The Shakespeare Story-Book

“Dear Lady Disdain”

There was rejoicing in Messina, for the war was over, and Don Pedro, the victorious Prince of Arragon, was returning in triumph. Tidings were sent to Leonato, the Governor, to expect his speedy approach; and Leonato himself, with his daughter Hero and his niece Beatrice, received the Prince’s messenger, and questioned him eagerly as to the welfare of their friends.

“How many gentlemen have you lost in this action?” inquired Leonato.

“But few of any sort, and none of name,” replied the messenger.

“I find in this letter that Don Pedro has bestowed much honour on a young Florentine called Claudio,” said Leonato.

“Much deserved on his part and equally remembered by Don Pedro,” answered the messenger. “He has indeed borne himself gallantly, doing in the figure of a lamb the feats of a lion.”

When she heard this outspoken praise of the young Florentine, Hero, the Governor’s daughter, felt a warm thrill of joy, but she only smiled and blushed with pleasure.

“I pray you,” put in Beatrice, the Governor’s niece, who lived in her uncle’s house, and was the dear companion of his only daughter, “is Signor Mountanto returned from the wars or no?”

“I know none of that name, lady,” said the messenger, looking rather puzzled; “there was none such in the army of any sort.”

“Who is he that you ask for niece?”

“My cousin means Signor Benedick of Padua,” explained Hero.

“Oh, he has returned, and as pleasant as ever he was,” said the messenger.

“I pray you, how many has he killed and eaten in these wars?” said Beatrice mockingly. “But no, how many has he killed? For, indeed, I promised to eat all of his killing.”

“Faith, niece, you are too hard on Signor Benedick,” said Leonato. “But he will be even with you, I do not doubt.”

“He has done good service, lady, in these wars,” said the messenger; and then he went on to praise warmly the valour and noble qualities of the young lord; but Beatrice would do nothing but laugh and mock at all he said.

“You must not, sir, mistake my niece,” said Leonato at last. “There is a kind of merry war betwixt Signor Benedick and her; they never meet but there is a skirmish of wit between them.”

While they were still speaking, the Prince of Arragon, with his train of noble gentlemen, arrived. Leonato welcomed them most warmly. Count Claudio and Signor Benedick were old friends, and had previously stayed at the Governor’s palace; indeed, before starting for the wars Claudio had looked with more than an eye of favour on the gentle lady Hero. As for Beatrice and Benedick, they pretended to have a great aversion to each other, but, strange to say, instead of avoiding each other’s society, they seemed to delight in seizing every opportunity to plague and tease each other as much as possible.

On the present occasion Beatrice had not long to wait, and on Benedick’s making some jesting remark to Don Pedro and Leonato, she plunged into the fray.

“I wonder that you will still be talking, Signor Benedick; nobody marks you.”

“What, my dear Lady Disdain! Are you yet living?” retorted Benedick.

“Is it possible that Disdain should die while she has such meet food to feed it as Signor Benedick? Courtesy herself must turn into disdain if you come into her presence.”

“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,” remarked Benedick in a lofty manner.

“That is very happy for women; they would otherwise have been troubled with a most annoying suitor,” said Beatrice. “Thank Heaven, I am like you in that respect; I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me.”

“Heaven keep your ladyship still in that mind!” said the young lord devoutly. “So some gentleman or another shall escape injury.”

It was all very well for Benedick to scoff at love, but the young Count Claudio was of a different nature. Impulsive and passionate, he was not ashamed to own his love for the lady Hero, and with the sympathetic help of the Prince of Arragon he speedily won the lady’s consent and her father’s approval. The wedding-day was fixed for a week later, and the only trial the impatient young lover had to endure was the time that must elapse before the marriage.

Benedick, of course, did not spare his raillery on this occasion, and he laughed with the utmost scorn when Don Pedro and Claudio declared that his own turn would come.

“I shall see you, before I die, look pale with love,” said Don Pedro.

“With anger, with sickness, with hunger, my lord, but never with love,” declared Benedick.

