Search the Community

Congratulations to Alfouine for determining the extraction point of CONTROL's top agents. Your hard work is much appreciated. You have been declared CONTROL's #4 Agent! The Chief would like to again thank Agent 72, CONTROL's #3 Agent for all his work in decoding the secret message from Max and 99. Outstanding job! For everyone else, here is the solution: Max and 99's profile; News Articles Posted. Use first letter of waymark title. Code uses what3words (geocaching toolbox can help) This is a secret message from CONTROL's top agents Max and Ninety Nine. KAOS is close. Tell the Chief we need extraction from Frogs Brain Water. End of message. Toyota accidentally hits bridal shop - OKC, OK Hearing aid company closes, owing customers money - OKC, OK In-crisis youth have safe place to ask for help with community partners - OKC, OK Seniors served by Mobile Meals - Edmond, OK In-and-Out Burger receives Excellent rating from health inspection - Tucson, AZ State google design finalist at Carl Albert Middle School - MWC, OK Angry Crab has new owner - Tucson, AZ Sheriff announces Logan County a 2nd Amendment Sanctuary County - Guthrie, OK Emergency childcare offered by YMCA to health care workers and first responders - Edmond, OK Christian Heritage Academy has a superfan! - Del City, OK Relatives fight to bury loved one at Ft. Lowell Cemetery - Tucson, AZ El Reno Cemetery graves damaged - El Reno, OK. Tiger Time helps students get ready for learning - OKC, OK Midwest City to temporarily close Senior Center to protect against Coronavirus - MWC, OK EPS provides free meals to kids during closure - Edmond, OK Spanish teacher at Carl Albert High School named teacher of the Month - Midwest City, OK Signs outside churches display different views on guns - OKC, OK Animal welfare accused of poor treatment of a dog in their care - OKC, OK Greek restaurant the target of theft - OKC, OK Everyone asked to leave 21c Museum Hotel for cleaning - OKC, OK Finance taught at Apollo Elementary - Bethany, OK Restaurants brace for economic impact of Coronavirus - OKC, OK OKC church holds college and career fair - OKC, OK Maker's Mark dinner raises money for The Center of Family Love - OKC, OK College counselor allegedly gave AP tests early - OKC, OK Old Paris Flea Market the site of a drive-by shooting - OKC, OK No one injured in car fire at On Cue - OKC, OK Thousands of dollars of product stolen from dispensary - Bethany, OK Restaurants you can support with takeout during the pandemic - Edmond, OK OKC Police talk man down from cell tower - OKC, OK Loved Bishop Moreno buried at Holy Hope Cemetery - Tucson, AZ Sale of GFF Foods in Moore - Moore, OK The story behind Goldie the Robot - Tuscaloosa, AL One dead at SW OKC gun range - OKC, OK Piedmont girl asks for donations to hospital instead of birthday gifts - Bethany, OK All SWOSU classes to be held online - Weatherford, OK Group voices concerns over 5G technology - OKC, OK Elementary students who will run to remember receive a gift - OKC, OK New medical treatment helps woman with breast cancer illness - OKC, OK Truck and chains used in attempted theft of ATM - OKC, OK Soldier surprises daughter at Mustang school - Mustang, OK Medical Center needs volunteers to sew face masks - Stillwater, OK A Kerr Middle teacher is back in the classroom after using a racial slur - Del City, OK Xrays and other non emergency imaging postponed at Mercy Clinics - OKC, OK Authorities need help identifying man who stole from a metro pharmacy - OKC, OK New indoor play area in OKC - Oklahoma City, OK DHS urging daycares to remain open - OKC, OK No membership fees at Spontaneity Kid Care for First Responders - OKC, OK Investigators need help identifying suspect in credit union robbery - OKC, OK Nature Center at Martin Park and OKC Rec Centers to close during pandemic - OKC, OK Employees of Love's getting raises and bonuses - OKC, OK Those who served honored at Dorset Memory Care - OKC, OK Youth offered free day camp during teacher walkout - Edmond, OK New carpet and renovation for Woods Memorial Library - Tucson, AZ Investigation into Dove Charter Schools - OKC, OK News 9 practicing social distancing - OKC, OK Exercise workouts offered online amid Coronavirus - Edmond, OK KOCO names Coyle math teacher "Teacher of the Month" - Coyle, OK Alleged fight over parking spot leads to shooting - OKC, OK Oro Valley Library now county run - Oro Valley, AZ Sioux City man is riding a new Harley around town - Sioux City, IA Importance of new Sunday liquor sales discussed - Moore, OK Stop signs near James L. Dennis Elementary to stay - OKC, OK Covid-19 testing could be expanded by private labs - OKC, OK Large fire at Fox Building Supply - OKC, OK OKC Memorial Marathon date change affects runners - Edmond, OK Shots fired at Buy for Less - OKC, OK Eight city manager of Bethany in three years to resign - Bethany, OK Teacher at Wellston School arrested - Wellston, OK Employee who was fired threatens nursing home - OKC, OK Loaded gun stolen from a customer's car - OKC, OK Last Frontier Council won't be affected by BSA bankruptcy filing - OKC, OK The Lodge at Brookline implementing sanitization stations for visitors - OKC, OK Himalayan restaurant to open - Stillwater, OK Employee refuses to speak native language so customer ransacks store - OKC, OK Crossings Community Church to close campuses amid coronavirus - OKC, OK Homes destroyed by Langston fire - Langston, OK Impersonating a cop at Tumbleweed gets man arrested - Stillwater, OK Early morning discovery of body at ULM - Monroe, Louisiana Fire at Summerfield Apartments - OKC, OK Washing facilities lacking at Putnam City High School - OKC, OK Earlywine parents receive email about possible exposure to coronavirus - Moore, OK No plans to close, says University of Alabama - Tuscaloosa, AL Education a focus at Lost Creek Safari - Stillwater, OK EMT dies from injuries received in motorcycle accident - OKC, OK Del Taco coming to Stillwater - Stillwater, OK Edmond school board approved Heritage expansion - Edmond, OK Xeriscape Garden created at Edmond park - Edmond, OK Tulsa University moves to online classes - Tulsa, OK Red Dog Saloon bouncer is stabbed - OKC, OK A stabbing victim was dumped at Guthrie Hospital - Guthrie, OK Coronavirus concerns has local pharmacies out of supplies - OKC, OK Thelma Parks Elementary students show their Black History Month projects - OKC, OK Igloo dining experience available at Dominion House - Guthrie, OK Oklahoma City Blvd. causing confusion for drivers - OKC, OK National championship earned by Southmoore Pom - Moore, OK Families of homicide victims applaud decision to resume executions - OKC, OK Robbery at Metro Family Dollar - OKC, OK Oldest Catholic School in Oklahoma might be closing - Guthrie, OK Major developments coming to the downtown area - Edmond, OK Freak accident takes the life of a Lexington student - Lexington, OK Recruiter for OC fired after activity at Harding Charter Preparatory High School - OKC, OK Officer of school PTA investigated - Norman, OK Gas powered saw used to break into Best Buy - Moore, OK School Principal leaving after 17 years at Jackson Elementary - Norman, OK Bill would allow the state to withhold funds from cities that don't follow federal immigration laws - Norman, OK Residents frustrated by Paycom traffic - OKC, OK Artwork installed at Little River Park - Moore, OK Instruments donated to OKC Middle School - OKC, OK NASA's Name the Rover contest finalist at Norman High School - Norman, OK Water tank repainting to cause temporary lane closure at Baumann and Ayers - Edmond, OK Alfredo's hosts fundraiser for Autism - Moore, OK There are many Little Free Libraries in Tucson! - Tucson, AZ Employee at Crest Foods wins over customers with his smile - Norman, OK Restaurant VZD to host Dr. Jill Biden's campaign stop for Joe Biden - OKC, OK Employees at Church's Chicken robbed at gunpoint - OKC, OK Norman Library uses brigade to transfer books - Norman, OK Drivers be aware of resurfacing on Lexington Bridge - Lexington, OK Oklahoma's Tulsa Race Massacre history to be presented at Downtown Library - OKC, OK First Field Office for Pete for America to open in OKC - Oklahoma City, OK Michael Bloomberg to hold campaign event in OKC - Oklahoma City, OK Elizabeth Warren supporter Ashley Judd holds a meet-and-greet at Classen Coffee Co. - OKC, OK School next to 5G Cell Tower raises concerns - Edmond, OK Scratch Kitchen asks customers to not open carry - Norman, OK Artist creates mural to honor Kobe Bryant - OKC, OK Get a Kolby Donut at Hurts Donut - OKC, OK Evergreen Cemetery holds annual memorial service for the homeless - Tucson, AZ

A lot of talk about what people keep in their bags, but what is your bag? What to you makes a good bag for geocaching gear?

I don't judge COs for their reasons for planting a cache. Object if the cache is low quality, sure, but don't complain just because the CO's motives aren't pure enough for you. But, above all, talk to the CO. That will be much more fruitful in many ways than talking about it here.

Well put. The terrain rating can mean whether someone takes an unnecessary risk or avoids the unnecessary risk, so it's important that the terrain is rated as accurately as possible. Some people get bogged down in arguing what does half a star matter. Exactly what does half a star mean, or on some lower rated caches even sometimes a star. If in doubt, rate it higher. In lower rated caches it can be subjective. But when the terrain gets to risky levels, it needs to be as accurate as possible. Not long ago I faced one of those ledge problems you mentioned below a cliff. This one marked rather low at only 2T. Alone as I was, it would have been possible suicide to try to lie down and lean over and reach it that way, if I could even reach it, as there was a high chance of me slipping off head first. From below, after getting down a steep (but doable) incline though scratchy bushes it was way beyond my reach. Fortunately for me (not the logs) the cache was temporally in a plastic bag as someone had nicked the cache container, and I was able to hook it down with a long stick. If it had been in its original ammunition tin I'm not sure how I would have been able to get it down. Likely not. It took two visits to find this cache, but it was a 2001 cache, so that increased my determination, as it is increasing many other people's determination. My logs. I attempted this twice. Didn't find it I really wanted to find this one. My first approach came to a place which I knew I could get down, but wasn't sure I could get up again. I was about to give up then, but I wandered on a bit further (I really wanted this one) and found a way I could get up as well as down. Then I searched on several levels, but frustratingly couldn't find it. I was also late for dinner, so I had to leave. (And I did arrive late for dinner.) I hope to get another opportunity to search here. DNF . Found it I returned to have another attempt at finding this old cache, and found it this attempt . But wow, hard work. I would rate this 3.5T, maybe even 4T. Definitely NOT a mere 2T. There is also the scramble about trying to find the cache that adds to the difficulty. I brought a stool to stand on, but ended up only using it to peer into the wrong ledges and holes, with my hand above me holding a mirror to look in those spaces. Finally I spotted the cache from above, but being by myself I would not attempt to retrieve it from there. I returned back below down the slope through scratchy bushes and I heaved myself onto a wet ledge giving me a wet behind and managed to retrieve the cache with a stick. I threw it back. Some very tall people apparently can reach (but would need to be extremely tall), but I'm only about average height. Sadly, someone has stolen the cache and left the log books in no more than a ripped plastic bag. One log in particular is very wet. I removed soaked leaflets and junk and took them away to dispose of. I supplied the only plastic bag I had with me. It doesn't seal though..... .....So pleased to change that to . The log following mine I thought a great log. It also demonstrates that people do judge a cache and what to expect on the rating given. Found it The closer you get to completing a challenge, the more determined you become in not only seeking out qualifiers but also the efforts you go to find them. Only recently realising this oldie was close-ish and a reasonable D/T, made the 80km roundtrip detour on my way home from a family function over the weekend to tick off my third last Ausmer month (or 7th last Jasmer). The walk from car to GZ matched the D/T expectations but the last few metres was where the “fun/insanity” of doing this solo kicked in. Had overheard a friend talk about “coming from the top/bottom” but only realised once onsite I was going to struggle with either option. Even with thunder now growing louder in the valley, I was determined not to leave without a find and cautiously positioned myself to confirm a likely spot with a mirror. Apparently the missing container was replaced the following day but today luck was on my side as the log books were still currently in a double zip lock bag and the Macgyver in me, worked out a way of hooking a stick into a torn section and gently manoeuvring them to within reach. Signing duties completed, I carefully balanced prostrate in the mud and loose leaf litter once more (following torrential rain last week) and returned the bagged logbooks to their shelter (and without the TBs I’d intended to drop). Caught my breath, checked for leeches, assessed scratches then made my way back to the car to wipe myself down, even considering changing clothes, just as the rain started to teem down. Again, timing was everything!

Start in the Help section, lots of info there. Talk about Types of caches, Traditional, Puzzle, Multi,etc. Talk about Size. Talk about Difficulty ratings. Talk about Terrain ratings. Have examples of various containers and swag.

