Authors: John McCann,Monica Sweeney,Becky Thomas
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 every one 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.
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
County Claudio, when mean you to go to church?
CLAUDIO
To-morrow, 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.