leagues off when I left him.
LEONATO. How many gentlemen have you lost in this action?
MESSENGER. But few of any sort, and none of name.
LEONATO. 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.
MESSENGER. 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.
LEONATO. He hath an uncle here in Messina will be very much glad of it.
MESSENGER. I have already delivered him letters, and there appears much joy in him; even so much that joy could not show itself modest enough without a badge of bitterness.
LEONATO. Did he break out into tears?
MESSENGER. In great measure.
LEONATO. A kind overflow of kindness. There are no faces truer than those that are so washed; how much better is it to weep at joy than to joy at weeping!
BEATRICE. I pray you, is Signior Mountanto returned from the wars or no?
MESSENGER. 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. O! he is returned, and as pleasant as ever he was.
BEATRICE. He set up his bills here in Messina and challenged Cupid at the flight; and my uncle’s fool, reading the challenge, subscribed for Cupid, and challenged him at the bird-bolt. I pray you, how many hath he killed and eaten in these wars? But how many hath he killed? for, indeed, I promised to eat all of his killing.
LEONATO. Faith, niece, you tax Signior Benedick too much; but he’ll be meet with you, I doubt it not.
MESSENGER. He hath done good service, lady, in these wars.
BEATRICE. You had musty victual, and he hath holp to eat it; he is a very valiant trencher-man; he hath an excellent stomach.
MESSENGER. And a good soldier too, lady.
BEATRICE. And a good soldier to a lady; but what is he to a lord?
MESSENGER. A lord to a lord, a man to a man; stuffed with all honourable virtues.
BEATRICE. It is so indeed; he is no less than a stuffed man; but for the stuffing,—well, we are all mortal.
LEONATO. 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.
BEATRICE. Alas! he gets nothing by that. In our last conflict four of his five wits went halting off, and now is the whole man governed with one! so that if he have wit enough to keep himself warm, let him bear it for a difference between himself and his horse; for it is all the wealth that he hath left to be known a reasonable creature. Who is his companion now? He hath every month a new sworn brother.
MESSENGER. Is’t possible?
BEATRICE. Very easily possible: he wears his faith but as the fashion of his hat; it ever changes with the next block.
MESSENGER. I see, lady, the gentleman is not in your books.
BEATRICE. No; and he were, I would burn my study. But I pray you, who is his companion? Is there no young squarer now that will make a voyage with him to the devil?
MESSENGER. He is most in the company of the right noble Claudio.
BEATRICE. O Lord, he will hang upon him like a disease: he is sooner caught than the pestilence, and the taker runs presently mad. God help the noble Claudio! If he have caught the Benedick, it will cost him a thousand pound ere he be cured.
MESSENGER. I will hold friends with you, lady.
BEATRICE. Do, good friend.
LEONATO. You will never run mad, niece.
BEATRICE. No, not till a hot January.
MESSENGER. Don Pedro is approached.
Enter Don Pedro, Don John, Claudio, Benedick, Balthasar and Others.
DON PEDRO. Good Signior Leonato, you are come to meet your trouble: the fashion of the world is to avoid cost, and you encounter it.
LEONATO. Never came trouble to my house in the likeness of your Grace, for trouble being gone, comfort should remain; but when you depart from me, sorrow abides and happiness takes his leave.
DON PEDRO. You embrace your charge too willingly. I think this is your daughter.
LEONATO. Her mother hath many times told me so.
BENEDICK. Were you in doubt, sir, that you asked her?
LEONATO. Signior Benedick, no; for then were you a child.
DON PEDRO. You have it full, Benedick: we may guess by this what you are, being a man. Truly the lady fathers herself. Be happy, lady, for you are like an honourable father.
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.
BENEDICK. What! my dear Lady Disdain, are you yet living?
BEATRICE. Is it possible Disdain should die while she hath such meet food to feed it as Signior Benedick? Courtesy itself must convert to disdain if you come in her presence.
BENEDICK. 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.
BEATRICE. 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.
BENEDICK. God keep your Ladyship still in that mind; so some gentleman or other shall scape a predestinate scratched face.
BEATRICE. Scratching could not make it worse, and ’twere such a face as yours were.
BENEDICK. Well, you are a rare parrot-teacher.
BEATRICE. A bird of my tongue is better than a beast of yours.
BENEDICK. I would my horse had the speed of your tongue, and so good a continuer. But keep your way, i’ God’s name; I have done.