I have set up three Geocaches to talk about Benchmarking. I even made benchmarks for containers (you can get a better look at what I did at this cache.. Let me know if there is anything you think I should add to any of the three. I will make some more containers and plant some Benchmark UnChallenges to continue the trail along that dirt road they are on. HtBMS 1: Benchmarking Basics - KCC PBCC HtBMS 2: Benchmarking Sites & Apps - KCC PBCC HtBMS 3: Benchmarking Advanced Tips - KCC PBCC

Sure, what do you want to talk about?

If a wife or girlfriend has ever rolled her eyes when you talk about Benchmarking, you might be interested in this BBC-TV series from a few years back. It centers on a couple of quirky metal detecting hobbyists who take their activity oh so seriously as they roam the scenic countryside around their lovely village. Their search for a big treasure payday more likely turns up a modern one-pound coin or a beer can pull tab than a stash of Saxon gold, and not everyone gets their passionate involvement in detecting business. I'm finding it a refreshing change from nonstop pandemic news. Also, no one does quirky like the Brits. I've been watching on Acorn TV, but it may be available on other platforms, too. Cheers! ArtMan PS: fans of the wonderful 1960s British series The Avengers will want to know that Diana Rigg appears in some of the later shows, but not in the first season.

If you are unsure about the safety of geocachers and other traffic participants make contact to the owner and tell him (or her). It is possible that he (or she) hasn't thoguth about that and maybe will archive the cache or move it to a safer place. If the owner knows a good way to log the cache safely for everyone (!) you might ask him (or her) to write this into the listing. Perhaps adding some trailheads will help. And if the owner doesn't react at all or says "f.... u I don't care" you might log "needs archived" if you still think that it's a dangerous hide. Most geocaches will take the log (+1 point) and stay quiet. Looking away is no solution so get active! The owner is always the first person to talk to....

I was hoping that Groundspeak would talk about the Blue Switch Day souvenir in today's newsletter. But no newsletter! Edit: I just got the newsletter, almost 2 hours later than usual. Nothing new regarding the souvenir.

Well, Easter is here, and now, this thread ressurects (no pun intended). The time has come to contact all geocachers interested on participating in this research interview. Hope to talk to you all soon! Take care! Shak.