“Well, if ever you fall from this faith you will prove a notable argument.”

“If I do, hang me in a bottle and shoot at me,” laughed Benedick.

“Well, as time shall try. ‘In time the savage bull doth bear the yoke,’” quoted Don Pedro.

“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!’”

Benedick’s self-assured declaration that he never intended to fall in love or get married, and Beatrice’s equal scorn on the same subject, put a mischievous idea into Don Pedro’s head, and it occurred to him that the week which had to elapse before the wedding might be most amusingly occupied.

“I will warrant that the time shall not pass dully,” he said to Leonato and Claudio. “I will in the meanwhile undertake one of Hercules’ labours, which is to bring Signor Benedick and the Lady Beatrice into a mountain of affection one for the other. I would fain have it a match, and I do not doubt of bringing it about, if you three will but help me in the way I point out.”

“My lord, I am for you, though it cost me ten nights’ watching,” said Leonato.

“And I, my lord,” said Claudio.

“I will do any modest office, my lord, to help my cousin to a good husband,” said the gentle Hero.

“And Benedick is not the least hopeful husband I know,” said the Prince. “Thus far I can praise him: he is of noble race, of approved valour, and of steadfast honesty. I will teach you how to humour your cousin that she shall fall in love with Benedick, and I, with the help of Leonato and Claudio, will so practise on Benedick that, in spite of his quick wit and fastidious temper, he shall fall in love with Beatrice. If we can do this, Cupid is no longer an archer; his glory shall be ours, for we are the only love-gods! Come with me, and I will tell you my plan.”

A Plain-dealing Villain

Now, among the gentlemen in the Prince of Arragon’s train there was one of a very different nature from Claudio and Benedick. This was Don John, a half-brother of the Prince, and a man of sullen, envious, and malicious temper. He was spiteful to all the world, but in especial he hated his half-brother, and he bore a furious grudge against the young Florentine lord Claudio, because the latter stood high in the favour of the Prince of Arragon. Don John had long sullenly opposed his brother, and had only lately been taken into favour again. It now only depended on his own behaviour as to whether he should go on and prosper, or whether he should fall again into disgrace. But Don John had no intention of acting more amiably than he could possibly help. His followers, Borachio and Conrade, urged him to conceal his feelings, and to bear a more cheerful countenance among the general rejoicings, but Don John flatly refused.

“I had rather be a canker in a hedge than a rose in my brother’s grace,” he said sullenly. “It better fits my humour to be disdained of all than to fashion a behaviour to rob love from any. In this, though I cannot be said to be a flattering, honest man, it must not be denied that I am a plain-dealing villain. I am trusted, – with a muzzle; and set free, – with a clog; therefore I have determined not to sing in my cage. If I had my mouth I would bite, if I had my liberty I should do my liking; in the meantime let me be what I am, and do not seek to alter me.”

The news that the gallant young Claudio was to wed the daughter of the Governor of Messina put Don John into a fresh fury.

“That young start-up has all the glory of my overthrow,” he declared. “If I can cross him in any way, I shall only be too delighted.”

His two men, Borachio and Conrade, who were as evil-natured as their master, promised to help him in any scheme of vengeance he could devise, and it was not long before Borachio came to him and said that he had found a way to cross Count Claudio’s marriage.

“Any bar, any cross, any hindrance, will do me good,” said Don John. “I am sick with displeasure, and whatsoever comes athwart his desire will go evenly with mine. How can you cross this marriage?”

“Not honestly, my lord, but so secretly that no dishonesty shall appear in me.”

“Show me briefly how.”

“I think I told your lordship a year since how much I am in favour with Margaret, the waiting gentlewoman to Hero.”

“I remember.”

“I can at any unseasonable instant of the night appoint her to look out at her lady’s chamber window.”

“What good will that be to put an end to the marriage?”

“The poison of it lies with you to mix. Go to the Prince your brother, tell him he has wronged his honour in allowing the renowned Claudio – whom you must praise warmly – to marry lady like Hero, who has already another lover.”

