 Act 5. Scene 1. Before Leonato's house. Enter Leonato and Antonio. If you go on thus, you will kill yourself. It is not wisdom, thus, to second-greep against yourself. Hi, Prady. Seaside Council, which falls into mine ears as prophetessless as water in the sieve. Give not me, Council, nor let no comfort or 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 so overwhelmed like mine, and bid him speak to me 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 liniment, branch, shape, and form. If such a one will smile and stroke his beard, bits are a wag cry him 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 perceptual medicine to rage, better 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 ring 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. There in do men from children nothing differ. 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 writt this style of gods, and made a push at chance and sufferance. Yet bend not all the harm upon yourselves. Make those that to offend you suffer, too. There thou speakest reason. Nay, I will do so. My soul doth tell me hero is valide, and that shall Claudio know, so shall the Prince and all of them that thus dishonor her. Here comes the Prince and Claudio hastily. Enter Don Pedro and Claudio. Good den, good den. Good day to both of you. Hear you, my lords. We have some haste, Leonardo. Some haste, my lord. Well, fare you well, my lord. Are you so hasty now? Well, all is one. Nay, do not quarrel with us, good old man. If he could write himself with quarrelling, some of us would lie, though. Who wrongs him? Mary, thou dost wrong me, thou dissembler thou. Nay, never lay thy hand upon thy sword. I fear thee not. Mary, bestrew my hand. If it should give your age such cause of fear. In faith, my hand meant nothing to my sword. Touch, touch, man. Never fleer and jest at me. I speak not like a daughter nor a fool, as under privilege of age to brag what I have done being young, or what would do were I not old. No, Claudio, to thy head, thou hast so wronged my innocent child, and me, that I am forced to lay my reverence by, and with gray hairs and bruise of many days, do challenge thee to trial of a man. I say, thou hast relied my innocent child. Thy slander have gone through and through her heart, and she lied buried with her ancestors. Oh, in a tomb where never scandals slept, save this of her is framed by thy villainy. My villainy? Dine, Claudio, thine, I say. You say not right, old man. 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 lusty hood. Away, I will not have to do with you. Can't thou so daft me? Thou hast killed my child. If thou killedst me, boy, thou shalt kill a man. 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 pointing fence, nay, as I'm a gentleman, I will. Brother! Content yourself? God knows I love Mindy's, and she is dead. Slander to death by villains that dare as well as answer a man indeed, as I dare take a serpent by the tongue. Boys, apes, braggots, jacks, milk sops. Brother Antony! Hold your content. What man? I know them, ye, and what they weigh, even to the utmost scruple. Scambling, out-facing, fashion-monging boys that lie and cog and flout, deprave and slander, go antiquely, show outward hideousness, and speak of half a dozen dangerous words, how they might hurt their enemies if they durst. And this is all. But, Brother Antony! Come, tis no matter. Do not you meddle. Let me deal in this. Gentlemen both, we will not wake your patience. My heart is sorry for your daughter's death, but on my honor, she was charged with nothing but what was true and very full of proof. I will not hear you. No? Come, brother, away. I will be heard. And shall, or some of us will smart for it. Exiant Leonato and Antonio. Enter Benedict. C.C. Here comes the man we went to seek. Now, senor, what news? Good day, my lord. Welcome, senor. You are almost come to part almost affray. We had liked to have had our two noses snapped off with two old men without teeth. Leonato and his brother. What thinks thou? Had we fought, I doubt we should have been too young for them. In a false quarrel there is no true valor. I came to seek you both. We have been up and down to seek thee, for we are high-proof melancholy, and went faint of it beaten away. Wilt thou use thy wit? It is in my scabbard shall I draw it. Does thou wear thy wit by thy side? 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. As I am an honest man, he looks pale. Art thou sick or angry? What courage, man! What though care killed a cat? Thou was metal enough in thee to kill care? Sir, I shall meet your wit in the career, and you charge it against me. I pray you choose another subject. Nay, then. Give him another staff. This last was broke cross. By this light he changes more and more. I think he be angry indeed. If he be, he knows how to turn his girdle. Shall I speak a word in your ear? God bless me from a challenge. Aside to Claudio. 