Much Ado About Nothing Shakespeare homepage | Much Ado About Nothing | Entire play ACT I SCENE I. Before LEONATO'S house. Enter LEONATO, HERO, and BEATRICE, with a Messenger LEONATO I learn in this letter that Don Peter of Arragon comes this night to Messina. Messenger He is very near by this: he was not three leagues off when I left him. LEONATO How many gentlemen have you lost in this action? Messenger But few of any sort, and none of name. LEONATO A victory is twice itself when the achiever brings home full numbers. I find here that Don Peter hath bestowed much honour on a young Florentine called Claudio. Messenger Much deserved on his part and equally remembered by Don Pedro: he hath borne himself beyond the promise of his age, doing, in the figure of a lamb, the feats of a lion: he hath indeed better bettered expectation than you must expect of me to tell you how. LEONATO He hath an uncle here in Messina will be very much glad of it. Messenger I have already delivered him letters, and there appears much joy in him; even so much that joy could not show itself modest enough without a badge of bitterness. LEONATO Did he break out into tears? Messenger In great measure. LEONATO A kind overflow of kindness: there are no faces truer than those that are so washed. How much better is it to weep at joy than to joy at weeping! BEATRICE I pray you, is Signior Mountanto returned from the wars or no? Messenger I know none of that name, lady: there was none such in the army of any sort. LEONATO What is he that you ask for, niece? HERO My cousin means Signior Benedick of Padua. Messenger O, he's returned; and as pleasant as ever he was. BEATRICE He set up his bills here in Messina and challenged Cupid at the flight; and my uncle's fool, reading the challenge, subscribed for Cupid, and challenged him at the bird-bolt. I pray you, how many hath he killed and eaten in these wars? But how many hath he killed? for indeed I promised to eat all of his killing. LEONATO Faith, niece, you tax Signior Benedick too much; but he'll be meet with you, I doubt it not. Messenger He hath done good service, lady, in these wars. BEATRICE You had musty victual, and he hath holp to eat it: he is a very valiant trencherman; he hath an excellent stomach. Messenger And a good soldier too, lady. BEATRICE And a good soldier to a lady: but what is he to a lord? Messenger A lord to a lord, a man to a man; stuffed with all honourable virtues. BEATRICE It is so, indeed; he is no less than a stuffed man: but for the stuffing,--well, we are all mortal. LEONATO You must not, sir, mistake my niece. There is a kind of merry war betwixt Signior Benedick and her: they never meet but there's a skirmish of wit between them. BEATRICE Alas! he gets nothing by that. In our last conflict four of his five wits went halting off, and now is the whole man governed with one: so that if he have wit enough to keep himself warm, let him bear it for a difference between himself and his horse; for it is all the wealth that he hath left, to be known a reasonable creature. Who is his companion now? He hath every month a new sworn brother. Messenger Is't possible? BEATRICE Very easily possible: he wears his faith but as the fashion of his hat; it ever changes with the next block. Messenger I see, lady, the gentleman is not in your books. BEATRICE No; an he were, I would burn my study. But, I pray you, who is his companion? Is there no young squarer now that will make a voyage with him to the devil? Messenger He is most in the company of the right noble Claudio. BEATRICE O Lord, he will hang upon him like a disease: he is sooner caught than the pestilence, and the taker runs presently mad. God help the noble Claudio! if he have caught the Benedick, it will cost him a thousand pound ere a' be cured. Messenger I will hold friends with you, lady. BEATRICE Do, good friend. LEONATO You will never run mad, niece. BEATRICE No, not till a hot January. Messenger Don Pedro is approached. Enter DON PEDRO, DON JOHN, CLAUDIO, BENEDICK, and BALTHASAR DON PEDRO Good Signior Leonato, you are come to meet your trouble: the fashion of the world is to avoid cost, and you encounter it. LEONATO Never came trouble to my house in the likeness of your grace: for trouble being gone, comfort should remain; but when you depart from me, sorrow abides and happiness takes his leave. DON PEDRO You embrace your charge too willingly. I think this is your daughter. LEONATO Her mother hath many times told me so. BENEDICK Were you in doubt, sir, that you asked her? LEONATO Signior Benedick, no; for then were you a child. DON PEDRO You have it full, Benedick: we may guess by this what you are, being a man. Truly, the lady fathers herself. Be happy, lady; for you are like an honourable father. BENEDICK If Signior Leonato be her father, she would not have his head on her shoulders for all Messina, as like him as she is. BEATRICE I wonder that you will still be talking, Signior Benedick: nobody marks you. BENEDICK What, my dear Lady Disdain! are you yet living? BEATRICE Is it possible disdain should die while she hath such meet food to feed it as Signior Benedick? Courtesy itself must convert to disdain, if you come in her presence. BENEDICK Then is courtesy a turncoat. But it is certain I am loved of all ladies, only you excepted: and I would I could find in my heart that I had not a hard heart; for, truly, I love none. BEATRICE A dear happiness to women: they would else have been troubled with a pernicious suitor. I thank God and my cold blood, I am of your humour for that: I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me. BENEDICK God keep your ladyship still in that mind! so some gentleman or other shall 'scape a predestinate scratched face. BEATRICE Scratching could not make it worse, an 'twere such a face as yours were. BENEDICK Well, you are a rare parrot-teacher. BEATRICE A bird of my tongue is better than a beast of yours. BENEDICK I would my horse had the speed of your tongue, and so good a continuer. But keep your way, i' God's name; I have done. BEATRICE You always end with a jade's trick: I know you of old. DON PEDRO That is the sum of all, Leonato. Signior Claudio and Signior Benedick, my dear friend Leonato hath invited you all. I tell him we shall stay here at the least a month; and he heartily prays some occasion may detain us longer. I dare swear he is no hypocrite, but prays from his heart. LEONATO If you swear, my lord, you shall not be forsworn. To DON JOHN Let me bid you welcome, my lord: being reconciled to the prince your brother, I owe you all duty. DON JOHN I thank you: I am not of many words, but I thank you. LEONATO Please it your grace lead on? DON PEDRO Your hand, Leonato; we will go together. Exeunt all except BENEDICK and CLAUDIO CLAUDIO Benedick, didst thou note the daughter of Signior Leonato? BENEDICK I noted her not; but I looked on her. CLAUDIO Is she not a modest young lady? BENEDICK Do you question me, as an honest man should do, for my simple true judgment; or would you have me speak after my custom, as being a professed tyrant to their sex? CLAUDIO No; I pray thee speak in sober judgment. BENEDICK Why, i' faith, methinks she's too low for a high praise, too brown for a fair praise and too little for a great praise: only this commendation I can afford her, that were she other than she is, she were unhandsome; and being no other but as she is, I do not like her. CLAUDIO Thou thinkest I am in sport: I pray thee tell me truly how thou likest her. BENEDICK Would you buy her, that you inquire after her? CLAUDIO Can the world buy such a jewel? BENEDICK Yea, and a case to put it into. But speak you this with a sad brow? or do you play the flouting Jack, to tell us Cupid is a good hare-finder and Vulcan a rare carpenter? Come, in what key shall a man take you, to go in the song? CLAUDIO In mine eye she is the sweetest lady that ever I looked on. BENEDICK I can see yet without spectacles and I see no such matter: there's her cousin, an she were not possessed with a fury, exceeds her as much in beauty as the first of May doth the last of December. But I hope you have no intent to turn husband, have you? CLAUDIO I would scarce trust myself, though I had sworn the contrary, if Hero would be my wife. BENEDICK Is't come to this? In faith, hath not the world one man but he will wear his cap with suspicion? Shall I never see a bachelor of three-score again? Go to, i' faith; an thou wilt needs thrust thy neck into a yoke, wear the print of it and sigh away Sundays. Look Don Pedro is returned to seek you. Re-enter DON PEDRO DON PEDRO What secret hath held you here, that you followed not to Leonato's? BENEDICK I would your grace would constrain me to tell. DON PEDRO I charge thee on thy allegiance. BENEDICK You hear, Count Claudio: I can be secret as a dumb man; I would have you think so; but, on my allegiance, mark you this, on my allegiance. He is in love. With who? now that is your grace's part. Mark how short his answer is;--With Hero, Leonato's short daughter. CLAUDIO If this were so, so were it uttered. BENEDICK Like the old tale, my lord: 'it is not so, nor 'twas not so, but, indeed, God forbid it should be so.' CLAUDIO If my passion change not shortly, God forbid it should be otherwise. DON PEDRO Amen, if you love her; for the lady is very well worthy. CLAUDIO You speak this to fetch me in, my lord. DON PEDRO By my troth, I speak my thought. CLAUDIO And, in faith, my lord, I spoke mine. BENEDICK And, by my two faiths and troths, my lord, I spoke mine. CLAUDIO That I love her, I feel. DON PEDRO That she is worthy, I know. BENEDICK That I neither feel how she should be loved nor know how she should be worthy, is the opinion that fire cannot melt out of me: I will die in it at the stake. DON PEDRO Thou wast ever an obstinate heretic in the despite of beauty. CLAUDIO And never could maintain his part but in the force of his will. BENEDICK That a woman conceived me, I thank her; that she brought me up, I likewise give her most humble thanks: but that I will have a recheat winded in my forehead, or hang my bugle in an invisible baldrick, all women shall pardon me. Because I will not do them the wrong to mistrust any, I will do myself the right to trust none; and the fine is, for the which I may go the finer, I will live a bachelor. DON PEDRO I shall see thee, ere I die, look pale with love. BENEDICK With anger, with sickness, or with hunger, my lord, not with love: prove that ever I lose more blood with love than I will get again with drinking, pick out mine eyes with a ballad-maker's pen and hang me up at the door of a brothel-house for the sign of blind Cupid. DON PEDRO Well, if ever thou dost fall from this faith, thou wilt prove a notable argument. BENEDICK If I do, hang me in a bottle like a cat and shoot at me; and he that hits me, let him be clapped on the shoulder, and called Adam. DON PEDRO Well, as time shall try: 'In time the savage bull doth bear the yoke.' BENEDICK The savage bull may; but if ever the sensible Benedick bear it, pluck off the bull's horns and set them in my forehead: and let me be vilely painted, and in such great letters as they write 'Here is good horse to hire,' let them signify under my sign 'Here you may see Benedick the married man.' CLAUDIO If this should ever happen, thou wouldst be horn-mad. DON PEDRO Nay, if Cupid have not spent all his quiver in Venice, thou wilt quake for this shortly. BENEDICK I look for an earthquake too, then. DON PEDRO Well, you temporize with the hours. In the meantime, good Signior Benedick, repair to Leonato's: commend me to him and tell him I will not fail him at supper; for indeed he hath made great preparation. BENEDICK I have almost matter enough in me for such an embassage; and so I commit you-- CLAUDIO To the tuition of God: From my house, if I had it,-- DON PEDRO The sixth of July: Your loving friend, Benedick. BENEDICK Nay, mock not, mock not. The body of your discourse is sometime guarded with fragments, and the guards are but slightly basted on neither: ere you flout old ends any further, examine your conscience: and so I leave you. Exit CLAUDIO My liege, your highness now may do me good. DON PEDRO My love is thine to teach: teach it but how, And thou shalt see how apt it is to learn Any hard lesson that may do thee good. CLAUDIO Hath Leonato any son, my lord? DON PEDRO No child but Hero; she's his only heir. Dost thou affect her, Claudio? CLAUDIO O, my lord, When you went onward on this ended action, I look'd upon her with a soldier's eye, That liked, but had a rougher task in hand Than to drive liking to the name of love: But now I am return'd and that war-thoughts Have left their places vacant, in their rooms Come thronging soft and delicate desires, All prompting me how fair young Hero is, Saying, I liked her ere I went to wars. DON PEDRO Thou wilt be like a lover presently And tire the hearer with a book of words. If thou dost love fair Hero, cherish it, And I will break with her and with her father, And thou shalt have her. Was't not to this end That thou began'st to twist so fine a story? CLAUDIO How sweetly you do minister to love, That know love's grief by his complexion! But lest my liking might too sudden seem, I would have salved it with a longer treatise. DON PEDRO What need the bridge much broader than the flood? The fairest grant is the necessity. Look, what will serve is fit: 'tis once, thou lovest, And I will fit thee with the remedy. I know we shall have revelling to-night: I will assume thy part in some disguise And tell fair Hero I am Claudio, And in her bosom I'll unclasp my heart And take her hearing prisoner with the force And strong encounter of my amorous tale: Then after to her father will I break; And the conclusion is, she shall be thine. In practise let us put it presently. Exeunt SCENE II. A room in LEONATO's house. Enter LEONATO and ANTONIO, meeting LEONATO How now, brother! Where is my cousin, your son? hath he provided this music? ANTONIO He is very busy about it. But, brother, I can tell you strange news that you yet dreamt not of. LEONATO Are they good? ANTONIO As the event stamps them: but they have a good cover; they show well outward. The prince and Count Claudio, walking in a thick-pleached alley in mine orchard, were thus much overheard by a man of mine: the prince discovered to Claudio that he loved my niece your daughter and meant to acknowledge it this night in a dance: and if he found her accordant, he meant to take the present time by the top and instantly break with you of it. LEONATO Hath the fellow any wit that told you this? ANTONIO A good sharp fellow: I will send for him; and question him yourself. LEONATO No, no; we will hold it as a dream till it appear itself: but I will acquaint my daughter withal, that she may be the better prepared for an answer, if peradventure this be true. Go you and tell her of it. Enter Attendants Cousins, you know what you have to do. O, I cry you mercy, friend; go you with me, and I will use your skill. Good cousin, have a care this busy time. Exeunt SCENE III. The same. Enter DON JOHN and CONRADE CONRADE What the good-year, my lord! why are you thus out of measure sad? DON JOHN There is no measure in the occasion that breeds; therefore the sadness is without limit. CONRADE You should hear reason. DON JOHN And when I have heard it, what blessing brings it? CONRADE If not a present remedy, at least a patient sufferance. DON JOHN I wonder that thou, being, as thou sayest thou art, born under Saturn, goest about to apply a moral medicine to a mortifying mischief. I cannot hide what I am: I must be sad when I have cause and smile at no man's jests, eat when I have stomach and wait for no man's leisure, sleep when I am drowsy and tend on no man's business, laugh when I am merry and claw no man in his humour. CONRADE Yea, but you must not make the full show of this till you may do it without controlment. You have of late stood out against your brother, and he hath ta'en you newly into his grace; where it is impossible you should take true root but by the fair weather that you make yourself: it is needful that you frame the season for your own harvest. DON JOHN I had rather be a canker in a hedge than a rose in his grace, and it better fits my blood to be disdained of all than to fashion a carriage to rob love from any: in this, though I cannot be said to be a flattering honest man, it must not be denied but I am a plain-dealing villain. I am trusted with a muzzle and enfranchised with a clog; therefore I have decreed not to sing in my cage. If I had my mouth, I would bite; if I had my liberty, I would do my liking: in the meantime let me be that I am and seek not to alter me. CONRADE Can you make no use of your discontent? DON JOHN I make all use of it, for I use it only. Who comes here? Enter BORACHIO What news, Borachio? BORACHIO I came yonder from a great supper: the prince your brother is royally entertained by Leonato: and I can give you intelligence of an intended marriage. DON JOHN Will it serve for any model to build mischief on? What is he for a fool that betroths himself to unquietness? BORACHIO Marry, it is your brother's right hand. DON JOHN Who? the most exquisite Claudio? BORACHIO Even he. DON JOHN A proper squire! And who, and who? which way looks he? BORACHIO Marry, on Hero, the daughter and heir of Leonato. DON JOHN A very forward March-chick! How came you to this? BORACHIO Being entertained for a perfumer, as I was smoking a musty room, comes me the prince and Claudio, hand in hand in sad conference: I whipt me behind the arras; and there heard it agreed upon that the prince should woo Hero for himself, and having obtained her, give her to Count Claudio. DON JOHN Come, come, let us thither: this may prove food to my displeasure. That young start-up hath all the glory of my overthrow: if I can cross him any way, I bless myself every way. You are both sure, and will assist me? CONRADE To the death, my lord. DON JOHN Let us to the great supper: their cheer is the greater that I am subdued. Would the cook were of my mind! Shall we go prove what's to be done? BORACHIO We'll wait upon your lordship. Exeunt ACT II SCENE I. A hall in LEONATO'S house. Enter LEONATO, ANTONIO, HERO, BEATRICE, and others LEONATO Was not Count John here at supper? ANTONIO I saw him not. BEATRICE How tartly that gentleman looks! I never can see him but I am heart-burned an hour after. HERO He is of a very melancholy disposition. BEATRICE He were an excellent man that were made just in the midway between him and Benedick: the one is too like an image and says nothing, and the other too like my lady's eldest son, evermore tattling. LEONATO Then half Signior Benedick's tongue in Count John's mouth, and half Count John's melancholy in Signior Benedick's face,-- BEATRICE With a good leg and a good foot, uncle, and money enough in his purse, such a man would win any woman in the world, if a' could get her good-will. LEONATO By my troth, niece, thou wilt never get thee a husband, if thou be so shrewd of thy tongue. ANTONIO In faith, she's too curst. BEATRICE Too curst is more than curst: I shall lessen God's sending that way; for it is said, 'God sends a curst cow short horns;' but to a cow too curst he sends none. LEONATO So, by being too curst, God will send you no horns. BEATRICE Just, if he send me no husband; for the which blessing I am at him upon my knees every morning and evening. Lord, I could not endure a husband with a beard on his face: I had rather lie in the woollen. LEONATO You may light on a husband that hath no beard. BEATRICE What should I do with him? dress him in my apparel and make him my waiting-gentlewoman? He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man: and he that is more than a youth is not for me, and he that is less than a man, I am not for him: therefore, I will even take sixpence in earnest of the bear-ward, and lead his apes into hell. LEONATO Well, then, go you into hell? BEATRICE No, but to the gate; and there will the devil meet me, like an old cuckold, with horns on his head, and say 'Get you to heaven, Beatrice, get you to heaven; here's no place for you maids:' so deliver I up my apes, and away to Saint Peter for the heavens; he shows me where the bachelors sit, and there live we as merry as the day is long. ANTONIO [To HERO] Well, niece, I trust you will be ruled by your father. BEATRICE Yes, faith; it is my cousin's duty to make curtsy and say 'Father, as it please you.' But yet for all that, cousin, let him be a handsome fellow, or else make another curtsy and say 'Father, as it please me.' LEONATO Well, niece, I hope to see you one day fitted with a husband. BEATRICE Not till God make men of some other metal than earth. Would it not grieve a woman to be overmastered with a pierce of valiant dust? to make an account of her life to a clod of wayward marl? No, uncle, I'll none: Adam's sons are my brethren; and, truly, I hold it a sin to match in my kindred. LEONATO Daughter, remember what I told you: if the prince do solicit you in that kind, you know your answer. BEATRICE The fault will be in the music, cousin, if you be not wooed in good time: if the prince be too important, tell him there is measure in every thing and so dance out the answer. For, hear me, Hero: wooing, wedding, and repenting, is as a Scotch jig, a measure, and a cinque pace: the first suit is hot and hasty, like a Scotch jig, and full as fantastical; the wedding, mannerly-modest, as a measure, full of state and ancientry; and then comes repentance and, with his bad legs, falls into the cinque pace faster and faster, till he sink into his grave. LEONATO Cousin, you apprehend passing shrewdly. BEATRICE I have a good eye, uncle; I can see a church by daylight. LEONATO The revellers are entering, brother: make good room. All put on their masks Enter DON PEDRO, CLAUDIO, BENEDICK, BALTHASAR, DON JOHN, BORACHIO, MARGARET, URSULA and others, masked DON PEDRO Lady, will you walk about with your friend? HERO So you walk softly and look sweetly and say nothing, I am yours for the walk; and especially when I walk away. DON PEDRO With me in your company? HERO I may say so, when I please. DON PEDRO And when please you to say so? HERO When I like your favour; for God defend the lute should be like the case! DON PEDRO My visor is Philemon's roof; within the house is Jove. HERO Why, then, your visor should be thatched. DON PEDRO Speak low, if you speak love. Drawing her aside BALTHASAR Well, I would you did like me. MARGARET So would not I, for your own sake; for I have many ill-qualities. BALTHASAR Which is one? MARGARET I say my prayers aloud. BALTHASAR I love you the better: the hearers may cry, Amen. MARGARET God match me with a good dancer! 