BEATRICE. You always end with a jade’s trick: I know you of old.
DON PEDRO. That is the sum of all, Leonato: Signior Claudio, and Signior Benedick, my dear friend Leonato hath invited you all. I tell him we shall stay here at the least a month, and he heartly prays some occasion may detain us longer: I dare swear he is no hypocrite, but prays from his heart.
LEONATO. If you swear, my lord, you shall not be forsworn. [To Don John] Let me bid you welcome, my lord: being reconciled to the Prince your brother, I owe you all duty.
DON JOHN. I thank you: I am not of many words, but I thank you.
LEONATO. Please it your Grace lead on?
DON PEDRO. Your hand, Leonato; we will go together.
[Exeunt all but Benedick and Claudio.]
CLAUDIO. Benedick, didst thou note the daughter of Signior Leonato?
BENEDICK. I noted her not; but I looked on her.
CLAUDIO. Is she not a modest young lady?
BENEDICK. Do you question me, as an honest man should do, for my simple true judgment; or would you have me speak after my custom, as being a professed tyrant to their sex?
CLAUDIO. No; I pray thee speak in sober judgment.
BENEDICK. Why, i’ faith, methinks she’s too low for a high praise, too brown for a fair praise, and too little for a great praise; only this commendation I can afford her, that were she other than she is, she were unhandsome, and being no other but as she is, I do not like her.
CLAUDIO. Thou thinkest I am in sport: I pray thee tell me truly how thou likest her.
BENEDICK. Would you buy her, that you enquire after her?
CLAUDIO. Can the world buy such a jewel?
BENEDICK. Yea, and a case to put it into. But speak you this with a sad brow, or do you play the flouting Jack, to tell us Cupid is a good hare-finder, and Vulcan a rare carpenter? Come, in what key shall a man take you, to go in the song?
CLAUDIO. In mine eye she is the sweetest lady that ever I looked on.
BENEDICK. 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?
CLAUDIO. I would scarce trust myself, though I had sworn to the contrary, if Hero would be my wife.
BENEDICK. Is’t come to this, in faith? Hath not the world one man but he will wear his cap with suspicion? Shall I never see a bachelor of threescore again? Go to, i’ faith; and thou wilt needs thrust thy neck into a yoke, wear the print of it and sigh away Sundays.
Re-enter Don Pedro.
Look! Don Pedro is returned to seek you.
DON PEDRO. What secret hath held you here, that you followed not to Leonato’s?
BENEDICK. I would your Grace would constrain me to tell.
DON PEDRO. I charge thee on thy allegiance.
BENEDICK. You hear, Count Claudio: I can be secret as a dumb man; I would have you think so; but on my allegiance mark you this, on my allegiance: he is in love. With who? now that is your Grace’s part. Mark how short his answer is: with Hero, Leonato’s short daughter.
CLAUDIO. If this were so, so were it uttered.
BENEDICK. Like the old tale, my lord: ‘it is not so, nor ’twas not so; but indeed, God forbid it should be so.’
CLAUDIO. If my passion change not shortly, God forbid it should be otherwise.
DON PEDRO. Amen, if you love her; for the lady is very well worthy.
CLAUDIO. You speak this to fetch me in, my lord.
DON PEDRO. By my troth, I speak my thought.
CLAUDIO. And in faith, my lord, I spoke mine.
BENEDICK. And by my two faiths and troths, my lord, I spoke mine.
CLAUDIO. That I love her, I feel.
DON PEDRO. 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.
DON PEDRO. Thou wast ever an obstinate heretic in the despite of beauty.
CLAUDIO. And never could maintain his part but in the force of his will.
BENEDICK. That a woman conceived me, I thank her; that she brought me up, I likewise give her most humble thanks; but that I will have a recheat winded in my forehead, or hang my bugle in an invisible baldrick, all women shall pardon me. Because I will not do them the wrong to mistrust any, I will do myself the right to trust none; and the fine is,—for the which I may go the finer,—I will live a bachelor.
DON PEDRO. 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 ballad-maker’s pen and hang me up at the door of a brothel-house for the sign of blind Cupid.
DON PEDRO. Well, if ever thou dost fall from this faith, thou wilt prove a notable argument.
BENEDICK. If I do, hang me in a bottle like a cat and shoot at me; and he that hits me, let him be clapped on the shoulder and called Adam.
