Текст книги "William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition"

Автор книги: William Shakespeare

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 111 (всего у книги 250 страниц)

5.1 Enter Leonato and Antonio his brother ANTONIO

If you go on thus, you will kill yourself,

And ’tis not wisdom thus to second grief

Against yourself.

LEONATO 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 do suit with mine.

Bring me a father that so loved his child,

Whose joy of her is overwhelmed like mine,

And 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,

In every lineament, branch, shape, and form.

If such a one will smile and stroke his beard,

Bid sorrow wag, cry ‘hem’ when he should groan,

Patch grief with proverbs, make misfortune drunk

With candle-wasters, bring him yet to me,

And I of him will gather patience.

But there is no such man, for, brother, men

Can counsel and speak comfort to that grief

Which they themselves not feel, but tasting it

Their counsel turns to passion, which before

Would give preceptial medicine to rage,

Fetter strong madness in a silken thread,

Charm ache with air and agony with words.

No, no, ’tis all men’s office to speak patience

To those that wring under the load of sorrow,

But no man’s virtue nor sufficiency

To be so moral when he shall endure

The like himself. Therefore give me no counsel.

My griefs cry louder than advertisement.

ANTONIO

Therein do men from children nothing differ.

LEONATO

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

For there was never yet philosopher

That could endure the toothache patiently,

However they have writ the style of gods,

And made a pish at chance and sufferance.

ANTONIO

Yet bend not all the harm upon yourself.

Make those that do offend you suffer, too.

LEONATO

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

My soul doth tell me Hero is belied,

And that shall Claudio know, so shall the Prince,

And all of them that thus dishonour her.

Enter Don Pedro the Prince and Claudio

ANTONIO

Here comes the Prince and Claudio hastily.

DON PEDRO

Good e‘en, good e’en.

CLAUDIO Good day to both of you.

LEONATO

Hear you, my lords?

DON PEDRO We have some haste, Leonato.

LEONATO

Some haste, my lord! Well, fare you well, my lord.

Are you so hasty now? Well, all is one.

DON PEDRO

Nay, do not quarrel with us, good old man.

ANTONIO

If he could right himself with quarrelling,

Some of us would lie low.

CLAUDIO 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,

As under privilege of age to brag

What I have done being young, or what would do

Were I not old. Know Claudio to thy head,

Thou hast so wronged mine 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.

CLAUDIO

My villainy?

LEONATO Thine, Claudio, thine I say.

DON PEDRO

You say not right, old man.

LEONATO My lord, my lord,

I’ll prove it on his body if he dare,

Despite his nice fence and his active practice,

His May of youth and bloom of lustihood.

CLAUDIO

Away, I will not have to do with you.

LEONATO

Canst thou so doff me? Thou hast killed my child.

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

ANTONIO

He shall kill two of us, and men indeed.

But that’s no matter, let him kill one first.

Win me and wear me. Let him answer me.

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

Sir boy, I’ll whip you from your foining fence.

Nay, as I am a gentleman, I will.

LEONATO Brother.

ANTONIO

Content yourself. God knows, I loved my niece,

And she is dead, slandered to death by villains

That dare as well answer a man indeed

As I dare take a serpent by the tongue.

Boys, apes, braggarts, jacks, milksops!

LEONATO Brother Antony—

ANTONIO

Hold you content. What, man, I know them, yea

And what they weigh, even to the utmost scruple.

Scambling, outfacing, fashion-monging boys,

That lie, and cog, and flout, deprave, and slander,

Go anticly, and show an outward hideousness,

And speak off half a dozen dangerous words,

How they might hurt their enemies, if they durst,

And this is all.

LEONATO But brother Antony—

ANTONIO Come, ’tis no matter,

Do not you meddle, let me deal in this.

DON PEDRO

Gentlemen both, 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, my lord—

DON PEDRO I will not hear you.

LEONATO

No? Come brother, away. I will be heard.

ANTONIO

And shall, or some of us will smart for it.

Exeunt Leonato and Antonio

Enter Benedick

DON PEDRO

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

CLAUDIO Now signor, what news?

BENEDICK (to Don Pedro) Good day, my lord.

DON PEDRO Welcome, signor. You are almost come to part almost a fray.