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. 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. 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 villany; 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 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 exeunt all except DON JOHN, BORACHIO, and CLAUDIO DON JOHN 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 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 enamoured 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 to-night. DON JOHN Come, let us to the banquet. Exeunt DON JOHN and BORACHIO CLAUDIO Thus answer I in the name of Benedick, But hear these ill news with the ears of Claudio. 'Tis certain so; the prince wooes 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! Re-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 drovier: 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. Exit 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. Re-enter DON PEDRO DON PEDRO 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 good will 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. DON PEDRO To be whipped! What's his fault? BENEDICK The flat transgression of a schoolboy, who, being overjoyed with finding a birds' nest, shows it his companion, and he steals it. DON PEDRO 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 birds' nest. DON PEDRO 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. DON PEDRO 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 bad 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. DON PEDRO Look, here she comes. Enter CLAUDIO, BEATRICE, HERO, and LEONATO 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 tooth-picker 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 Pigmies, rather than hold three words' conference with this harpy. You have no employment for me? DON PEDRO None, but to desire your good company. BENEDICK O God, sir, here's a dish I love not: I cannot endure my Lady Tongue. Exit DON PEDRO Come, lady, come; you have lost the heart of Signior Benedick. BEATRICE Indeed, my lord, he lent it me awhile; and I gave him use for it, a double heart for his single one: marry, once before he won it of me with false dice, therefore your grace may well say I have lost it. DON PEDRO You have put him down, lady, you have put him down. BEATRICE So I would not he should do me, my lord, lest I should prove the mother of fools. I have brought Count Claudio, whom you sent me to seek. DON PEDRO Why, how now, count! wherefore are you sad? CLAUDIO Not sad, my lord. DON PEDRO How then? sick? CLAUDIO Neither, my lord. BEATRICE The count is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor well; but civil count, civil as an orange, and something of that jealous complexion. DON PEDRO I' faith, lady, I think your blazon to be true; though, I'll be sworn, if he be so, his conceit is false. Here, Claudio, I have wooed in thy name, and fair Hero is won: I have broke with her father, and his good will obtained: name the day of marriage, and God give thee joy! LEONATO Count, take of me my daughter, and with her my fortunes: his grace hath made the match, and an grace say Amen to it. BEATRICE Speak, count, 'tis your cue. CLAUDIO Silence is the perfectest herald of joy: I were but little happy, if I could say how much. Lady, as you are mine, I am yours: I give away myself for you and dote upon the exchange. BEATRICE Speak, cousin; or, if you cannot, stop his mouth with a kiss, and let not him speak neither. 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. Exit 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 Benedict. 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: hi s glory shall be ours, for we are the only love-gods. Go in with me, and I will tell you my drift. Exeunt SCENE II. The same. Enter DON JOHN and BORACHIO DON JOHN It is so; the Count Claudio shall marry the daughter of Leonato. BORACHIO Yea, my lord; but I can cross it. DON JOHN Any bar, any cross, any impediment will be medicinable to me: I am sick in displeasure to him, and whatsoever comes athwart his affection ranges evenly with mine. How canst thou cross this marriage? BORACHIO Not honestly, my lord; but so covertly that no dishonesty shall appear in me. DON JOHN Show me briefly how. BORACHIO I think I told your lordship a year since, how much I am in the favour of Margaret, the waiting gentlewoman to Hero. DON JOHN I remember. BORACHIO I can, at any unseasonable instant of the night, appoint her to look out at her lady's chamber window. DON JOHN What life is in that, to be the death of this marriage? BORACHIO The poison of that lies in you to temper. Go you to the prince your brother; spare not to tell him that he hath wronged his honour in marrying the renowned Claudio--whose estimation do you mightily hold up--to a contaminated stale, such a one as Hero. DON JOHN What proof shall I make of that? BORACHIO Proof enough to misuse the prince, to vex Claudio, to undo Hero and kill Leonato. Look you for any other issue? DON JOHN Only to despite them, I will endeavour any thing. BORACHIO Go, then; find me a meet hour to draw Don Pedro and the Count Claudio alone: tell them that you know that Hero loves me; intend a kind of zeal both to the prince and Claudio, as,--in love of your brother's honour, who hath made this match, and his friend's reputation, who is thus like to be cozened with the semblance of a maid,--that you have discovered thus. They will scarcely believe this without trial: offer them instances; which shall bear no less likelihood than to see me at her chamber-window, hear me call Margaret Hero, hear Margaret term me Claudio; and bring them to see this the very night before the intended wedding,--for in the meantime I will so fashion the matter that Hero shall be absent,--and there shall appear such seeming truth of Hero's disloyalty that jealousy shall be called assurance and all the preparation overthrown. DON JOHN Grow this to what adverse issue it can, I will put it in practise. Be cunning in the working this, and thy fee is a thousand ducats. BORACHIO Be you constant in the accusation, and my cunning shall not shame me. DON JOHN I will presently go learn their day of marriage. Exeunt SCENE III. LEONATO'S orchard. Enter BENEDICK BENEDICK Boy! Enter Boy Boy Signior? BENEDICK In my chamber-window lies a book: bring it hither to me in the orchard. Boy I am here already, sir. BENEDICK I know that; but I would have thee hence, and here again. Exit Boy I do much wonder that one man, seeing how much another man is a fool when he dedicates his behaviors to love, will, after he hath laughed at such shallow follies in others, become the argument of his own scorn by failing in love: and such a man is Claudio. I have known when there was no music with him but the drum and the fife; and now had he rather hear the tabour and the pipe: I have known when he would have walked ten mile a-foot to see a good armour; and now will he lie ten nights awake, carving the fashion of a new doublet. He was wont to speak plain and to the purpose, like an honest man and a soldier; and now is he turned orthography; his words are a very fantastical banquet, just so many strange dishes. May I be so converted and see with these eyes? I cannot tell; I think not: I will not be sworn, but love may transform me to an oyster; but I'll take my oath on it, till he have made an oyster of me, he shall never make me such a fool. One woman is fair, yet I am well; another is wise, yet I am well; another virtuous, yet I am well; but till all graces be in one woman, one woman shall not come in my grace. Rich she shall be, that's certain; wise, or I'll none; virtuous, or I'll never cheapen her; fair, or I'll never look on her; mild, or come not near me; noble, or not I for an angel; of good discourse, an excellent musician, and her hair shall be of what colour it please God. Ha! the prince and Monsieur Love! I will hide me in the arbour. Withdraws Enter DON PEDRO, CLAUDIO, and LEONATO DON PEDRO Come, shall we hear this music? CLAUDIO Yea, my good lord. How still the evening is, As hush'd on purpose to grace harmony! DON PEDRO See you where Benedick hath hid himself? CLAUDIO O, very well, my lord: the music ended, We'll fit the kid-fox with a pennyworth. Enter BALTHASAR with Music DON PEDRO Come, Balthasar, we'll hear that song again. BALTHASAR O, good my lord, tax not so bad a voice To slander music any more than once. DON PEDRO It is the witness still of excellency To put a strange face on his own perfection. I pray thee, sing, and let me woo no more. BALTHASAR Because you talk of wooing, I will sing; Since many a wooer doth commence his suit To her he thinks not worthy, yet he wooes, Yet will he swear he loves. DON PEDRO Now, pray thee, come; Or, if thou wilt hold longer argument, Do it in notes. BALTHASAR Note this before my notes; There's not a note of mine that's worth the noting. DON PEDRO Why, these are very crotchets that he speaks; Note, notes, forsooth, and nothing. Air BENEDICK Now, divine air! now is his soul ravished! Is it not strange that sheeps' guts should hale souls out of men's bodies? Well, a horn for my money, when all's done. The Song BALTHASAR Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more, Men were deceivers ever, One foot in sea and one on shore, To one thing constant never: Then sigh not so, but let them go, And be you blithe and bonny, Converting all your sounds of woe Into Hey nonny, nonny. Sing no more ditties, sing no moe, Of dumps so dull and heavy; The fraud of men was ever so, Since summer first was leafy: Then sigh not so, & c. DON PEDRO By my troth, a good song. BALTHASAR And an ill singer, my lord. DON PEDRO Ha, no, no, faith; thou singest well enough for a shift. BENEDICK An he had been a dog that should have howled thus, they would have hanged him: and I pray God his bad voice bode no mischief. I had as lief have heard the night-raven, come what plague could have come after it. DON PEDRO Yea, marry, dost thou hear, Balthasar? I pray thee, get us some excellent music; for to-morrow night we would have it at the Lady Hero's chamber-window. BALTHASAR The best I can, my lord. DON PEDRO Do so: farewell. Exit BALTHASAR Come hither, Leonato. What was it you told me of to-day, that your niece Beatrice was in love with Signior Benedick? CLAUDIO O, ay: stalk on. stalk on; the fowl sits. I did never think that lady would have loved any man. LEONATO No, nor I neither; but most wonderful that she should so dote on Signior Benedick, whom she hath in all outward behaviors seemed ever to abhor. BENEDICK Is't possible? Sits the wind in that corner? LEONATO By my troth, my lord, I cannot tell what to think of it but that she loves him with an enraged affection: it is past the infinite of thought. DON PEDRO May be she doth but counterfeit. CLAUDIO Faith, like enough. LEONATO O God, counterfeit! There was never counterfeit of passion came so near the life of passion as she discovers it. DON PEDRO Why, what effects of passion shows she? CLAUDIO Bait the hook well; this fish will bite. LEONATO What effects, my lord? She will sit you, you heard my daughter tell you how. CLAUDIO She did, indeed. DON PEDRO How, how, pray you? You amaze me: I would have I thought her spirit had been invincible against all assaults of affection. LEONATO I would have sworn it had, my lord; especially against Benedick. BENEDICK I should think this a gull, but that the white-bearded fellow speaks it: knavery cannot, sure, hide himself in such reverence. CLAUDIO He hath ta'en the infection: hold it up. DON PEDRO Hath she made her affection known to Benedick? LEONATO No; and swears she never will: that's her torment. CLAUDIO 'Tis true, indeed; so your daughter says: 'Shall I,' says she, 'that have so oft encountered him with scorn, write to him that I love him?' LEONATO This says she now when she is beginning to write to him; for she'll be up twenty times a night, and there will she sit in her smock till she have writ a sheet of paper: my daughter tells us all. CLAUDIO Now you talk of a sheet of paper, I remember a pretty jest your daughter told us of. LEONATO O, when she had writ it and was reading it over, she found Benedick and Beatrice between the sheet? CLAUDIO That. LEONATO O, she tore the letter into a thousand halfpence; railed at herself, that she should be so immodest to write to one that she knew would flout her; 'I measure him,' says she, 'by my own spirit; for I should flout him, if he writ to me; yea, though I love him, I should.' CLAUDIO Then down upon her knees she falls, weeps, sobs, beats her heart, tears her hair, prays, curses; 'O sweet Benedick! God give me patience!' LEONATO She doth indeed; my daughter says so: and the ecstasy hath so much overborne her that my daughter is sometime afeared she will do a desperate outrage to herself: it is very true. DON PEDRO It were good that Benedick knew of it by some other, if she will not discover it. CLAUDIO To what end? He would make but a sport of it and torment the poor lady worse. DON PEDRO An he should, it were an alms to hang him. She's an excellent sweet lady; and, out of all suspicion, she is virtuous. CLAUDIO And she is exceeding wise. DON PEDRO In every thing but in loving Benedick. LEONATO O, my lord, wisdom and blood combating in so tender a body, we have ten proofs to one that blood hath the victory. I am sorry for her, as I have just cause, being her uncle and her guardian. DON PEDRO I would she had bestowed this dotage on me: I would have daffed all other respects and made her half myself. I pray you, tell Benedick of it, and hear what a' will say. LEONATO Were it good, think you? CLAUDIO Hero thinks surely she will die; for she says she will die, if he love her not, and she will die, ere she make her love known, and she will die, if he woo her, rather than she will bate one breath of her accustomed crossness. DON PEDRO She doth well: if she should make tender of her love, 'tis very possible he'll scorn it; for the man, as you know all, hath a contemptible spirit. CLAUDIO He is a very proper man. DON PEDRO He hath indeed a good outward happiness. CLAUDIO Before God! and, in my mind, very wise. DON PEDRO He doth indeed show some sparks that are like wit. CLAUDIO And I take him to be valiant. DON PEDRO As Hector, I assure you: and in the managing of quarrels you may say he is wise; for either he avoids them with great discretion, or undertakes them with a most Christian-like fear. LEONATO If he do fear God, a' must necessarily keep peace: if he break the peace, he ought to enter into a quarrel with fear and trembling. DON PEDRO And so will he do; for the man doth fear God, howsoever it seems not in him by some large jests he will make. Well I am sorry for your niece. Shall we go seek Benedick, and tell him of her love? CLAUDIO Never tell him, my lord: let her wear it out with good counsel. LEONATO Nay, that's impossible: she may wear her heart out first. DON PEDRO Well, we will hear further of it by your daughter: let it cool the while. I love Benedick well; and I could wish he would modestly examine himself, to see how much he is unworthy so good a lady. LEONATO My lord, will you walk? dinner is ready. CLAUDIO If he do not dote on her upon this, I will never trust my expectation. DON PEDRO Let there be the same net spread for her; and that must your daughter and her gentlewomen carry. The sport will be, when they hold one an opinion of another's dotage, and no such matter: that's the scene that I would see, which will be merely a dumb-show. Let us send her to call him in to dinner. Exeunt DON PEDRO, CLAUDIO, and LEONATO BENEDICK [Coming forward] This can be no trick: the conference was sadly borne. They have the truth of this from Hero. They seem to pity the lady: it seems her affections have their full bent. Love me! why, it must be requited. I hear how I am censured: they say I will bear myself proudly, if I perceive the love come from her; they say too that she will rather die than give any sign of affection. I did never think to marry: I must not seem proud: happy are they that hear their detractions and can put them to mending. They say the lady is fair; 'tis a truth, I can bear them witness; and virtuous; 'tis so, I cannot reprove it; and wise, but for loving me; by my troth, it is no addition to her wit, nor no great argument of her folly, for I will be horribly in love with her. I may chance have some odd quirks and remnants of wit broken on me, because I have railed so long against marriage: but doth not the appetite alter? a man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age. Shall quips and sentences and these paper bullets of the brain awe a man from the career of his humour? No, the world must be peopled. When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married. Here comes Beatrice. By this day! she's a fair lady: I do spy some marks of love in her. Enter BEATRICE BEATRICE Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner. BENEDICK Fair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains. BEATRICE I took no more pains for those thanks than you take pains to thank me: if it had been painful, I would not have come. BENEDICK You take pleasure then in the message? BEATRICE Yea, just so much as you may take upon a knife's point and choke a daw withal. You have no stomach, signior: fare you well. Exit BENEDICK Ha! 'Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner;' there's a double meaning in that 'I took no more pains for those thanks than you took pains to thank me.' that's as much as to say, Any pains that I take for you is as easy as thanks. If I do not take pity of her, I am a villain; if I do not love her, I am a Jew. I will go get her picture. Exit ACT III SCENE I. LEONATO'S garden. Enter HERO, MARGARET, and URSULA HERO Good Margaret, run thee to the parlor; There shalt thou find my cousin Beatrice Proposing with the prince and Claudio: Whisper her ear and tell her, I and Ursula Walk in the orchard and our whole discourse Is all of her; say that thou overheard'st us; And bid her steal into the pleached bower, Where honeysuckles, ripen'd by the sun, Forbid the sun to enter, like favourites, Made proud by princes, that advance their pride Against that power that bred it: there will she hide her, To listen our purpose. This is thy office; Bear thee well in it and leave us alone. MARGARET I'll make her come, I warrant you, presently. Exit HERO Now, Ursula, when Beatrice doth come, As we do trace this alley up and down, Our talk must only be of Benedick. When I do name him, let it be thy part To praise him more than ever man did merit: My talk to thee must be how Benedick Is sick in love with Beatrice. Of this matter Is little Cupid's crafty arrow made, That only wounds by hearsay. Enter BEATRICE, behind Now begin; For look where Beatrice, like a lapwing, runs Close by the ground, to hear our conference. URSULA The pleasant'st angling is to see the fish Cut with her golden oars the silver stream, And greedily devour the treacherous bait: So angle we for Beatrice; who even now Is couched in the woodbine coverture. Fear you not my part of the dialogue. HERO Then go we near her, that her ear lose nothing Of the false sweet bait that we lay for it. Approaching the bower No, truly, Ursula, she is too disdainful; I know her spirits are as coy and wild As haggerds of the rock. URSULA But are you sure That Benedick loves Beatrice so entirely? HERO So says the prince and my new-trothed lord. URSULA And did they bid you tell her of it, madam? HERO They did entreat me to acquaint her of it; But I persuaded them, if they loved Benedick, To wish him wrestle with affection, And never to let Beatrice know of it. URSULA Why did you so? Doth not the gentleman Deserve as full as fortunate a bed As ever Beatrice shall couch upon? HERO O god of love! I know he doth deserve As much as may be yielded to a man: But Nature never framed a woman's heart Of prouder stuff than that of Beatrice; Disdain and scorn ride sparkling in her eyes, Misprising what they look on, and her wit Values itself so highly that to her All matter else seems weak: she cannot love, Nor take no shape nor project of affection, She is so self-endeared. URSULA Sure, I think so; And therefore certainly it were not good She knew his love, lest she make sport at it. HERO Why, you speak truth. I never yet saw man, How wise, how noble, young, how rarely featured, But she would spell him backward: if fair-faced, She would swear the gentleman should be her sister; If black, why, Nature, drawing of an antique, Made a foul blot; if tall, a lance ill-headed; If low, an agate very vilely cut; If speaking, why, a vane blown with all winds; If silent, why, a block moved with none. So turns she every man the wrong side out And never gives to truth and virtue that Which simpleness and merit purchaseth. URSULA Sure, sure, such carping is not commendable. HERO No, not to be so odd and from all fashions As Beatrice is, cannot be commendable: But who dare tell her so? If I should speak, She would mock me into air; O, she would laugh me Out of myself, press me to death with wit. Therefore let Benedick, like cover'd fire, Consume away in sighs, waste inwardly: It were a better death than die with mocks, Which is as bad as die with tickling. URSULA Yet tell her of it: hear what she will say. HERO No; rather I will go to Benedick And counsel him to fight against his passion. And, truly, I'll devise some honest slanders To stain my cousin with: one doth not know How much an ill word may empoison liking. URSULA O, do not do your cousin such a wrong. She cannot be so much without true judgment-- Having so swift and excellent a wit As she is prized to have--as to refuse So rare a gentleman as Signior Benedick. HERO He is the only man of Italy. Always excepted my dear Claudio. URSULA I pray you, be not angry with me, madam, Speaking my fancy: Signior Benedick, For shape, for bearing, argument and valour, Goes foremost in report through Italy. HERO Indeed, he hath an excellent good name. URSULA His excellence did earn it, ere he had it. When are you married, madam? HERO Why, every day, to-morrow. Come, go in: I'll show thee some attires, and have thy counsel Which is the best to furnish me to-morrow. URSULA She's limed, I warrant you: we have caught her, madam. HERO If it proves so, then loving goes by haps

