Enter Don PEDRO, LEONATO, and CLAUDIO.

D. Pedro. Come, shall we hear this musick? 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 musick ended, We'll fit the kid-fox with a penny-worth 26.

Enter BALTHAZAR, with musick.

D. Pedro. Come, Balthazar, we'll hear that song again.

Balth. O good my lord, tax not so bad a voice
To slander musick any more than once.

D. 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.

Balth. 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.

D. Pedro.

Nay, pray thee, come :

Or, if thou wilt hold longer argument,

Do it in notes.

Balth.

Note this before my notes,

There's not a note of mine that's worth the noting.

D. Pedro. Why these are very crotchets that he

speaks;

Note, notes, forsooth, and noting!

[Musick.

Bene. Now, Divine air! now is his soul ravish'd! 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.

Balthazar sings.
I.

Balth. 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 blith and bonny;
Converting all your sounds of woe
Into, Hey nonny, nonny.
II.

Sing no more ditties, sing no mo

Of dumps so dull and heavy ;
The fraud of men was ever so,
Since summer first was leavy.
Then sigh not so, &c.

D. Pedro. By my troth, a good song.
Balth. And an ill singer, my lord.

D. Pedro. Ha? no; no, faith; thou sing'st well enough for a shift.

Bene. [Aside.] An he had been a dog, that should have howl'd thus, they would have hang'd 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; [To Claudio.]-Dost thou

hear, Balthazar? I pray thee, get us some excellent musick; for to-morrow night we would have it at the lady Hero's chamber-window.

Balth. The best I can, my lord.

D. Pedro. Do so: farewell. [Exeunt Balthazar and musick.] Come hither, Leonato: What was it you told me of to-day? that your niece Beatrice was in love with signior Benedick?

Claud. O, ay:-Stalk on, stalk on; the fowl sits. [Aside to Pedro.] I 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 seem'd ever to abhor.

Bene. Is't possible? Sits the wind in that corner?

[Aside. 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.
Claud. 'Faith, like enough.

Leon, O God! counterfeit! There never was 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.

[Aside.

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. [Aside.] I should think this a gull, but that the white-bearded fellow speaks it: knavery cannot, sure, hide himself in such reverence.

Claud. He hath ta'en the infection; hold it up.

[Aside.

D. Pedro. Hath she made her affection known to 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 encounter'd 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 sheet into a thousand halfpence 27; rail'd 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 float 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 afraid 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.

Claud. To what end? He would but make a sport of it, and torment the poor lady worse.

D. 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.

Claud. And she is exceeding wise.

D. Pedro. In every thing, but in loving Benedick.

Leon. 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.

D. Pedro. I would, she had bestowed this dotage on me; I would have daff'd all other respects, and made her half myself: I pray you, tell Benedick of it, and hear what he will say.

Leon. Were it good, think you?