DON PEDRO. Well, as time shall try: ‘In time the savage bull doth bear the yoke.’
BENEDICK. 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.’
CLAUDIO. If this should ever happen, thou wouldst be horn-mad.
DON PEDRO. Nay, if Cupid have not spent all his quiver in Venice, thou wilt quake for this shortly.
BENEDICK. I look for an earthquake too then.
DON PEDRO. Well, you will temporize with the hours. In the meantime, 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.
BENEDICK. I have almost matter enough in me for such an embassage; and so I commit you—
CLAUDIO. To the tuition of God: from my house, if I had it,—
DON PEDRO. The sixth of July: your loving friend, Benedick.
BENEDICK. Nay, mock not, mock not. The body of your discourse is sometime guarded with fragments, and the guards are but slightly basted on neither: ere you flout old ends any further, examine your conscience: and so I leave you.
[Exit.]
CLAUDIO. My liege, your Highness now may do me good.
DON PEDRO. My love is thine to teach: teach it but how, And thou shalt see how apt it is to learn Any hard lesson that may do thee good.
CLAUDIO. Hath Leonato any son, my lord?
DON PEDRO. No child but Hero; she’s his only heir. Dost thou affect her, Claudio?
CLAUDIO. O! my lord, When you went onward on this ended action, I looked upon her with a soldier’s eye, That lik’d, but had a rougher task in hand Than to drive liking to the name of love; But now I am return’d, and that war-thoughts Have left their places vacant, in their rooms Come thronging soft and delicate desires, All prompting me how fair young Hero is, Saying, I lik’d her ere I went to wars.
DON PEDRO. Thou wilt be like a lover presently, And tire the hearer with a book of words. If thou dost love fair Hero, cherish it, And I will break with her, and with her father, And thou shalt have her. Was’t not to this end That thou began’st to twist so fine a story?
CLAUDIO. How sweetly you do minister to love, That know love’s grief by his complexion! But lest my liking might too sudden seem, I would have salv’d it with a longer treatise.
DON PEDRO. What need the bridge much broader than the flood? The fairest grant is the necessity. Look, what will serve is fit: ’tis once, thou lov’st, 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 I am Claudio; And in her bosom I’ll unclasp my heart, And take her hearing prisoner with the force And strong encounter of my amorous tale: Then after to her father will I break; And the conclusion is, she shall be thine. In practice let us put it presently.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE II. A room in Leonato’s house.
Enter Leonato and Antonio, meeting.
LEONATO. How now, brother? Where is my cousin your son? Hath he provided this music?
ANTONIO. He is very busy about it. But, brother, I can tell you strange news that you yet dreamt not of.
LEONATO. Are they good?
ANTONIO. 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.
LEONATO. Hath the fellow any wit that told you this?
ANTONIO. A good sharp fellow: I will send for him; and question him yourself.
LEONATO. 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; go you with me, and I will use your skill. Good cousin, have a care this busy time.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE III. Another room in Leonato’s house.
Enter Don John and Conrade.
CONRADE. What the good-year, my lord! why are you thus out of measure sad?
DON JOHN. There is no measure in the occasion that breeds; therefore the sadness is without limit.
CONRADE. You should hear reason.
DON JOHN. And when I have heard it, what blessings brings it?
CONRADE. If not a present remedy, at least a patient sufferance.
DON JOHN. I wonder that thou (being as thou say’st thou art, born under Saturn) goest about to apply a moral medicine to a mortifying mischief. I cannot hide what I am: I must be sad when I have cause, and smile at no man’s jests; eat when I have stomach, and wait for no man’s leisure; sleep when I am drowsy, and tend on no man’s business; laugh when I am merry, and claw no man in his humour.
CONRADE. 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.
DON JOHN. I had rather be a canker in a hedge than a rose in his grace; and it better fits my blood to be disdained of all than to fashion a carriage to rob love from any: in this, though I cannot be said to be a flattering honest man, it must not be denied but I am a plain-dealing villain. I am trusted with a muzzle and enfranchised with a clog; therefore I have decreed not to sing in my cage. If I had my mouth, I would bite; if I had my liberty, I would do my liking: in the meantime, let me be that I am, and seek not to alter me.
CONRADE. Can you make no use of your discontent?
DON JOHN. I make all use of it, for I use it only. Who comes here?