Much Ado About Nothing Shakespeare homepage | Much Ado About Nothing | Entire play ACT I SCENE I. Before LEONATO'S house. Enter LEONATO, HERO, and BEATRICE, with a Messenger LEONATO I learn in this letter that Don Peter of Arragon comes this night to Messina. Messenger He is very near by this: he was not three leagues off when I left him. LEONATO How many gentlemen have you lost in this action? Messenger But few of any sort, and none of name. LEONATO A victory is twice itself when the achiever brings home full numbers. I find here that Don Peter hath bestowed much honour on a young Florentine called Claudio. Messenger Much deserved on his part and equally remembered by Don Pedro: he hath borne himself beyond the promise of his age, doing, in the figure of a lamb, the feats of a lion: he hath indeed better bettered expectation than you must expect of me to tell you how. LEONATO He hath an uncle here in Messina will be very much glad of it. Messenger I have already delivered him letters, and there appears much joy in him; even so much that joy could not show itself modest enough without a badge of bitterness. LEONATO Did he break out into tears? Messenger In great measure. LEONATO A kind overflow of kindness: there are no faces truer than those that are so washed. How much better is it to weep at joy than to joy at weeping! BEATRICE I pray you, is Signior Mountanto returned from the wars or no? Messenger I know none of that name, lady: there was none such in the army of any sort. LEONATO What is he that you ask for, niece? HERO My cousin means Signior Benedick of Padua. Messenger O, he's returned; and as pleasant as ever he was. BEATRICE He set up his bills here in Messina and challenged Cupid at the flight; and my uncle's fool, reading the challenge, subscribed for Cupid, and challenged him at the bird-bolt. I pray you, how many hath he killed and eaten in these wars? But how many hath he killed? for indeed I promised to eat all of his killing. LEONATO Faith, niece, you tax Signior Benedick too much; but he'll be meet with you, I doubt it not. Messenger He hath done good service, lady, in these wars. BEATRICE You had musty victual, and he hath holp to eat it: he is a very valiant trencherman; he hath an excellent stomach. Messenger And a good soldier too, lady. BEATRICE And a good soldier to a lady: but what is he to a lord? Messenger A lord to a lord, a man to a man; stuffed with all honourable virtues. BEATRICE It is so, indeed; he is no less than a stuffed man: but for the stuffing,--well, we are all mortal. LEONATO You must not, sir, mistake my niece. There is a kind of merry war betwixt Signior Benedick and her: they never meet but there's a skirmish of wit between them. BEATRICE Alas! he gets nothing by that. In our last conflict four of his five wits went halting off, and now is the whole man governed with one: so that if he have wit enough to keep himself warm, let him bear it for a difference between himself and his horse; for it is all the wealth that he hath left, to be known a reasonable creature. Who is his companion now? He hath every month a new sworn brother. Messenger Is't possible? BEATRICE Very easily possible: he wears his faith but as the fashion of his hat; it ever changes with the next block. Messenger I see, lady, the gentleman is not in your books. BEATRICE No; an he were, I would burn my study. But, I pray you, who is his companion? Is there no young squarer now that will make a voyage with him to the devil? Messenger He is most in the company of the right noble Claudio. BEATRICE O Lord, he will hang upon him like a disease: he is sooner caught than the pestilence, and the taker runs presently mad. God help the noble Claudio! if he have caught the Benedick, it will cost him a thousand pound ere a' be cured. Messenger I will hold friends with you, lady. BEATRICE Do, good friend. LEONATO You will never run mad, niece. BEATRICE No, not till a hot January. Messenger Don Pedro is approached. Enter DON PEDRO, DON JOHN, CLAUDIO, BENEDICK, and BALTHASAR DON PEDRO Good Signior Leonato, you are come to meet your trouble: the fashion of the world is to avoid cost, and you encounter it. LEONATO Never came trouble to my house in the likeness of your grace: for trouble being gone, comfort should remain; but when you depart from me, sorrow abides and happiness takes his leave. DON PEDRO You embrace your charge too willingly. I think this is your daughter. LEONATO Her mother hath many times told me so. BENEDICK Were you in doubt, sir, that you asked her? LEONATO Signior Benedick, no; for then were you a child. DON PEDRO You have it full, Benedick: we may guess by this what you are, being a man. Truly, the lady fathers herself. Be happy, lady; for you are like an honourable father. BENEDICK If Signior Leonato be her father, she would not have his head on her shoulders for all Messina, as like him as she is. BEATRICE I wonder that you will still be talking, Signior Benedick: nobody marks you. BENEDICK What, my dear Lady Disdain! are you yet living? BEATRICE Is it possible disdain should die while she hath such meet food to feed it as Signior Benedick? Courtesy itself must convert to disdain, if you come in her presence. BENEDICK Then is courtesy a turncoat. But it is certain I am loved of all ladies, only you excepted: and I would I could find in my heart that I had not a hard heart; for, truly, I love none. BEATRICE A dear happiness to women: they would else have been troubled with a pernicious suitor. I thank God and my cold blood, I am of your humour for that: I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me. BENEDICK God keep your ladyship still in that mind! so some gentleman or other shall 'scape a predestinate scratched face. BEATRICE Scratching could not make it worse, an 'twere such a face as yours were. BENEDICK Well, you are a rare parrot-teacher. BEATRICE A bird of my tongue is better than a beast of yours. BENEDICK I would my horse had the speed of your tongue, and so good a continuer. But keep your way, i' God's name; I have done. BEATRICE You always end with a jade's trick: I know you of old. DON PEDRO That is the sum of all, Leonato. Signior Claudio and Signior Benedick, my dear friend Leonato hath invited you all. I tell him we shall stay here at the least a month; and he heartily prays some occasion may detain us longer. I dare swear he is no hypocrite, but prays from his heart. LEONATO If you swear, my lord, you shall not be forsworn. To DON JOHN Let me bid you welcome, my lord: being reconciled to the prince your brother, I owe you all duty. DON JOHN I thank you: I am not of many words, but I thank you. LEONATO Please it your grace lead on? DON PEDRO Your hand, Leonato; we will go together. Exeunt all except BENEDICK and CLAUDIO CLAUDIO Benedick, didst thou note the daughter of Signior Leonato? BENEDICK I noted her not; but I looked on her. CLAUDIO Is she not a modest young lady? BENEDICK Do you question me, as an honest man should do, for my simple true judgment; or would you have me speak after my custom, as being a professed tyrant to their sex? CLAUDIO No; I pray thee speak in sober judgment. BENEDICK Why, i' faith, methinks she's too low for a high praise, too brown for a fair praise and too little for a great praise: only this commendation I can afford her, that were she other than she is, she were unhandsome; and being no other but as she is, I do not like her. CLAUDIO Thou thinkest I am in sport: I pray thee tell me truly how thou likest her. BENEDICK Would you buy her, that you inquire after her? CLAUDIO Can the world buy such a jewel? BENEDICK Yea, and a case to put it into. But speak you this with a sad brow? or do you play the flouting Jack, to tell us Cupid is a good hare-finder and Vulcan a rare carpenter? Come, in what key shall a man take you, to go in the song? CLAUDIO In mine eye she is the sweetest lady that ever I looked on. BENEDICK I can see yet without spectacles and I see no such matter: there's her cousin, an she were not possessed with a fury, exceeds her as much in beauty as the first of May doth the last of December. But I hope you have no intent to turn husband, have you? CLAUDIO I would scarce trust myself, though I had sworn the contrary, if Hero would be my wife. BENEDICK Is't come to this? In faith, hath not the world one man but he will wear his cap with suspicion? Shall I never see a bachelor of three-score again? Go to, i' faith; an thou wilt needs thrust thy neck into a yoke, wear the print of it and sigh away Sundays. Look Don Pedro is returned to seek you. Re-enter DON PEDRO DON PEDRO What secret hath held you here, that you followed not to Leonato's? BENEDICK I would your grace would constrain me to tell. DON PEDRO I charge thee on thy allegiance. BENEDICK You hear, Count Claudio: I can be secret as a dumb man; I would have you think so; but, on my allegiance, mark you this, on my allegiance. He is in love. With who? now that is your grace's part. Mark how short his answer is;--With Hero, Leonato's short daughter. CLAUDIO If this were so, so were it uttered. BENEDICK Like the old tale, my lord: 'it is not so, nor 'twas not so, but, indeed, God forbid it should be so.' CLAUDIO If my passion change not shortly, God forbid it should be otherwise. DON PEDRO Amen, if you love her; for the lady is very well worthy. CLAUDIO You speak this to fetch me in, my lord. DON PEDRO By my troth, I speak my thought. CLAUDIO And, in faith, my lord, I spoke mine. BENEDICK And, by my two faiths and troths, my lord, I spoke mine. CLAUDIO That I love her, I feel. DON PEDRO That she is worthy, I know. BENEDICK That I neither feel how she should be loved nor know how she should be worthy, is the opinion that fire cannot melt out of me: I will die in it at the stake. DON PEDRO Thou wast ever an obstinate heretic in the despite of beauty. CLAUDIO And never could maintain his part but in the force of his will. BENEDICK That a woman conceived me, I thank her; that she brought me up, I likewise give her most humble thanks: but that I will have a recheat winded in my forehead, or hang my bugle in an invisible baldrick, all women shall pardon me. Because I will not do them the wrong to mistrust any, I will do myself the right to trust none; and the fine is, for the which I may go the finer, I will live a bachelor. DON PEDRO I shall see thee, ere I die, look pale with love. BENEDICK With anger, with sickness, or with hunger, my lord, not with love: prove that ever I lose more blood with love than I will get again with drinking, pick out mine eyes with a ballad-maker's pen and hang me up at the door of a brothel-house for the sign of blind Cupid. DON PEDRO Well, if ever thou dost fall from this faith, thou wilt prove a notable argument. BENEDICK If I do, hang me in a bottle like a cat and shoot at me; and he that hits me, let him be clapped on the shoulder, and called Adam. DON PEDRO Well, as time shall try: 'In time the savage bull doth bear the yoke.' BENEDICK The savage bull may; but if ever the sensible Benedick bear it, pluck off the bull's horns and set them in my forehead: and let me be vilely painted, and in such great letters as they write 'Here is good horse to hire,' let them signify under my sign 'Here you may see Benedick the married man.' CLAUDIO If this should ever happen, thou wouldst be horn-mad. DON PEDRO Nay, if Cupid have not spent all his quiver in Venice, thou wilt quake for this shortly. BENEDICK I look for an earthquake too, then. DON PEDRO Well, you temporize with the hours. In the meantime, good Signior Benedick, repair to Leonato's: commend me to him and tell him I will not fail him at supper; for indeed he hath made great preparation. BENEDICK I have almost matter enough in me for such an embassage; and so I commit you-- CLAUDIO To the tuition of God: From my house, if I had it,-- DON PEDRO The sixth of July: Your loving friend, Benedick. BENEDICK Nay, mock not, mock not. The body of your discourse is sometime guarded with fragments, and the guards are but slightly basted on neither: ere you flout old ends any further, examine your conscience: and so I leave you. Exit CLAUDIO My liege, your highness now may do me good. DON PEDRO My love is thine to teach: teach it but how, And thou shalt see how apt it is to learn Any hard lesson that may do thee good. CLAUDIO Hath Leonato any son, my lord? DON PEDRO No child but Hero; she's his only heir. Dost thou affect her, Claudio? CLAUDIO O, my lord, When you went onward on this ended action, I look'd upon her with a soldier's eye, That liked, but had a rougher task in hand Than to drive liking to the name of love: But now I am return'd and that war-thoughts Have left their places vacant, in their rooms Come thronging soft and delicate desires, All prompting me how fair young Hero is, Saying, I liked her ere I went to wars. DON PEDRO Thou wilt be like a lover presently And tire the hearer with a book of words. If thou dost love fair Hero, cherish it, And I will break with her and with her father, And thou shalt have her. Was't not to this end That thou began'st to twist so fine a story? CLAUDIO How sweetly you do minister to love, That know love's grief by his complexion! But lest my liking might too sudden seem, I would have salved it with a longer treatise. DON PEDRO What need the bridge much broader than the flood? The fairest grant is the necessity. Look, what will serve is fit: 'tis once, thou lovest, And I will fit thee with the remedy. I know we shall have revelling to-night: I will assume thy part in some disguise And tell fair Hero I am Claudio, And in her bosom I'll unclasp my heart And take her hearing prisoner with the force And strong encounter of my amorous tale: Then after to her father will I break; And the conclusion is, she shall be thine. In practise let us put it presently. Exeunt SCENE II. A room in LEONATO's house. Enter LEONATO and ANTONIO, meeting LEONATO How now, brother! Where is my cousin, your son? hath he provided this music? ANTONIO He is very busy about it. But, brother, I can tell you strange news that you yet dreamt not of. LEONATO Are they good? ANTONIO As the event stamps them: but they have a good cover; they show well outward. The prince and Count Claudio, walking in a thick-pleached alley in mine orchard, were thus much overheard by a man of mine: the prince discovered to Claudio that he loved my niece your daughter and meant to acknowledge it this night in a dance: and if he found her accordant, he meant to take the present time by the top and instantly break with you of it. LEONATO Hath the fellow any wit that told you this? ANTONIO A good sharp fellow: I will send for him; and question him yourself. LEONATO No, no; we will hold it as a dream till it appear itself: but I will acquaint my daughter withal, that she may be the better prepared for an answer, if peradventure this be true. Go you and tell her of it. Enter Attendants Cousins, you know what you have to do. O, I cry you mercy, friend; go you with me, and I will use your skill. Good cousin, have a care this busy time. Exeunt SCENE III. The same. Enter DON JOHN and CONRADE CONRADE What the good-year, my lord! why are you thus out of measure sad? DON JOHN There is no measure in the occasion that breeds; therefore the sadness is without limit. CONRADE You should hear reason. DON JOHN And when I have heard it, what blessing brings it? CONRADE If not a present remedy, at least a patient sufferance. DON JOHN I wonder that thou, being, as thou sayest thou art, born under Saturn, goest about to apply a moral medicine to a mortifying mischief. I cannot hide what I am: I must be sad when I have cause and smile at no man's jests, eat when I have stomach and wait for no man's leisure, sleep when I am drowsy and tend on no man's business, laugh when I am merry and claw no man in his humour. CONRADE Yea, but you must not make the full show of this till you may do it without controlment. You have of late stood out against your brother, and he hath ta'en you newly into his grace; where it is impossible you should take true root but by the fair weather that you make yourself: it is needful that you frame the season for your own harvest. DON JOHN I had rather be a canker in a hedge than a rose in his grace, and it better fits my blood to be disdained of all than to fashion a carriage to rob love from any: in this, though I cannot be said to be a flattering honest man, it must not be denied but I am a plain-dealing villain. I am trusted with a muzzle and enfranchised with a clog; therefore I have decreed not to sing in my cage. If I had my mouth, I would bite; if I had my liberty, I would do my liking: in the meantime let me be that I am and seek not to alter me. CONRADE Can you make no use of your discontent? DON JOHN I make all use of it, for I use it only. Who comes here? Enter BORACHIO What news, Borachio? BORACHIO I came yonder from a great supper: the prince your brother is royally entertained by Leonato: and I can give you intelligence of an intended marriage. DON JOHN Will it serve for any model to build mischief on? What is he for a fool that betroths himself to unquietness? BORACHIO Marry, it is your brother's right hand. DON JOHN Who? the most exquisite Claudio? BORACHIO Even he. DON JOHN A proper squire! And who, and who? which way looks he? BORACHIO Marry, on Hero, the daughter and heir of Leonato. DON JOHN A very forward March-chick! How came you to this? BORACHIO Being entertained for a perfumer, as I was smoking a musty room, comes me the prince and Claudio, hand in hand in sad conference: I whipt me behind the arras; and there heard it agreed upon that the prince should woo Hero for himself, and having obtained her, give her to Count Claudio. DON JOHN Come, come, let us thither: this may prove food to my displeasure. That young start-up hath all the glory of my overthrow: if I can cross him any way, I bless myself every way. You are both sure, and will assist me? CONRADE To the death, my lord. DON JOHN Let us to the great supper: their cheer is the greater that I am subdued. Would the cook were of my mind! Shall we go prove what's to be done? BORACHIO We'll wait upon your lordship. Exeunt ACT II SCENE I. A hall in LEONATO'S house. Enter LEONATO, ANTONIO, HERO, BEATRICE, and others LEONATO Was not Count John here at supper? ANTONIO I saw him not. BEATRICE How tartly that gentleman looks! I never can see him but I am heart-burned an hour after. HERO He is of a very melancholy disposition. BEATRICE He were an excellent man that were made just in the midway between him and Benedick: the one is too like an image and says nothing, and the other too like my lady's eldest son, evermore tattling. LEONATO Then half Signior Benedick's tongue in Count John's mouth, and half Count John's melancholy in Signior Benedick's face,-- BEATRICE With a good leg and a good foot, uncle, and money enough in his purse, such a man would win any woman in the world, if a' could get her good-will. LEONATO By my troth, niece, thou wilt never get thee a husband, if thou be so shrewd of thy tongue. ANTONIO In faith, she's too curst. BEATRICE Too curst is more than curst: I shall lessen God's sending that way; for it is said, 'God sends a curst cow short horns;' but to a cow too curst he sends none. LEONATO So, by being too curst, God will send you no horns. BEATRICE Just, if he send me no husband; for the which blessing I am at him upon my knees every morning and evening. Lord, I could not endure a husband with a beard on his face: I had rather lie in the woollen. LEONATO You may light on a husband that hath no beard. BEATRICE What should I do with him? dress him in my apparel and make him my waiting-gentlewoman? He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man: and he that is more than a youth is not for me, and he that is less than a man, I am not for him: therefore, I will even take sixpence in earnest of the bear-ward, and lead his apes into hell. LEONATO Well, then, go you into hell? BEATRICE No, but to the gate; and there will the devil meet me, like an old cuckold, with horns on his head, and say 'Get you to heaven, Beatrice, get you to heaven; here's no place for you maids:' so deliver I up my apes, and away to Saint Peter for the heavens; he shows me where the bachelors sit, and there live we as merry as the day is long. ANTONIO [To HERO] Well, niece, I trust you will be ruled by your father. BEATRICE Yes, faith; it is my cousin's duty to make curtsy and say 'Father, as it please you.' But yet for all that, cousin, let him be a handsome fellow, or else make another curtsy and say 'Father, as it please me.' LEONATO Well, niece, I hope to see you one day fitted with a husband. BEATRICE Not till God make men of some other metal than earth. Would it not grieve a woman to be overmastered with a pierce of valiant dust? to make an account of her life to a clod of wayward marl? No, uncle, I'll none: Adam's sons are my brethren; and, truly, I hold it a sin to match in my kindred. LEONATO Daughter, remember what I told you: if the prince do solicit you in that kind, you know your answer. BEATRICE The fault will be in the music, cousin, if you be not wooed in good time: if the prince be too important, tell him there is measure in every thing and so dance out the answer. For, hear me, Hero: wooing, wedding, and repenting, is as a Scotch jig, a measure, and a cinque pace: the first suit is hot and hasty, like a Scotch jig, and full as fantastical; the wedding, mannerly-modest, as a measure, full of state and ancientry; and then comes repentance and, with his bad legs, falls into the cinque pace faster and faster, till he sink into his grave. LEONATO Cousin, you apprehend passing shrewdly. BEATRICE I have a good eye, uncle; I can see a church by daylight. LEONATO The revellers are entering, brother: make good room. All put on their masks Enter DON PEDRO, CLAUDIO, BENEDICK, BALTHASAR, DON JOHN, BORACHIO, MARGARET, URSULA and others, masked DON PEDRO Lady, will you walk about with your friend? HERO So you walk softly and look sweetly and say nothing, I am yours for the walk; and especially when I walk away. DON PEDRO With me in your company? HERO I may say so, when I please. DON PEDRO And when please you to say so? HERO When I like your favour; for God defend the lute should be like the case! DON PEDRO My visor is Philemon's roof; within the house is Jove. HERO Why, then, your visor should be thatched. DON PEDRO Speak low, if you speak love. Drawing her aside BALTHASAR Well, I would you did like me. MARGARET So would not I, for your own sake; for I have many ill-qualities. BALTHASAR Which is one? MARGARET I say my prayers aloud. BALTHASAR I love you the better: the hearers may cry, Amen. MARGARET God match me with a good dancer! 