CLAUDIO We had liked to have had our two noses snapped off with two old men without teeth.

DON PEDRO Leonato and his brother. What thinkest thou? Had we fought, I doubt we should have been too young for them.

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

CLAUDIO We have been up and down to seek thee, for we are high-proof melancholy and would fain have it beaten away. Wilt thou use thy wit?

BENEDICK It is in my scabbard. Shall I draw it?

DON PEDRO Dost thou wear thy wit by thy side?

CLAUDIO Never any did so, though very many have been beside their wit. I will bid thee draw as we do the minstrels, draw to pleasure us.

DON PEDRO As I am an honest man he looks pale. Art thou sick, or angry?

CLAUDIO What, courage, man. What though care killed a cat, thou hast mettle enough in thee to kill care.

BENEDICK Sir, I shall meet your wit in the career an you charge it against me. I pray you choose another subject.

CLAUDIO Nay then, give him another staff. This last was broke cross.

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

CLAUDIO If he be, he knows how to turn his girdle.

BENEDICK (aside to Claudio) Shall I speak a word in your ear?

CLAUDIO God bless me from a challenge.

BENEDICK 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. 149

CLAUDIO Well, I will meet you, so I may have good cheer.

DON PEDRO What, a feast, a feast?

CLAUDIO I’faith, I thank him, he hath bid me to a calf’s head and a capon, the which if I do not carve most curiously, say my knife’s naught. Shall I not find a woodcock too? 155

BENEDICK Sir, your wit ambles well, it goes easily.

DON PEDRO I’ll tell thee how Beatrice praised thy wit the other day. I said thou hadst a fine wit. ‘True,’ said she, ‘a fine little one.’ ‘No,’ said I, ‘a great wit.’‘Right,’ says she, ‘a great gross one.’ ‘Nay,’ said I, ‘a good wit.’ ‘Just,’ said she, ‘it hurts nobody.’ ‘Nay,’ said I, ‘the gentleman is wise.’ ‘Certain,’ said she, ‘a wise gentleman.’ ‘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.’ Thus did she an hour together trans-shape thy particular virtues, yet at last she concluded with a sigh thou wast the properest man in Italy.

CLAUDIO For the which she wept heartily and said she cared not.

DON PEDRO Yea, that she did. But yet for all that, an if she did not hate him deadly she would love him dearly. The old man’s daughter told us all.

CLAUDIO All, all. And moreover, God saw him when he was hid in the garden.

DON PEDRO But when shall we set the savage bull’s horns on the sensible Benedick’s head?

CLAUDIO Yea, and text underneath, ‘Here dwells Benedick the married man’.

BENEDICK Fare you well, boy, you know my mind. I will leave you now to your gossip-like humour. You break jests as braggarts do their blades which, God be thanked, hurt not. (To Don Pedro) 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 then, peace be with him. Exit

DON PEDRO He is in earnest.

CLAUDIO In most profound earnest, and, I’ll warrant you, for the love of Beatrice.

DON PEDRO And hath challenged thee.

CLAUDIO Most sincerely.

DON PEDRO What a pretty thing man is when he goes in his doublet and hose and leaves off his wit! 196

Enter Dogberry and Verges the constables, the Watch, Conrad, and Borachio

CLAUDIO He is then a giant to an ape. But then is an ape a doctor to such a man.

DON PEDRO But soft you, let me be. Pluck up, my heart, and be sad. Did he not say my brother was fled?

DOGBERRY Come you sir, if justice cannot tame you, she shall ne’er weigh more reasons in her balance. Nay, an you be a cursing hypocrite once, you must be looked to.

DON PEDRO How now, two of my brother’s men bound? Borachio one.

CLAUDIO Hearken after their offence, my lord.

DON PEDRO Officers, what offence have these men done?

DOGBERRY Marry, sir, they have committed false report, moreover they have spoken untruths, secondarily they are slanders, sixth and lastly they have belied a lady, thirdly they have verified unjust things, and to conclude, they are lying knaves.

DON PEDRO First I ask thee what they have done, thirdly I ask thee what’s their offence, sixth and lastly why they are committed, and to conclude, what you lay to their charge.

