Brick Shakespeare: The Comedies—A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Tempest, Much Ado About Nothing, and The Taming of the Shrew (73 page)

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

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 villany 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

Runs not this speech like iron through your blood?

CLAUDIO

I have drunk poison whiles he utter’d it.

DON PEDRO

But did my brother set thee on to this?

BORACHIO

Yea, and paid me richly for the practise of it.

DON PEDRO

He is composed and framed of treachery:

And fled he is upon this villany.

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 Signior 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 Signior Leonato, and the

Sexton too.

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 kill’d

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 sinn’d 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;

LEONATO (cont.)

and if your love

Can labour ought in sad invention,

Hang her an epitaph upon her tomb

And sing it to her bones, sing it to-night:

LEONATO (cont.)

To-morrow 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 given her cousin,

And so dies my revenge.

CLAUDIO

O noble sir,

Your over-kindness doth wring tears from me!

I do embrace your offer; and dispose

For henceforth of poor Claudio.

LEONATO

To-morrow then I will expect your coming;

To-night I take my leave. This naughty man

Shall face to face be brought to Margaret,

Who I believe was pack’d 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 any thing that I do know by her.

DOGBERRY

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 be 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.