good discourse, an excellent musician, and her hair shall 30 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 D. PEDRO. Come, shall we hear this music? CLAUD. Yea, my good lord. How still the evening is, As hush'd on purpose to grace harmony! D. PEDRO. See you where Benedick hath hid himself? CLAUD. O, very well, my lord: the music ended, We'll fit the kid-fox with a pennyworth. Enter BALTHASAR with Music D. PEDRO. Come, Balthasar, we'll hear that song again. BALTH. O, good my lord, tax not so bad a voice To slander music any more than once. 31 hair. . . colour] The wearing of false or dyed hair was very common in Shakespeare's day. Cf. Sonnet lxviii, 5–8. Enter... Leonato] The Quarto includes amongst those who enter here 66 Musicke," i. e. a musician. The Folio substitutes for "Musicke" the singer's name " Iacke Wilson." "Mr. Wilson (the singer)" is noticed as one of the guests of Alleyn the actor on the anniversary of his wedding on 22 October, 1620. There is no good ground for identifying the vocalist with Dr. John Wilson (1595-1674) the lutenist and composer who set "Take, O take those lips away," in Meas. for Meas. 38 the kid-fox] young fox; a rare and rather inappropriate term to apply to Benedick. The meaning is, "we'll give him his money's worth.” Enter... Music] Thus the Quarto. The Folio omits this direction. 40 D. PEDRO. It is the witness still of excellency BALTH. Because you talk of wooing, I will sing; To her he thinks not worthy, yet he wooes, Yet will he swear he loves. There's not a note of mine that's worth the noting. speaks; Note, notes, forsooth, and nothing. [Air. BENE. 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. 43 To put a strange face on] To show ignorance or unconsciousness of. 52 crotchets] quibble on the double meaning of the word for "perversities" and "musical notes." 53 nothing] "Nothing was so pronounced by Elizabethans as to admit of its being confused with "noting." Then sigh not so, but let them go, And be you blithe and bonny, Sing no more ditties, sing no moe, Then sigh not so, &c. D. PEDRO. By my troth, a good song. D. PEDRO. Ha, no, no, faith; thou singest well enough for a shift. BENE. 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. D. 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 chamberwindow. BALTH. The best I can, my lord. D. PEDRO. Do so: farewell. [Exit Balthasar.] Come hither, Leonato. What was it you told me of today, that your niece Beatrice was in love with Signior Benedick? CLAUD. O, ay: stalk on, stalk on; the fowl sits. I 86 stalk on, stalk on] a reference to the stalking horse, real or fictitious, behind which the fowler or shooter sheltered himself from the sight of the game. 70 80 did never think that lady would have loved any man. LEON. No, nor I neither; but most wonderful that she should so dote on Signior Benedick, whom she hath in all outward behaviours seemed ever to abhor. BENE. Is 't possible? Sits the wind in that corner? LEON. 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. D. PEDRO. May be she doth but counterfeit. LEON. O God, counterfeit! There was never counterfeit of passion came so near the life of passion as she discovers it. D. PEDRO. Why, what effects of passion shows she? CLAUD. Bait the hook well; this fish will bite. LEON. What effects, my lord? She will sit you, you heard my daughter tell you how. CLAUD. She did, indeed. D. PEDRO. How, how, I pray you? You amaze me: I would have thought her spirit had been invincible against all assaults of affection. LEON. I would have sworn it had, my lord; especially against Benedick. BENE. I should think this a gull, but that the whitebearded fellow speaks it: knavery cannot, sure, hide himself in such reverence. CLAUD. He hath ta'en the infection: hold it up. 90 100 111 Benedick? LEON. No; and swears she never will: that's her torment. CLAUD. '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?". LEON. 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. CLAUD. Now you talk of a sheet of paper, I remember a pretty jest your daughter told us of. LEON. O, when she had writ it, and was reading it over, she found Benedick and Beatrice between the sheet? CLAUD. That. LEON. 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.” CLAUD. Then down upon her knees she falls, weeps, sobs, beats her heart, tears her hair, prays, curses; "O sweet Benedick! God give me patience!" LEON. She doth indeed; my daughter says so: and the ecstasy hath so much overborne her, that my daughter is sometime afeard she will do a desperate outrage to herself: it is very true. D. PEDRO. It were good that Benedick knew of it by some other, if she will not discover it. 129 halfpence] The small silver halfpenny was often quoted as a symbol of littleness. 119 128 140 |