CLAUDIO Rightly reasoned, and in his own division. And by my troth there’s one meaning well suited.

DON PEDRO (to Conrad and Borachio) Who have you offended, masters, that you are thus bound to your answer? This learned constable is too cunning to be understood. What’s your offence?

BORACHIO Sweet Prince, let me go no farther to mine answer. 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 Don John your brother incensed me to slander the Lady Hero, how you were brought into the orchard and saw me court Margaret in Hero’s garments, how you disgraced her when you should marry her. 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.

DON PEDRO (to Claudio) Runs not this speech like iron through your blood?

CLAUDIO I have drunk poison whiles he uttered it.

DON PEDRO (to Borachio) But did my brother set thee on to this?

BORACHIO Yea, and paid me richly for the practice of it.

DON PEDRO

He is composed and framed of treachery,

And fled he is upon this villainy.

CLAUDIO

Sweet Hero, now thy image doth appear

In the rare semblance that I loved it first.

DOGBERRY Come, bring away the plaintiffs. By this time our Sexton hath reformed Signor Leonato of the matter. And masters, do not forget to specify, when time and place shall serve, that I am an ass.

VERGES Here, here comes Master Signor Leonato, and the Sexton, too.

Enter Leonato, Antonio his brother, and the Sexton

LEONATO

Which is the villain? Let me see his eyes,

That when I note another man like him

I may avoid him. Which of these is he?

BORACHIO

If you would know your wronger, look on me.

LEONATO

Art thou the slave that with thy breath hast killed

Mine innocent child?

BORACHIO Yea, even I alone.

LEONATO

No, 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.

CLAUDIO

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.

DON PEDRO 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.

LEONATO

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, and if your love

Can labour aught in sad invention,

Hang her an epitaph upon her tomb

And sing it to her bones, sing it tonight.

Tomorrow morning come you to my house,

And since you could not be my son-in-law,

Be yet my nephew. My brother hath a daughter,

Almost the copy of my child that’s dead,

And she alone is heir to both of us.

Give her the right you should have giv’n her cousin,

And so dies my revenge.

CLAUDIO O noble sir!

Your overkindness doth wring tears from me.

I do embrace your offer; and dispose

For henceforth of poor Claudio.

LEONATO

Tomorrow then I will expect your coming.

Tonight I take my leave. This naughty 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,

But always hath been just and virtuous

In anything that I do know by her.

DOGBERRY (to Leonato) Moreover, sir, which indeed 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. And also the watch heard them talk of one Deformed. They say he wears a key in his ear and a lock hanging by it, and borrows money in God’s name, the which he hath used so long and never paid that now men grow hard-hearted and will lend nothing for God’s sake. Pray you examine him upon that point.

LEONATO

I thank thee for thy care and honest pains.

DOGBERRY Your worship speaks like a most thankful and reverend youth, and I praise God for you.

LEONATO (giving him money) There’s for thy pains.

DOGBERRY God save the foundation.

LEONATO Go. I discharge thee of thy prisoner, and I thank thee.

DOGBERRY I leave an arrant knave with your worship, which I beseech your worship 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. Come, neighbour.

Exeunt Dogberry and Verges

LEONATO

Until tomorrow morning, lords, farewell.

ANTONIO

Farewell, my lords. We look for you tomorrow.

DON PEDRO

We will not fail.

CLAUDIO Tonight I’ll mourn with Hero.

LEONATO (to the Watch)

Bring you these fellows on.—We’ll talk with Margaret

How her acquaintance grew with this lewd fellow.

Exeunt

5.2 Enter Benedick and Margaret

BENEDICK Pray thee, sweet Mistress Margaret, deserve well at my hands by helping me to the speech of Beatrice.

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

BENEDICK In so high a style, Margaret, that no man living shall come over it, for in most comely truth, thou deservest it.

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

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

MARGARET And yours as blunt as the fencer’s foils, which hit but hurt not.

BENEDICK A most manly wit, Margaret, it will not hurt a woman. And so I pray thee call Beatrice. I give thee the bucklers.

MARGARET Give us the swords. We have bucklers of our own.

BENEDICK If you use them, Margaret, you must put in the pikes with a vice—and they are dangerous weapons for maids.

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

BENEDICK And therefore will come.