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. Well, I will meet you, so I may have good cheer. What? A feast? A feast? I faith, I thank him. He hath bid me to a calf's head and a capon. The witch, if I do not carve most curiously, say my nice knot. Shall I not find a woodcock, too? Sir, your wit ambles well. It goes easily. I'll tell thee how Beatrice praised thy wit the other day. I said thou hadst the fine wit. True, she says, a fine little one. No, said I, a great wit. Right, said 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 foreswore on Tuesday morning. There is a double tongue, there is two tongues. Thus did she an hour together transhape thy particular virtues. Yet at last she concluded with a sigh, thou was the properest man in Italy. For the wit she wept heartily, and said she cared not. Yea, that she did. But yet, for all that, and if she did not hate him deadly, she would love him dearly. The old man's daughter told us all. All, all, and moreover, God saw him when he was hid in the garden. But when shall we set the savage bull's horns on the sensible Benedict's head? Yea, in text underneath. Here dwells Benedict, the married man. Fare you well, boy. You know my mind. I will leave you now to your gossip-like humor. You break jests as braggarts do their blades, which God be thanked, hurt not. 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 lack-beard there, he and I shall meet. Until then, peace be with him. Exit. He is an earnest. In most profound earnest, and I'll warrant you for the love of Beatrice. And hath challenged thee? Most sincerely. What a pretty thing man is when he goes in his doublet and hose, and leaves off his wit. He isn't a giant to an ape, but then is an ape adopted to such men. But, soft you, let me be. Pluck up my heart and be sad. Did he not say my brother was fled? Enter, dog-berry, verges, and the watch, with Conrad and Boraccio. Come, you sir, if justice cannot tame you, she shall nare way more reasons in her balance, nay, and you be a cursing hypocrite once you must be looked to. How now? Two of my brother's men bound Boraccio won. How come after their offence, my lord? Officers, what offence have these men done? Uh, Mary, 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 naves. 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. Rightly reasoned, and in his own diversion. And, by my trough, there's one meaning well-suited. 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? Sweet Prince, let me go no further to my 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. Runs not this speech like iron through your blood? I have drunk poison whilst he uttered it. But did my brother set thee on to this? Yea, and paid me richly for the practice of it. He is composed and framed of treachery, and fled he is upon this villainy. Sweet Hero, now my image doth appear in the rare semblance that I loved it first. Come, bring away the plaintiffs by this time our sexton hath reformed Signor Leonardo of the matter. And masters do not forget to specify when time and place shall serve that I am an ass. Here, here comes Master Signor Leonardo and the sexton too. Re-enter Leonardo, Antonio, and the sexton. 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? If you would know your wronger, look on me. Art thou the slave that with thy breast has killed my innocent child? Yea, even I alone. No, not so, villain, thou beliesst thyself. Here stand a pair of honorable men, a third is fled that had a hand in it. I thank you, princes, for my daughter's death, recorded with your high and worthy deeds, to as bravely done if you but think you of it. I know not how to pray your patience, yet I must speak. Choose your avenge yourself, impose me to what penance your invention can lay upon my sin. Yet sin dine not, but a mistaking. Buy my soul, nor I, and yet to satisfy this good old man I would bin under any heavy weight that he'll enjoin me to. 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 labor ought in sad invention, hang her in 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 it my nephew. My brother hath a daughter, almost a 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. Oh noble sir, you're of a kindness doth ring tears from me. I do embrace your offer, and dispose for henceforth of poor Claudio. 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. 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, and anything that I do know by her. 