Enter Borachio.
What news, Borachio?
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.
DON JOHN. Will it serve for any model to build mischief on? What is he for a fool that betroths himself to unquietness?
BORACHIO. Marry, it is your brother’s right hand.
DON JOHN. Who? the most exquisite Claudio?
BORACHIO. Even he.
DON JOHN. A proper squire! And who, and who? which way looks he?
BORACHIO. Marry, on Hero, the daughter and heir of Leonato.
DON JOHN. A very forward March-chick! How came you to this?
BORACHIO. 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.
DON 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?
CONRADE. To the death, my lord.
DON JOHN. Let us to the great supper: their cheer is the greater that I am subdued. Would the cook were of my mind! Shall we go to prove what’s to be done?
BORACHIO. We’ll wait upon your Lordship.
[Exeunt.]
ACT II
SCENE I. A hall in Leonato’s house.
Enter Leonato, Antonio, Hero, Beatrice and others.
LEONATO. Was not Count John here at supper?
ANTONIO. I saw him not.
BEATRICE. How tartly that gentleman looks! I never can see him but I am heart-burned an hour after.
HERO. He is of a very melancholy disposition.
BEATRICE. 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.
LEONATO. Then half Signior Benedick’s tongue in Count John’s mouth, and half Count John’s melancholy in Signior Benedick’s face—
BEATRICE. With a good leg and a good foot, uncle, and money enough in his purse, such a man would win any woman in the world if a’ could get her good will.
LEONATO. By my troth, niece, thou wilt never get thee a husband, if thou be so shrewd of thy tongue.
ANTONIO. In faith, she’s too curst.
BEATRICE. 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.
LEONATO. So, by being too curst, God will send you no horns?
BEATRICE. 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.
LEONATO. You may light on a husband that hath no beard.
BEATRICE. 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 sixpence in earnest of the bear-ward, and lead his apes into hell.
LEONATO. Well then, go you into hell?
BEATRICE. 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.
ANTONIO. [To Hero.] Well, niece, I trust you will be ruled by your father.
BEATRICE. Yes, faith; it is my cousin’s duty to make curtsy, and say, ‘Father, as it please you:’— but yet for all that, cousin, let him be a handsome fellow, or else make another curtsy, and say, ‘Father, as it please me.’
LEONATO. Well, niece, I hope to see you one day fitted with a husband.
BEATRICE. Not till God make men of some other metal than earth. Would it not grieve a woman to be over-mastered 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.
LEONATO. Daughter, remember what I told you: if the Prince do solicit you 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 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.
LEONATO. Cousin, you apprehend passing shrewdly.
BEATRICE. I have a good eye, uncle: I can see a church by daylight.
LEONATO. The revellers are entering, brother: make good room.
Enter Don Pedro, Claudio, Benedick, Balthasar, Don John, Borachio, Margaret, Ursula and Others, masked.
DON 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.
DON PEDRO. With me in your company?
HERO. I may say so, when I please.
DON PEDRO. And when please you to say so?
HERO. When I like your favour; for God defend the lute should be like the case!
DON PEDRO. My visor is Philemon’s roof; within the house is Jove.
HERO. Why, then, your visor should be thatch’d.
DON PEDRO. Speak low, if you speak love.
[Takes her aside.]
BALTHASAR. Well, I would you did like me.
MARGARET. So would not I, for your own sake; for I have many ill qualities.
BALTHASAR. Which is one?
MARGARET. I say my prayers aloud.
BALTHASAR. I love you the better; the hearers may cry Amen.
MARGARET. God match me with a good dancer!
BALTHASAR. Amen.
MARGARET. And God keep him out of my sight when the dance is done! Answer, clerk.
BALTHASAR. No more words: the clerk is answered.
URSULA. I know you well enough: you are Signior Antonio.
ANTONIO. At a word, I am not.
URSULA. I know you by the waggling of your head.
ANTONIO. To tell you true, I counterfeit him.
URSULA. You could never 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.
ANTONIO. At a word, I am not.
URSULA. Come, come; do you think I do not know you by your excellent wit? Can virtue hide itself? Go to, mum, you are he: graces will appear, and there’s an end.
BEATRICE. Will you not tell me who told you so?
BENEDICK. No, you shall pardon me.
BEATRICE. Nor will you not tell me who you are?
BENEDICK. Not now.
BEATRICE. 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.