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. 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. 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 villany; 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 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 exeunt all except DON JOHN, BORACHIO, and CLAUDIO DON JOHN 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 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 enamoured 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 to-night. DON JOHN Come, let us to the banquet. Exeunt DON JOHN and BORACHIO CLAUDIO Thus answer I in the name of Benedick, But hear these ill news with the ears of Claudio. 'Tis certain so; the prince wooes 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! Re-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 drovier: 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. Exit 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. Re-enter DON PEDRO DON PEDRO 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 good will 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. DON PEDRO To be whipped! What's his fault? BENEDICK The flat transgression of a schoolboy, who, being overjoyed with finding a birds' nest, shows it his companion, and he steals it. DON PEDRO 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 birds' nest. DON PEDRO 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. DON PEDRO 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 bad 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. DON PEDRO Look, here she comes. Enter CLAUDIO, BEATRICE, HERO, and LEONATO 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 tooth-picker 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 Pigmies, rather than hold three words' conference with this harpy. You have no employment for me? DON PEDRO None, but to desire your good company. BENEDICK O God, sir, here's a dish I love not: I cannot endure my Lady Tongue. Exit DON PEDRO Come, lady, come; you have lost the heart of Signior Benedick. BEATRICE Indeed, my lord, he lent it me awhile; and I gave him use for it, a double heart for his single one: marry, once before he won it of me with false dice, therefore your grace may well say I have lost it. DON PEDRO You have put him down, lady, you have put him down. BEATRICE So I would not he should do me, my lord, lest I should prove the mother of fools. I have brought Count Claudio, whom you sent me to seek. DON PEDRO Why, how now, count! wherefore are you sad? CLAUDIO Not sad, my lord. DON PEDRO How then? sick? CLAUDIO Neither, my lord. BEATRICE The count is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor well; but civil count, civil as an orange, and something of that jealous complexion. DON PEDRO I' faith, lady, I think your blazon to be true; though, I'll be sworn, if he be so, his conceit is false. Here, Claudio, I have wooed in thy name, and fair Hero is won: I have broke with her father, and his good will obtained: name the day of marriage, and God give thee joy! LEONATO Count, take of me my daughter, and with her my fortunes: his grace hath made the match, and an grace say Amen to it. BEATRICE Speak, count, 'tis your cue. CLAUDIO Silence is the perfectest herald of joy: I were but little happy, if I could say how much. Lady, as you are mine, I am yours: I give away myself for you and dote upon the exchange. BEATRICE Speak, cousin; or, if you cannot, stop his mouth with a kiss, and let not him speak neither. 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. Exit 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 Benedict. 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: hi s glory shall be ours, for we are the only love-gods. Go in with me, and I will tell you my drift. Exeunt SCENE II. The same. Enter DON JOHN and BORACHIO DON JOHN It is so; the Count Claudio shall marry the daughter of Leonato. BORACHIO Yea, my lord; but I can cross it. DON JOHN Any bar, any cross, any impediment will be medicinable to me: I am sick in displeasure to him, and whatsoever comes athwart his affection ranges evenly with mine. How canst thou cross this marriage? BORACHIO Not honestly, my lord; but so covertly that no dishonesty shall appear in me. DON JOHN Show me briefly how. BORACHIO I think I told your lordship a year since, how much I am in the favour of Margaret, the waiting gentlewoman to Hero. DON JOHN I remember. BORACHIO I can, at any unseasonable instant of the night, appoint her to look out at her lady's chamber window. DON JOHN What life is in that, to be the death of this marriage? BORACHIO The poison of that lies in you to temper. Go you to the prince your brother; spare not to tell him that he hath wronged his honour in marrying the renowned Claudio--whose estimation do you mightily hold up--to a contaminated stale, such a one as Hero. DON JOHN What proof shall I make of that? BORACHIO Proof enough to misuse the prince, to vex Claudio, to undo Hero and kill Leonato. Look you for any other issue? DON JOHN Only to despite them, I will endeavour any thing. BORACHIO Go, then; find me a meet hour to draw Don Pedro and the Count Claudio alone: tell them that you know that Hero loves me; intend a kind of zeal both to the prince and Claudio, as,--in love of your brother's honour, who hath made this match, and his friend's reputation, who is thus like to be cozened with the semblance of a maid,--that you have discovered thus. They will scarcely believe this without trial: offer them instances; which shall bear no less likelihood than to see me at her chamber-window, hear me call Margaret Hero, hear Margaret term me Claudio; and bring them to see this the very night before the intended wedding,--for in the meantime I will so fashion the matter that Hero shall be absent,--and there shall appear such seeming truth of Hero's disloyalty that jealousy shall be called assurance and all the preparation overthrown. DON JOHN Grow this to what adverse issue it can, I will put it in practise. Be cunning in the working this, and thy fee is a thousand ducats. BORACHIO Be you constant in the accusation, and my cunning shall not shame me. DON JOHN I will presently go learn their day of marriage. Exeunt SCENE III. LEONATO'S orchard. Enter BENEDICK BENEDICK Boy! Enter Boy Boy Signior? BENEDICK In my chamber-window lies a book: bring it hither to me in the orchard. Boy I am here already, sir. BENEDICK I know that; but I would have thee hence, and here again. Exit Boy I do much wonder that one man, seeing how much another man is a fool when he dedicates his behaviors to love, will, after he hath laughed at such shallow follies in others, become the argument of his own scorn by failing in love: and such a man is Claudio. I have known when there was no music with him but the drum and the fife; and now had he rather hear the tabour and the pipe: I have known when he would have walked ten mile a-foot to see a good armour; and now will he lie ten nights awake, carving the fashion of a new doublet. He was wont to speak plain and to the purpose, like an honest man and a soldier; and now is he turned orthography; his words are a very fantastical banquet, just so many strange dishes. May I be so converted and see with these eyes? I cannot tell; I think not: I will not be sworn, but love may transform me to an oyster; but I'll take my oath on it, till he have made an oyster of me, he shall never make me such a fool. One woman is fair, yet I am well; another is wise, yet I am well; another virtuous, yet I am well; but till all graces be in one woman, one woman shall not come in my grace. Rich she shall be, that's certain; wise, or I'll none; virtuous, or I'll never cheapen her; fair, or I'll never look on her; mild, or come not near me; noble, or not I for an angel; of good discourse, an excellent musician, and her hair shall be of what colour it please God. Ha! the prince and Monsieur Love! I will hide me in the arbour. Withdraws Enter DON PEDRO, CLAUDIO, and LEONATO DON PEDRO Come, shall we hear this music? CLAUDIO Yea, my good lord. How still the evening is, As hush'd on purpose to grace harmony! DON PEDRO See you where Benedick hath hid himself? CLAUDIO O, very well, my lord: the music ended, We'll fit the kid-fox with a pennyworth. Enter BALTHASAR with Music DON PEDRO Come, Balthasar, we'll hear that song again. BALTHASAR O, good my lord, tax not so bad a voice To slander music any more than once. DON PEDRO It is the witness still of excellency To put a strange face on his own perfection. I pray thee, sing, and let me woo no more. BALTHASAR Because you talk of wooing, I will sing; Since many a wooer doth commence his suit To her he thinks not worthy, yet he wooes, Yet will he swear he loves. DON PEDRO Now, pray thee, come; Or, if thou wilt hold longer argument, Do it in notes. BALTHASAR Note this before my notes; There's not a note of mine that's worth the noting. DON PEDRO Why, these are very crotchets that he speaks; Note, notes, forsooth, and nothing. Air BENEDICK Now, divine air! now is his soul ravished! Is it not strange that sheeps' guts should hale souls out of men's bodies? Well, a horn for my money, when all's done. The Song BALTHASAR Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more, Men were deceivers ever, One foot in sea and one on shore, To one thing constant never: Then sigh not so, but let them go, And be you blithe and bonny, Converting all your sounds of woe Into Hey nonny, nonny. Sing no more ditties, sing no moe, Of dumps so dull and heavy; The fraud of men was ever so, Since summer first was leafy: Then sigh not so, & c. DON PEDRO By my troth, a good song. BALTHASAR And an ill singer, my lord. DON PEDRO Ha, no, no, faith; thou singest well enough for a shift. BENEDICK An he had been a dog that should have howled thus, they would have hanged him: and I pray God his bad voice bode no mischief. I had as lief have heard the night-raven, come what plague could have come after it. DON PEDRO Yea, marry, dost thou hear, Balthasar? I pray thee, get us some excellent music; for to-morrow night we would have it at the Lady Hero's chamber-window. BALTHASAR The best I can, my lord. DON PEDRO Do so: farewell. Exit BALTHASAR Come hither, Leonato. What was it you told me of to-day, that your niece Beatrice was in love with Signior Benedick? CLAUDIO O, ay: stalk on. stalk on; the fowl sits. I did never think that lady would have loved any man. LEONATO No, nor I neither; but most wonderful that she should so dote on Signior Benedick, whom she hath in all outward behaviors seemed ever to abhor. BENEDICK Is't possible? Sits the wind in that corner? LEONATO By my troth, my lord, I cannot tell what to think of it but that she loves him with an enraged affection: it is past the infinite of thought. DON PEDRO May be she doth but counterfeit. CLAUDIO Faith, like enough. LEONATO O God, counterfeit! There was never counterfeit of passion came so near the life of passion as she discovers it. DON PEDRO Why, what effects of passion shows she? CLAUDIO Bait the hook well; this fish will bite. LEONATO What effects, my lord? She will sit you, you heard my daughter tell you how. CLAUDIO She did, indeed. DON PEDRO How, how, pray you? You amaze me: I would have I thought her spirit had been invincible against all assaults of affection. LEONATO I would have sworn it had, my lord; especially against Benedick. BENEDICK I should think this a gull, but that the white-bearded fellow speaks it: knavery cannot, sure, hide himself in such reverence. CLAUDIO He hath ta'en the infection: hold it up. DON PEDRO Hath she made her affection known to Benedick? LEONATO No; and swears she never will: that's her torment. CLAUDIO 'Tis true, indeed; so your daughter says: 'Shall I,' says she, 'that have so oft encountered him with scorn, write to him that I love him?' LEONATO This says she now when she is beginning to write to him; for she'll be up twenty times a night, and there will she sit in her smock till she have writ a sheet of paper: my daughter tells us all. CLAUDIO Now you talk of a sheet of paper, I remember a pretty jest your daughter told us of. LEONATO O, when she had writ it and was reading it over, she found Benedick and Beatrice between the sheet? CLAUDIO That. LEONATO O, she tore the letter into a thousand halfpence; railed at herself, that she should be so immodest to write to one that she knew would flout her; 'I measure him,' says she, 'by my own spirit; for I should flout him, if he writ to me; yea, though I love him, I should.' CLAUDIO Then down upon her knees she falls, weeps, sobs, beats her heart, tears her hair, prays, curses; 'O sweet Benedick! God give me patience!' LEONATO She doth indeed; my daughter says so: and the ecstasy hath so much overborne her that my daughter is sometime afeared she will do a desperate outrage to herself: it is very true. DON PEDRO It were good that Benedick knew of it by some other, if she will not discover it. CLAUDIO To what end? He would make but a sport of it and torment the poor lady worse. DON PEDRO An he should, it were an alms to hang him. She's an excellent sweet lady; and, out of all suspicion, she is virtuous. CLAUDIO And she is exceeding wise. DON PEDRO In every thing but in loving Benedick. LEONATO O, my lord, wisdom and blood combating in so tender a body, we have ten proofs to one that blood hath the victory. I am sorry for her, as I have just cause, being her uncle and her guardian. DON PEDRO I would she had bestowed this dotage on me: I would have daffed all other respects and made her half myself. I pray you, tell Benedick of it, and hear what a' will say. LEONATO Were it good, think you? CLAUDIO Hero thinks surely she will die; for she says she will die, if he love her not, and she will die, ere she make her love known, and she will die, if he woo her, rather than she will bate one breath of her accustomed crossness. DON PEDRO She doth well: if she should make tender of her love, 'tis very possible he'll scorn it; for the man, as you know all, hath a contemptible spirit. CLAUDIO He is a very proper man. DON PEDRO He hath indeed a good outward happiness. CLAUDIO Before God! and, in my mind, very wise. DON PEDRO He doth indeed show some sparks that are like wit. CLAUDIO And I take him to be valiant. DON PEDRO As Hector, I assure you: and in the managing of quarrels you may say he is wise; for either he avoids them with great discretion, or undertakes them with a most Christian-like fear. LEONATO If he do fear God, a' must necessarily keep peace: if he break the peace, he ought to enter into a quarrel with fear and trembling. DON PEDRO And so will he do; for the man doth fear God, howsoever it seems not in him by some large jests he will make. Well I am sorry for your niece. Shall we go seek Benedick, and tell him of her love? CLAUDIO Never tell him, my lord: let her wear it out with good counsel. LEONATO Nay, that's impossible: she may wear her heart out first. DON PEDRO Well, we will hear further of it by your daughter: let it cool the while. I love Benedick well; and I could wish he would modestly examine himself, to see how much he is unworthy so good a lady. LEONATO My lord, will you walk? dinner is ready. CLAUDIO If he do not dote on her upon this, I will never trust my expectation. DON PEDRO Let there be the same net spread for her; and that must your daughter and her gentlewomen carry. The sport will be, when they hold one an opinion of another's dotage, and no such matter: that's the scene that I would see, which will be merely a dumb-show. Let us send her to call him in to dinner. Exeunt DON PEDRO, CLAUDIO, and LEONATO BENEDICK [Coming forward] This can be no trick: the conference was sadly borne. They have the truth of this from Hero. They seem to pity the lady: it seems her affections have their full bent. Love me! why, it must be requited. I hear how I am censured: they say I will bear myself proudly, if I perceive the love come from her; they say too that she will rather die than give any sign of affection. I did never think to marry: I must not seem proud: happy are they that hear their detractions and can put them to mending. They say the lady is fair; 'tis a truth, I can bear them witness; and virtuous; 'tis so, I cannot reprove it; and wise, but for loving me; by my troth, it is no addition to her wit, nor no great argument of her folly, for I will be horribly in love with her. I may chance have some odd quirks and remnants of wit broken on me, because I have railed so long against marriage: but doth not the appetite alter? a man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age. Shall quips and sentences and these paper bullets of the brain awe a man from the career of his humour? No, the world must be peopled. When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married. Here comes Beatrice. By this day! she's a fair lady: I do spy some marks of love in her. Enter BEATRICE BEATRICE Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner. BENEDICK Fair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains. BEATRICE I took no more pains for those thanks than you take pains to thank me: if it had been painful, I would not have come. BENEDICK You take pleasure then in the message? BEATRICE Yea, just so much as you may take upon a knife's point and choke a daw withal. You have no stomach, signior: fare you well. Exit BENEDICK Ha! 'Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner;' there's a double meaning in that 'I took no more pains for those thanks than you took pains to thank me.' that's as much as to say, Any pains that I take for you is as easy as thanks. If I do not take pity of her, I am a villain; if I do not love her, I am a Jew. I will go get her picture. Exit ACT III SCENE I. LEONATO'S garden. Enter HERO, MARGARET, and URSULA HERO Good Margaret, run thee to the parlor; There shalt thou find my cousin Beatrice Proposing with the prince and Claudio: Whisper her ear and tell her, I and Ursula Walk in the orchard and our whole discourse Is all of her; say that thou overheard'st us; And bid her steal into the pleached bower, Where honeysuckles, ripen'd by the sun, Forbid the sun to enter, like favourites, Made proud by princes, that advance their pride Against that power that bred it: there will she hide her, To listen our purpose. This is thy office; Bear thee well in it and leave us alone. MARGARET I'll make her come, I warrant you, presently. Exit HERO Now, Ursula, when Beatrice doth come, As we do trace this alley up and down, Our talk must only be of Benedick. When I do name him, let it be thy part To praise him more than ever man did merit: My talk to thee must be how Benedick Is sick in love with Beatrice. Of this matter Is little Cupid's crafty arrow made, That only wounds by hearsay. Enter BEATRICE, behind Now begin; For look where Beatrice, like a lapwing, runs Close by the ground, to hear our conference. URSULA The pleasant'st angling is to see the fish Cut with her golden oars the silver stream, And greedily devour the treacherous bait: So angle we for Beatrice; who even now Is couched in the woodbine coverture. Fear you not my part of the dialogue. HERO Then go we near her, that her ear lose nothing Of the false sweet bait that we lay for it. Approaching the bower No, truly, Ursula, she is too disdainful; I know her spirits are as coy and wild As haggerds of the rock. URSULA But are you sure That Benedick loves Beatrice so entirely? HERO So says the prince and my new-trothed lord. URSULA And did they bid you tell her of it, madam? HERO They did entreat me to acquaint her of it; But I persuaded them, if they loved Benedick, To wish him wrestle with affection, And never to let Beatrice know of it. URSULA Why did you so? Doth not the gentleman Deserve as full as fortunate a bed As ever Beatrice shall couch upon? HERO O god of love! I know he doth deserve As much as may be yielded to a man: But Nature never framed a woman's heart Of prouder stuff than that of Beatrice; Disdain and scorn ride sparkling in her eyes, Misprising what they look on, and her wit Values itself so highly that to her All matter else seems weak: she cannot love, Nor take no shape nor project of affection, She is so self-endeared. URSULA Sure, I think so; And therefore certainly it were not good She knew his love, lest she make sport at it. HERO Why, you speak truth. I never yet saw man, How wise, how noble, young, how rarely featured, But she would spell him backward: if fair-faced, She would swear the gentleman should be her sister; If black, why, Nature, drawing of an antique, Made a foul blot; if tall, a lance ill-headed; If low, an agate very vilely cut; If speaking, why, a vane blown with all winds; If silent, why, a block moved with none. So turns she every man the wrong side out And never gives to truth and virtue that Which simpleness and merit purchaseth. URSULA Sure, sure, such carping is not commendable. HERO No, not to be so odd and from all fashions As Beatrice is, cannot be commendable: But who dare tell her so? If I should speak, She would mock me into air; O, she would laugh me Out of myself, press me to death with wit. Therefore let Benedick, like cover'd fire, Consume away in sighs, waste inwardly: It were a better death than die with mocks, Which is as bad as die with tickling. URSULA Yet tell her of it: hear what she will say. HERO No; rather I will go to Benedick And counsel him to fight against his passion. And, truly, I'll devise some honest slanders To stain my cousin with: one doth not know How much an ill word may empoison liking. URSULA O, do not do your cousin such a wrong. She cannot be so much without true judgment-- Having so swift and excellent a wit As she is prized to have--as to refuse So rare a gentleman as Signior Benedick. HERO He is the only man of Italy. Always excepted my dear Claudio. URSULA I pray you, be not angry with me, madam, Speaking my fancy: Signior Benedick, For shape, for bearing, argument and valour, Goes foremost in report through Italy. HERO Indeed, he hath an excellent good name. URSULA His excellence did earn it, ere he had it. When are you married, madam? HERO Why, every day, to-morrow. Come, go in: I'll show thee some attires, and have thy counsel Which is the best to furnish me to-morrow. URSULA She's limed, I warrant you: we have caught her, madam. HERO If it proves so, then loving goes by haps