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. I thank thee for thy care and honest pains. Your worship speaks like a most thankful and reverent youth, and I praise God for you. There's for thy pains. God save the foundation. Go, I discharge thee of thy prisoner, and I thank thee. I leave an errant 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, neighbor. Exeunt, dogberry, and verges. Until tomorrow morning, lords, farewell. We will not fail. Tonight I'll mourn with hero. Exeunt, Don Pedro, and Claudio. To the watch. Bring you these fellows on. We'll talk with Margaret how her acquaintance grew with this lewd fellow. Exeunt. Scene two. Leonardo's garden. Enter Benedict and Margaret. Meeting. Pray thee, sweet mistress Margaret. Deserve well at my hands by helping me to the speech of Beatrice. Will you then write me a sonnet in praise of my beauty? In so high a style, Margaret, that no man living shall come over it. For in most calmly truth thou deservest it. To have no man come over me. Why shall I always keep below stairs? Thy wit is as quick as the greyhound's mouth. It catches. And yours as blunt as the fencer's foils, which hit, but hurt not. Oh, a most manly wit, Margaret. It will not hurt a woman. And so I pray thee, Carl Beatrice. I give thee the bucklers. Give us the swords. We have bucklers of our own. If you use them, Margaret, you must put in the pikes with a vise, and they are dangerous weapons for maids. Well, I will call Beatrice to you, who I think half legs. And therefore will come. Exit Margaret. 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, Troyless the first employer of panders, and a whole book full of those quandam 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. Mary, 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, what's thou come when I called thee? Yea, senor, and depart when you bid me. Oh, stay but till then. 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. Only foul words, and thereupon I will kiss thee. Foul words is but foul wind, and foul wind is but foul breath, and foul breath is noisome. Therefore I will depart unkissed. Thou hast frighted the word out of his right sense, so forcible as 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? For them all together, which maintain so politic a state of evil, that they will not admit any good part into mingle with them. But for which of my good parts didst thou first suffer love for me? Suffer love, a good epithet. I do suffer love indeed, for I love thee against my will. 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. Thou and I are too wise to woo peaceably. It appears not in this confession. There's not one wise man among twenty that will praise himself. An old and old instance, Beatrice, that lived in the time of good neighbors. 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. And how long is that, thank you? Question. Why an hour in clamour and a quarter in room? 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? Very ill. And how do you? Very ill too. Serve God, love me, and mend. There will I leave you two, for here comes one in haste. Enter 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? Will you go hear this news, Signor? 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 uncles. Exeant. Scene three. The inside of a church. Enter Don Pedro, Claudio, and attendance, with music and tapers. Is this the monument of Leonardo? It is, my lord. Read from a scroll. Done to death by slanderous tongues, was the hero that lies here. Death, in girdon of her wrongs, gives her fame which never dies. So the life that died was shame, lives in death with glorious fame. Hang thou there upon the tomb, praising her when I am dumb. Now music, sound, and sing your solemn hymn. Harden goddess of the night, those that slew thy virgin night, from the witch 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 uttered, heavily, heavily. Now, until thy bones good night, yearly will I do this right. Good morrow, masters, put your torches out. The wolves have prayed, and look the gentle day before the wheels of Phoebus, round about dapples the drowsy east with spots of gray. Thanks to you all and leave us, very you well. Good morrow, masters, each is several way. Come, let us hence and put on other weeds, and then to Leonardo's we will go. And hymn now with luckier issue speed, than this for whom we rendered up this woe. Exient. Scene four. A room in Leonardo's house. Enter, Leonardo, Antonio, Benedict, Beatrice, Margaret, Ursula, Friar Francis, and Hero. Did I not tell you she was innocent? So are the Prince and Claudio, who accused her upon the error that you heard, debated. But Margaret was in some fault for this, as it appears in the true course of all the question. Well, I am glad that all things sort so well. And so am I, being else by faith and forced to call young Claudio to a reckoning for it. Well, daughter, and you, gentlewoman all, withdraw into a chamber by yourselves, and when I sent for you, come hither masked. The Prince and Claudio promised by this hour to visit me. Exient, ladies. You know your office, brother. You must be father to your brother's daughter, and give her to young Claudio. Which I do with confirmed countenance. Friar, I