(Sings)

The god of love

That sits above,

And knows me, and knows me,

How pitiful I deserve—

I mean in singing; but in loving, Leander the good

swimmer, Troilus the first employer of panders, and a

whole book full of these quondam carpet-mongers

whose names yet run smoothly in the even road 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; for ‘scorn’ ‘horn’,

a hard rhyme; for ‘school’ ‘fool’, a babbling rhyme.

Very ominous endings. No, I was not born under a

rhyming planet, nor I cannot woo in festival terms.

Enter Beatrice

Sweet Beatrice, wouldst thou come when I called thee?

BEATRICE Yea, signor, and depart when you bid me.

BENEDICK O, stay but till then.

BEATRICE ‘Then’ is spoken. Fare you well now. And yet ere I go, let me go with that I came for, which is with knowing what hath passed between you and Claudio.

BENEDICK Only foul words, and thereupon I will kiss thee.

BEATRICE Foul words is but foul wind, and foul wind is but foul breath, and foul breath is noisome, therefore I will depart unkissed.

BENEDICK Thou hast frighted the word out of his right sense, so forcible is thy wit. But I must tell thee plainly, Claudio undergoes my challenge, and either I must shortly hear from him or I will subscribe him a coward. And I pray thee now tell me, for which of my bad parts didst thou first fall in love with me?

BEATRICE For them all together, which maintain so politic a state of evil that they will not admit any good part to intermingle with them. But for which of my good parts did you first suffer love for me?

BENEDICK Suffer love—a good epithet. I do suffer love indeed, for I love thee against my will.

BEATRICE 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.

BENEDICK Thou and I are too wise to woo peaceably.

BEATRICE It appears not in this confession. There’s not one wise man among twenty that will praise himself.

BENEDICK An old, an old instance, Beatrice, that lived in the time of good neighbours. If a man do not erect in this age his own tomb ere he dies, he shall live no longer in monument than the bell rings and the widow weeps.

BEATRICE And how long is that, think you?

BENEDICK Question—why, an hour in clamour and a quarter in rheum. Therefore is it most expedient for the wise, if Don Worm—his conscience—find no impediment to the contrary, to be the trumpet of his own virtues, as I am to myself. So much for praising myself who, I myself will bear witness, is praiseworthy. And now tell me, how doth your cousin?

BEATRICE Very ill.

BENEDICK And how do you?

BEATRICE Very ill too.

BENEDICK Serve God, love me, and mend. There will I leave you too, for here comes one in haste.

Enter Ursula

URSULA 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?

BEATRICE Will you go hear this news, signor?

BENEDICK I will live in thy heart, die in thy lap, and be buried in thy eyes. And moreover, I will go with thee to thy uncle’s. Exeunt

5.3 Enter Claudio, Don Pedro the Prince, and three or four with tapers, all in black

CLAUDIO

Is this the monument of Leonato?

A LORD

It is, my lord.

⌈CLAUDIO (reading from a scroll)⌉

Done to death by slanderous tongues

Was the Hero that here lies.

Death in guerdon of her wrongs

Gives her fame which never dies.

So the life that died with shame

Lives in death with glorious fame.

He hangs the epitaph on the tomb

Hang thou there upon the tomb,

Praising her when I am dumb.

Now music sound, and sing your solemn hymn.

Song

Pardon, goddess of the night,

Those that slew thy virgin knight,

For the which with songs of woe

Round about her tomb they go.

Midnight, assist our moan,

Help us to sigh and groan,

Heavily, heavily.

Graves yawn, and yield your dead

Till death be utterèd,

Heavily, heavily.

⌈CLAUDIO⌉

Now, unto thy bones good night.

Yearly will I do this rite.

DON PEDRO

Good morrow, masters, put your torches out.

The wolves have preyed, and look, the gentle day

Before the wheels of Phoebus round about

Dapples the drowsy east with spots of grey.

Thanks to you all, and leave us. Fare you well.

CLAUDIO

Good morrow, masters. Each his several way.

DON PEDRO

Come, let us hence, and put on other weeds,

And then to Leonato’s we will go.

CLAUDIO

And Hymen now with luckier issue speed ’s

Than this for whom we rendered up this woe.

Exeunt