Hi you guys I am a long time geocacher who lost touch when I moved to Maui, its just not happening a lot here. Beautiful, but not a lot of caching. OK so I have two Garmin Hcx Etrex. I know, its been a moment. I need to buy a new unit, and am eyeing the link below. Is this my best bet right now? I have bad eyes, so will this be a step up? And oh, I am not a touchscreen fan. Any feedback welcome. And also, new friends Please? I am taking tomorrow off so I can sit online and make friends and talk story and rekindle my passion for geocaching. I am ready to purchase tonight, so talk to me.... Mods, if in the wrong place, please let me know <3 Garmin GPSMAP 64st, TOPO U.S. 100K with High-Sensitivity GPS and GLONASS Receiver

I have no interest in souvenirs. For challenge caches that are challenging, in particular, when I meet the challenge, I want to log the find so I can talk about the challenge and what it meant to me for the same reason I want to log cache finds and talk about them. I'm not doing it for trophies. Yeah - I'd rather have challenge caches continue as-is than to see them completely banned and replaced by souvenirs. The post-moratorium rules have eliminated some challenge types that I enjoyed, but at least the pre-moratorium ones have been allowed to continue and there is some potential for new challenge caches that might be interesting, if a CO can come up with a good idea that works within the current guidelines. I wouldn't be opposed to simple souvenirs, like Jasmer or Fizzy or calendar, but I wouldn't want to see GS resources spent on something that is currently accomplished by BadgeGen. I wouldn't be surprised if GS ends up getting complaints from cachers about how a particular 'accomplishment' doesn't have a souvenir. "There is a souvenir for having 2000 and 3000 finds, but how about a souvenir for having 2500" or "There is a souvenir for completing a Fizzy grid, but how about a souvenir for completing half of a Fizzy grid"... There have already been complaints about how some countries don't yet have souvenirs, so I don't see how 'accomplishment' souvenirs would be an attractive use of time.