must entreat your pains, I think. To do what, senior? To bind me, or undo me, one of them. Senior Leonato, truth it is, good senior, your niece regards me with an eye of favour. That eye my daughter lent her, tis most true. And I do with an eye of love requite her. The sight whereof I think you had from me, from Claudio, and the Prince. But what's your will? Your answer, sir, is enigmatical. But for my will, my will is your good will, may stand with ours, this day to be conjoined in the state of honourable marriage, in which, good friar, I shall desire your help. My heart is with your liking. And my help. Here comes the Prince and Claudio. Enter Don Pedro and Claudio with attendance. Good morrow to this fair assembly. Good morrow, Prince. Good morrow, Claudio. We here attend you. Are you yet determined today to marry with my brother's daughter? I'll hold my mind. Were she in Ethiopia? Call her forth, brother. Here's the friar ready. Exit Antonio. Good morrow, Benedict. Why, what's the matter that you have such a February face, so full of frost, of storm and cloudiness? I think he thinks upon the savage bull. Tush, fair nutman. Bull-tip thy horns with gold. And all Europa shall rejoice at thee, as once Europa did at Lusty Jove, when he would play the noble beast in love. Bull-jove, sir, had an amiable low, and some such strange bull leaped your father's cow, and got a calf in that same noble feet, much like to you, for you have just his bleat. For this I owe you. Here comes other reckonings. Re-enter Antonio with the ladies masked. Which is the lady I must seize upon? Why, then, she's mine. Sweet, let me see your face. No, that you shall not till you take her hand before this friar and swear to marry her. Give me your hand. Before this holy friar I am your husband, if you like of me. And when I lived, I was your other wife. Unmasking. And when you loved, you were my other husband. Another hero. Nothing's certainer. One hero died defiled, but I do live, and surely as I live, I am a maid. The former hero? Hero that is dead? She died, my lord, but while her slander lived. All this amazement can I qualify, when after that the holy rites are ended, I'll tell you largely of fair hero's death. Meanwhile, let wonder seem familiar, and to the chapel let us presently. The soft and fair, friar? Which is Beatrice? Unmasking. I answer to that name. What is your will? Do not you love me? Why, no, no more than reason. Why, then, your uncle and the prince and Claudio have been deceived, for they swore you did. Do not you love me? Truth, no, no more than reason. Why, then, my cousin Margaret and Ursula are well deceived, for they did swear that you did. They swore that you were almost sick for me. They swore that you were well-nigh dead for me. It is no such matter. Then you do not love me. No truly, but in friendly recompense. Come, cousin, I am sure you love the gentleman. And I'll be sworn upon it that he loves her. For here's a paper written in his hand, a halting sonnet of his own pure brain, fashioned to Beatrice. And here's another, written my cousin's hand, stolen from her pocket, containing her affection unto Benedict. Come, miracle, here's our own hands against our hearts. Come, I will have thee. But by this light I take thee for pity. I would not deny you, but by this good day, I yield upon great persuasion, and partly to save your life, for I was told you're in a consumption. Peace! I will stop your mouth. Kisses her. I'll tell thee what, Prince? A college of wit-crackers cannot flout me out of my humour. Does thou think I care for a satire or an epigram? No. If man will be beaten with brains, I shall wear nothing handsome about him. In brief, since I do purpose to marry, I will think nothing to any purpose that the world can say against it, and therefore never flout at me for what I have said against it. For man is a giddy thing, and this is my conclusion. For thy part, Claudio, I did think to have beaten thee, but in that thou art like to be my kinsmen, live unbrewed, and love my cousin. I had well hoped thou wouldst have denied, Beatrice, that I might have cudgled thee out of thy single life, to make thee a double-dealer, which, out of question, thou wilt be, if my cousin do not look exceedingly narrowly to thee. Come, come, we are friends. Let's have a dance ere we are married, though we may lighten our own hearts and our wives' heels. We'll have dancing afterward. First of my word, therefore play, music! Prince, thou art sad. Get thee a wife. Get thee a wife! There is no staff more reverent than one tipped with horn. Enter messenger. My lord, your brother John is tain in flight, and brought with armed men back to Messina. Think not on him till to-morrow. I'll devise the brave punishments for him. Strike up, pipers! Dance, exeant. End of Act Five. End of Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare.