Enter, with a Drum, Prince Pedro, Claudio, and Benedick, Signior Antonio, and Balthasar, all in masks, with Borachio and Don John.
PRINCE, to Hero Lady, will you walk a bout with your friend?They begin to dance.
HERO So you walk softly, and look sweetly, and say nothing, I am yours for the walk, and especially when I walk away.
PRINCE With me in your company?
HERO I may say so when I please.
PRINCE And when please you to say so?
HERO When I like your favor, for God defend the lute should be like the case.
PRINCE My visor is Philemon’s roof; within the house is Jove.
HERO Why, then, your visor should be thatched.
PRINCE Speak low if you speak love.
They move aside; Benedick and Margaret move forward.
BENEDICK, to Margaret Well, I would you did like me.
MARGARET So would not I for your own sake, for I have many ill qualities.
BENEDICK Which is one?
MARGARET I say my prayers aloud.
BENEDICK I love you the better; the hearers may cry “Amen.”
MARGARET God match me with a good dancer.
They separate; Benedick moves aside; Balthasar moves forward.
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.
They move aside; Ursula and Antonio move forward.
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.
They move aside; Benedick and Beatrice move forward.
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 for the dance. 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 exit all except Don John, Borachio, and Claudio.
DON JOHN, to Borachio 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, to Claudio Are not you Signior Benedick?
CLAUDIO You know me well. I am he.
DON JOHN Signior, you are very near my brother in his love. He is enamored 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.
They exit. Claudio remains.
CLAUDIO, unmasking Thus answer I in name of Benedick, But hear these ill news with the ears of Claudio. ’Tis certain so. The Prince woos 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.
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, county. What fashion will you wear the garland of? About your neck like an 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 drover; 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.
He exits.
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.
Enter the Prince, Hero, and Leonato.
PRINCE 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 goodwill 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.
PRINCE To be whipped? What’s his fault?
BENEDICK The flat transgression of a schoolboy who, being overjoyed with finding a bird’s nest, shows it his companion, and he steals it.
PRINCE 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.
PRINCE 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.
PRINCE 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 follows her.
Enter Claudio and Beatrice.
PRINCE 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?
PRINCE None but to desire your good company.
BENEDICK O God, sir, here’s a dish I love not! I cannot endure my Lady Tongue.
He exits.

Enter, with a Drum, Prince Pedro, Claudio, and Benedick, and the boy, all in masks, with Borachio and Don John.
DON PEDRO, to Hero Lady, will you walk a bout with your friend?
They begin to dance.
MARGARET God match me with a good dancer.
They separate; Benedick moves aside; Borachio moves forward.
BORACHIO Amen.
They move aside; Ursula and Boy move forward.
URSULA I know you well enough. You are Signior Antonio.
BOY At a word, I am not.
They move aside; Benedick and Beatrice move forward.
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 for the dance. 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 exit all except Don John, Borachio, and Claudio.
DON JOHN, to Borachio 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, to Claudio Are not you Signior Benedick?
CLAUDIO You know me well. I am he.
DON JOHN Signior, you are very near my brother in his love. He is enamored 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.
They exit. Claudio remains.
CLAUDIO, unmasking Thus answer I in name of Benedick, But hear these ill news with the ears of Claudio. ’Tis certain so. The Prince woos 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.
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, county. What fashion will you wear the garland of? About your neck like an 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 drover; 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.
He exits.
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.
Enter the Prince, Hero, and Leonato. Enter Claudio and Beatrice.
BENEDICK O God, sir, here’s a dish I love not! I cannot endure my Lady Tongue.
He exits.