That's a good division that covers most everything, although one of the problems I have with GS's attitude towards challenges is that in preventing challenges, they rule out everything except accomplishments, so a CO can't come up with a new idea that isn't really either. I have no interest in souvenirs. For challenge caches that are challenging, in particular, when I meet the challenge, I want to log the find so I can talk about the challenge and what it meant to me for the same reason I want to log cache finds and talk about them. I'm not doing it for trophies.

I've found 10 or 20 caches since the lockdown, and not a single one had been touched by anyone within the period that the virus is known to survive on that kind of surface, discounting the remote possibility of a non-cacher finding it and handling it without a corresponding log being entered. With golf, the person you're worried about was there touching that object 5 minutes ago. So I don't consider the risk for geocaching large, although for the run where someone had found the caches the day before, I used gloves just to be sure. But I'm not trying to talk you out of not signing. That's up to you, and I expect most COs will understand if you explain in your find log and don't play games like not climbing a tree but then claiming the find. If you're worried about the CO, you could just log a note: they can't complain about that.

In geocache talk it don't mean stolen loot though. Street talk, swag is low grade stuff. Kinda makes sense as to what I find left in geocaches.

How about getting a few college interns from down the street to help with this excellent idea? Though Siri offline you'll have to talk to Apple.

It took me a minute to figure out what you were talking about because, although it might seem odd, I see little similarity between what a CO does and what the powers that be do. A CO has a lot of say in his cache, but, nevertheless, he has no authority. He's just another person playing a game with his friends, so, yes, of course I agree he should be patient with others, thorough in his explanation, and flexible when he can. As I said, I wish TPTB could be like that, but the fact is that they're just making decisions: yes you can do that or no you can't. In a case like this, there's no explanation: the people promoting virtual logs know full well they're against the guidelines, so there's no need to explain that. There's really no advantage for the powers that be to be nice once they've made a decision after considering all the facts. That's one of the reasons I don't think I could ever be a reviewer. Reveiwers are great. They're always fair and helpful. But we're talking about a situation where all the cards are on the table. There's no possible outcome other than "No". In that situation, I can understand when they see no reason to pretend there's anything to talk about. No, in fact, I don't agree with that statement. This isn't about a matter of opinion whether a guideline can or can't be broken. And, in fact, I think the idea that respect has anything to do with following the rules is absurd. This is simply observing that TPTB have made a decision, so that's that. In this case, I happen to agree with their decision because I don't see the benefit and dislike the precedent, but my purpose here is to support the TPTB's actions once they made the decision regardless of how I feel about their ruling. I can see them being more lenient in the case of a CO allowing a find that doesn't result in a signed log. I haven't seen them mind that in the case of a container that can't be opened, although I'm sure they'd get upset if it went on a while without the container being replaced. So I'm not surprised they're allowing it, but I also won't be surprised if they change their minds after it becomes more obvious this is going on as a matter of course.

A few thoughts : First, unless there is some puzzle on the cache page they need to solve to find the locations of those bits of information, or the information itself is a puzzle, that's probably a multi not a puzzle . Second, practically speaking, why 16 portions of information ? Is that because of the length of the co-ordinate string ? Remember that the first few digits of both latitude and longitude are going to be exactly the same for a huge area, so unless your chosen site is near the border between .for e.g. , 50 north and 51 north, most smart people will skip visiting those predictable digits. A lot of puzzles in my area give a portion of the solution on the page like this N50 0x.xxx W 000 0x.xxx. Third, 16 (or however many) pieces of information are many times (16 ?) more likely to go missing than a single cache container, and in towns those do seem to get muggled easily. If one of your pieces is removed, painted over or whatever, you will need to maintain it. Similarly, you need to be sure your pieces of information are going to stay readable despite fading or water damage (or frost damage, or whatever your climate throws at you, I've not checked to see where you cache ! ) As baer2006 mentions, inbuilt redundancy of some kind reassures cachers that a single missing piece of information will not mean they have to post a DNF , if you can work it in, it's very worthwhile. Fourth, you need to ensure your pieces of information are placed in a way which causes no damage, personally I'd not ever contemplate putting a sticker or marking with paint or pen on someone else's property , or municipal street signs etc. Using a magnet (or magnetic sheet cut to size) or a magnetic fake bolt would mean no risk of damage . You could maybe talk to some property owners in the town, a friendly small shop, cafe, museum or whatever might be happy to have a discreet sign placed in the corner of a window facing out and visible from the street .

Haven't read the whole thread, but wondering if there has been any talk/rumours of extending the first CITO season for this year since many if us are now in lockdown with CITO events cancelled or unable to be published during this time.

Nice try. It was an interesting idea, but I agree with GS that it was misguided, so I'm happy they shut it down. I can see why you're upset about them not posting an explanation, but your description makes it clear the caches were published under false pretenses, however noble the intention, and GS usually doesn't react kindly to that. Try something else, and maybe talk it over with GS or come on the forums to discuss it before you decide unilaterally that it justifies pretending to be geocaching when you're actually doing something else. I haven't looked at the recent "virtual event" thread, but I'm guessing that's someone thinking along the same lines, so you might want to check it out.

We joke about attending Skype events in our local WhatsApp group but definitely against the rules. I you need caching talk just organise a group chat. I am sure people are not that desparate for a log.

You could always log a Note with the intention of logging a legitimate Find after signing the Log. Hard to see how HQ would have an issue with a generic Note. Since my experience informs me that HQ usually only gets wind of these things when another User complains, maybe you should invite the person/people in your area that appear to have an issue with this practice to a video chat to talk it over and find some sort of solution. Zoom Happy Hours are becoming quite the thing in my area.