BENEDICK. What’s he?
BEATRICE. I am sure you know him well enough.
BENEDICK. Not I, believe me.
BEATRICE. Did he never make you laugh?
BENEDICK. I pray you, what is he?
BEATRICE. Why, he is the Prince’s jester: a very dull fool; only his 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 pleases 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!
BENEDICK. When I know the gentleman, I’ll tell him what you say.
BEATRICE. 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. [Music within.] We must follow the leaders.
BENEDICK. In every good thing.
BEATRICE. Nay, if they lead to any ill, I will leave them at the next turning.
[Dance. Then exeunt all but Don John, Borachio and Claudio.]
DON JOHN. Sure my brother is amorous on Hero, and hath withdrawn her father to break with him about it. The ladies follow her and but one visor remains.
BORACHIO. And that is Claudio: I know him by his bearing.
DON JOHN. Are you not Signior Benedick?
CLAUDIO. You know me well; I am he.
DON JOHN. 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.
CLAUDIO. How know you he loves her?
DON JOHN. I heard him swear his affection.
BORACHIO. So did I too; and he swore he would marry her tonight.
DON JOHN. Come, let us to the banquet.
[Exeunt Don John and Borachio.]
CLAUDIO. Thus answer I in name of Benedick, But hear these ill news with the ears of Claudio. ’Tis certain so; the Prince wooss 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!
Re-enter Benedick.
BENEDICK. Count Claudio?
CLAUDIO. Yea, the same.
BENEDICK. Come, will you go with me?
CLAUDIO. Whither?
BENEDICK. 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.
CLAUDIO. I wish him joy of her.
BENEDICK. Why, that’s spoken like an honest drovier: so they sell bullocks. But did you think the Prince would have served you thus?
CLAUDIO. I pray you, leave me.
BENEDICK. Ho! now you strike like the blind man: ’twas the boy that stole your meat, and you’ll beat the post.
CLAUDIO. If it will not be, I’ll leave you.
[Exit.]
BENEDICK. 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! Ha! it may be I go under that title because I am merry. Yea, 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, I’ll be revenged as I may.
Re-enter Don Pedro.
DON PEDRO. Now, signior, where’s the Count? Did you see him?
BENEDICK. Troth, my lord, I have played the part of Lady Fame. I found him here as melancholy as a lodge in a warren. I told him, and I think I told him true, that your Grace had got the good will of this young lady; and I offered him my company to a willow tree, either to make him a garland, as being forsaken, or to bind him up a rod, as being worthy to be whipped.
DON PEDRO. To be whipped! What’s his fault?
BENEDICK. The flat transgression of a school-boy, who, being overjoy’d with finding a bird’s nest, shows it his companion, and he steals it.
DON PEDRO. Wilt thou make a trust a transgression? The transgression is in the stealer.
BENEDICK. 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.
DON PEDRO. I will but teach them to sing, and restore them to the owner.
BENEDICK. If their singing answer your saying, by my faith, you say honestly.
DON PEDRO. The Lady Beatrice hath a quarrel to you: the gentleman that danced with her told her she is much wronged by you.
BENEDICK. 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, 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 turned spit, yea, and have cleft his club to make the fire too. Come, talk not of her; you shall find her the infernal Ate in good apparel. 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.
Re-enter Claudio, Beatrice, Hero and Leonato.
DON PEDRO. Look! here she comes.
BENEDICK. 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 Pygmies, rather than hold three words’ conference with this harpy. You have no employment for me?
DON PEDRO. None, but to desire your good company.
BENEDICK. O God, sir, here’s a dish I love not: I cannot endure my Lady Tongue.
[Exit.]
DON PEDRO. Come, lady, come; you have lost the heart of Signior Benedick.
BEATRICE. Indeed, my lord, he lent it me awhile; and I gave him use for it, a double heart for a single one: marry, once before he won it of me with false dice, therefore your Grace may well say I have lost it.
DON PEDRO. You have put him down, lady, you have put him down.
BEATRICE. So I would not he should do me, my lord, lest I should prove the mother of fools. I have brought Count Claudio, whom you sent me to seek.
DON PEDRO. Why, how now, Count! wherefore are you sad?
CLAUDIO. Not sad, my lord.
DON PEDRO. How then? Sick?
CLAUDIO. Neither, my lord.
BEATRICE. The Count is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor well; but civil Count, civil as an orange, and something of that jealous complexion.
DON PEDRO. 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!
BEATRICE. Speak, Count, ’tis your cue.
CLAUDIO. 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 myself for you and dote upon the exchange.
BEATRICE. Speak, cousin; or, if you cannot, stop his mouth with a kiss, and let not him speak neither.
DON PEDRO. In faith, lady, you have a merry heart.
BEATRICE. 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.
CLAUDIO. And so she doth, cousin.
BEATRICE. Good Lord, for alliance! Thus goes everyone to the world but I, and I am sunburnt. I may sit in a corner and cry heigh-ho for a husband!
DON PEDRO. Lady Beatrice, I will get you one.
BEATRICE. I would rather have one of your father’s getting. Hath your Grace ne’er a brother like you? Your father got excellent husbands, if a maid could come by them.
DON PEDRO. Will you have me, lady?
BEATRICE. No, my lord, unless I might have another for working days: your Grace is too costly to wear every day. But, I beseech your Grace, pardon me; I was born to speak all mirth and no matter.
DON PEDRO. Your silence most offends me, and to be merry best becomes you; for out of question, you were born in a merry hour.
BEATRICE. 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!
LEONATO. Niece, will you look to those things I told you of?
BEATRICE. I cry you mercy, uncle. By your Grace’s pardon.
[Exit.]
DON PEDRO. By my troth, a pleasant spirited lady.
LEONATO. 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 dreamed of unhappiness and waked herself with laughing.
DON PEDRO. She cannot endure to hear tell of a husband.
LEONATO. O! by no means: she mocks all her wooers out of suit.
DON PEDRO. She were an excellent wife for Benedick.
LEONATO. O Lord! my lord, if they were but a week married, they would talk themselves mad.
DON PEDRO. Count Claudio, when mean you to go to church?
CLAUDIO. Tomorrow, my lord. Time goes on crutches till love have all his rites.
LEONATO. Not till Monday, my dear son, which is hence a just seven-night; and a time too brief too, to have all things answer my mind.
DON PEDRO. 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 would fain have it a match; and I doubt not but to fashion it, if you three will but minister such assistance as I shall give you direction.
LEONATO. My lord, I am for you, though it cost me ten nights’ watchings.
CLAUDIO. And I, my lord.
DON PEDRO. And you too, gentle Hero?
HERO. I will do any modest office, my lord, to help my cousin to a good husband.
DON PEDRO. And Benedick is not the unhopefullest husband that 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 Benedick; 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 is no longer an archer: his glory shall be ours, for we are the only love-gods. Go in with me, and I will tell you my drift.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE II. Another room in Leonato’s house.
Enter Don John and Borachio.
DON JOHN. It is so; the Count Claudio shall marry the daughter of Leonato.
BORACHIO. Yea, my lord; but I can cross it.
DON JOHN. 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?
BORACHIO. Not honestly, my lord; but so covertly that no dishonesty shall appear in me.
DON JOHN. Show me briefly how.
BORACHIO. I think I told your lordship, a year since, how much I am in the favour of Margaret, the waiting gentlewoman to Hero.
DON JOHN. I remember.
BORACHIO. I can, at any unseasonable instant of the night, appoint her to look out at her lady’s chamber window.
DON JOHN. What life is in that, to be the death of this marriage?
BORACHIO. 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.
DON JOHN. What proof shall I make of that?
BORACHIO. Proof enough to misuse the Prince, to vex Claudio, to undo Hero, and kill Leonato. Look you for any other issue?
DON JOHN. Only to despite them, I will endeavour anything.
BORACHIO. Go then; find me a meet hour to draw Don Pedro and the Count Claudio alone: tell them that you know that Hero loves me; intend a kind of zeal both to the Prince and Claudio, as—in love of your brother’s honour, who hath made this match, and his friend’s reputation, who is thus like to be cozened with the semblance of a maid,—that you have discovered thus. They will scarcely believe this without trial: offer them instances, which shall bear no less likelihood than to see me at her chamber window, hear me call Margaret Hero, hear Margaret term me Claudio; and bring them to see this the very night before the intended wedding: for in the meantime I will so fashion the matter that Hero shall be absent; and there shall appear such seeming truth of Hero’s disloyalty, that jealousy shall be called assurance, and all the preparation overthrown.
DON JOHN. Grow this to what adverse issue it can, I will put it in practice. Be cunning in the working this, and thy fee is a thousand ducats.
BORACHIO. Be you constant in the accusation, and my cunning shall not shame me.
DON JOHN. I will presently go learn their day of marriage.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE III. Leonato’s Garden.
Enter Benedick.
BENEDICK. Boy!
Enter a Boy.
BOY. Signior?
BENEDICK. In my chamber window lies a book; bring it hither to me in the orchard.
BOY. I am here already, sir.
BENEDICK. I know that; but I would have thee hence, and here again.
[Exit Boy.]
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 had 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: 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 of what colour it please God. Ha! the Prince and Monsieur Love! I will hide me in the arbour.
[Withdraws.]
Enter Don Pedro, Leonato and Claudio, followed by Balthasar and Musicians.
DON PEDRO. Come, shall we hear this music?
CLAUDIO. Yea, my good lord. How still the evening is, As hush’d on purpose to grace harmony!
DON PEDRO. See you where Benedick hath hid himself?
CLAUDIO. O! very well, my lord: the music ended, We’ll fit the kid-fox with a penny-worth.
DON PEDRO. Come, Balthasar, we’ll hear that song again.
BALTHASAR. O! good my lord, tax not so bad a voice To slander music any more than once.
DON PEDRO. It is the witness still of excellency, To put a strange face on his own perfection. I pray thee, sing, and let me woo no more.
BALTHASAR. Because you talk of wooing, I will sing; Since many a wooer doth commence his suit To her he thinks not worthy; yet he wooes; Yet will he swear he loves.
DON PEDRO. Nay, pray thee come; Or if thou wilt hold longer argument, Do it in notes.
BALTHASAR. Note this before my notes; There’s not a note of mine that’s worth the noting.
DON PEDRO. Why these are very crotchets that he speaks; Notes, notes, forsooth, and nothing!
[Music.]
BENEDICK. Now, divine air! now is his soul ravished! Is it not strange that sheep’s guts should hale souls out of men’s bodies? Well, a horn for my money, when all’s done.
BALTHASAR [sings.] 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.
Sing no more ditties, sing no mo Of dumps so dull and heavy; The fraud of men was ever so, Since summer first was leavy. Then sigh not so, but let them go, And be you blithe and bonny, Converting all your sounds of woe Into Hey nonny, nonny.
DON PEDRO. By my troth, a good song.
BALTHASAR. And an ill singer, my lord.
DON PEDRO. Ha, no, no, faith; thou singest well enough for a shift.
BENEDICK. [Aside] And he had been a dog that should have howled thus, they would have hanged him; and I pray God his bad voice bode no mischief. I had as lief have heard the night-raven, come what plague could have come after it.
DON PEDRO. Yea, marry; dost thou hear, Balthasar? I pray thee, get us some excellent music, for tomorrow night we would have it at the Lady Hero’s chamber window.
BALTHASAR. The best I can, my lord.
DON PEDRO. Do so: farewell.
[Exeunt Balthasar and Musicians.]
Come hither, Leonato: what was it you told me of today, that your niece Beatrice was in love with Signior Benedick?
CLAUDIO. O! ay:—[Aside to Don Pedro] Stalk on, stalk on; the fowl sits. I did never think that lady would have loved any man.
LEONATO. No, 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.
BENEDICK. [Aside] Is’t possible? Sits the wind in that corner?
LEONATO. 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.
DON PEDRO. Maybe she doth but counterfeit.
CLAUDIO. Faith, like enough.
LEONATO. O God! counterfeit! There was never counterfeit of passion came so near the life of passion as she discovers it.
DON PEDRO. Why, what effects of passion shows she?
CLAUDIO. [Aside] Bait the hook well: this fish will bite.
LEONATO. What effects, my lord? She will sit you; [To Claudio] You heard my daughter tell you how.
CLAUDIO. She did, indeed.
DON PEDRO. How, how, I pray you? You amaze me: I would have thought her spirit had been invincible against all assaults of affection.
LEONATO. I would have sworn it had, my lord; especially against Benedick.
BENEDICK. [Aside] I should think this a gull, but that the white-bearded fellow speaks it: knavery cannot, sure, hide itself in such reverence.
CLAUDIO. [Aside] He hath ta’en the infection: hold it up.
DON PEDRO. 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 oft encountered him with scorn, write to him that I love him?’
LEONATO. This says she now when she is beginning to write to him; for she’ll be up twenty times a night, and there will she sit in her smock till she have writ a sheet of paper: my daughter tells us all.
CLAUDIO. Now you talk of a sheet of paper, I remember a pretty jest your daughter told us of.
LEONATO. O! when she had writ it, and was reading it over, she found Benedick and Beatrice between the sheet?
CLAUDIO. That.
LEONATO. O! she tore the letter into a thousand halfpence; railed at herself, that she should be so immodest to write to one that she knew would flout her: ‘I measure him,’ says she, ‘by my own spirit; for I should flout him, if he writ to me; yea, though I love him, I should.’
CLAUDIO. Then down upon her knees she falls, weeps, sobs, beats her heart, tears her hair, prays, curses; ‘O sweet Benedick! God give me patience!’
LEONATO. She doth indeed; my daughter says so; and the ecstasy hath so much overborne her, that my daughter is sometimes afeard she will do a desperate outrage to herself. It is very true.
DON PEDRO. It were good that Benedick knew of it by some other, if she will not discover it.
CLAUDIO. To what end? he would make but a sport of it and torment the poor lady worse.
DON PEDRO. And he should, it were an alms to hang him. She’s an excellent sweet lady, and, out of all suspicion, she is virtuous.
CLAUDIO. And she is exceeding wise.
DON PEDRO. In everything but in loving Benedick.
LEONATO. O! my lord, wisdom and blood combating in so tender a body, we have ten proofs to one that blood hath the victory. I am sorry for her, as I have just cause, being her uncle and her guardian.
DON PEDRO. I would she had bestowed this dotage on me; I would have daffed all other respects and made her half myself. I pray you, tell Benedick of it, and hear what he will say.
LEONATO. Were it good, think you?
CLAUDIO. Hero thinks surely she will die; for she says she will die if he love her not, and 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.
DON PEDRO. She doth well: if she should make tender of her love, ’tis very possible he’ll scorn it; for the man,—as you know all,—hath a contemptible spirit.
CLAUDIO. He is a very proper man.
DON PEDRO. He hath indeed a good outward happiness.
CLAUDIO. ’Fore God, and in my mind, very wise.
DON PEDRO. He doth indeed show some sparks that are like wit.
CLAUDIO. And I take him to be valiant.
DON PEDRO. As Hector, I assure you: and in the managing of quarrels you may say he is wise; for either he avoids them with great discretion, or undertakes them with a most Christian-like fear.
LEONATO. If he do fear God, a’ must necessarily keep peace: if he break the peace, he ought to enter into a quarrel with fear and trembling.
DON PEDRO. And so will he do; for the man doth fear God, howsoever it seems not in him by some large jests he will make. Well, I am sorry for your niece. Shall we go seek Benedick and tell him of her love?
CLAUDIO. Never tell him, my lord: let her wear it out with good counsel.
LEONATO. Nay, that’s impossible: she may wear her heart out first.
DON PEDRO. Well, we will hear further of it by your daughter: let it cool the while. I love Benedick well, and I could wish he would modestly examine himself, to see how much he is unworthy so good a lady.
LEONATO. My lord, will you walk? dinner is ready.
CLAUDIO. [Aside] If he do not dote on her upon this, I will never trust my expectation.
DON PEDRO. [Aside] Let there be the same net spread for her; and that must your daughter and her gentlewoman carry. The sport will be, when they hold one an opinion of another’s dotage, and no such matter: that’s the scene that I would see, which will be merely a dumb show. Let us send her to call him in to dinner.
[Exeunt Don Pedro, Claudio and Leonato.]
BENEDICK. [Advancing from the arbour.] This can be no trick: the conference was sadly borne. They have the truth of this from Hero. They seem to pity the lady: it seems her affections have their 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 that she will rather die than give any sign of affection. I did never think to marry: I must not seem proud: happy are they 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, it is no addition to her wit, nor no great argument of her folly, for I will be horribly in love with her. 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 that 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 should live till I were married. Here comes Beatrice. By this day! she’s a fair lady: I do spy some marks of love in her.
Enter Beatrice.
BEATRICE. Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner.
BENEDICK. Fair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains.
BEATRICE. I took no more pains for those thanks than you take pains to thank me: if it had been painful, I would not have come.
BENEDICK. You take pleasure then in the message?