“What proof shall I make of that?”

“Proof enough to hurt the Prince, to vex Claudio, to ruin Hero, and to kill Leonato. Do you look for any other result?”

“I will do anything only to spite them.”

“Go, then, find a fitting hour when Don Pedro and Count Claudio are alone, and tell them that you know Hero loves me,” said the wicked Borachio. “They will scarcely believe this without proof. Offer them the opportunity to test the truth of your words. Bring them outside Leonato’s house the night before the wedding; and in the meanwhile I will so fashion the matter that they shall see Margaret speak to me out of the window, they shall hear me call her ‘Hero,’ and there shall appear such seeming truth of Hero’s disloyalty that Claudio in his jealousy will feel quite assured of it, and all the preparations for the wedding shall be overthrown.”

“Let the issue of this be what it may, I will put it in practice,” said Don John. “Be cunning in working this, and thy fee is a thousand ducats.”

“You be steady in the accusation, and my cunning shall not shame me,” was Borachio’s response.

“Cupid’s Crafty Arrow”

Benedick was strolling alone in Leonato’s orchard, and as he went he mused to himself.

“I do wonder,” he thought, “that one man, seeing how much another man is a fool when he is in love, after he has laughed at such shallow follies in others, will himself become the object of his own scorn by falling 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 he had rather hear the tabor and the pipe. I have known when he would have walked ten miles on 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 his words are a very fantastical banquet, just so many strange dishes. Shall I ever be so converted, and see with those eyes? I cannot tell. I think not. I will not be sworn that love may not 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 and virtuous, or I’ll have none of 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 – her hair shall be of what colour it pleases God… Ha! the Prince and Monsieur Love. I will hide me in the arbour.”

And Benedick hastily concealed himself, as Don Pedro, Claudio, and Leonato approached, followed by some musicians.

“Come, shall we hear this music?” said Don Pedro, seating himself on a bench within earshot of the arbour. “See you where Benedick has hidden himself?” he added in a low voice.

“Oh, very well, my lord,” answered Claudio. “When the music is ended, we will give him something to think about.”

“Come, Balthasar, we’ll hear that song again,” said Don Pedro.

So the musicians lightly touched the strings of their instruments, and Balthasar began his song:

“By my troth, a good song!” said the Prince. “Balthasar, I pray you get us some excellent music, for to-morrow night we would have it at the lady Hero’s chamber-window.”

“The best I can, my lord.”

“Do so; farewell… Come hither, Leonato,” said Don Pedro, when the young musician had retired. “What was it that you told me of to-day – that your niece Beatrice was in love with Signor Benedick?”

“Go on,” whispered Claudio. “We shall catch our bird. I did never think that lady would have loved any man,” he added aloud, for Benedick’s benefit.

“No, nor I neither,” said Leonato; “but it is most wonderful that she should so doat on Signor Benedick, whom she has in all outward behaviour always seemed to abhor.”

“Is it possible? Sits the wind in that corner?” murmured the astonished Benedick in his hiding-place.

“By my troth, my lord, I cannot tell what to think of it, but that she loves him frantically,” continued Leonato. “It is past the bounds of belief.”

“Has she made her affection known to Benedick?” asked Don Pedro.

“No, and swears she never will; that is the cause of her unhappiness.”

“’Tis true indeed,” put in Claudio. “‘Shall I,’ says she, ‘that have so often encountered him with scorn, write to him that I love him?’”

“‘I measure him by my own spirit,’ she says,” continued Leonato, “‘for I should flout him if he wrote to me – yea, though I love him, I should.’”

“And then she weeps and sobs, beats her heart, tears her hair,” said Claudio.

“My daughter is sometimes afraid she will do a desperate outrage to herself,” said Leonato.

“It were good if Benedick knew it from someone else, if she will not reveal it,” said Don Pedro.

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

“If he did it would be a charity to hang him,” said Don Pedro indignantly. “She is an excellent, sweet lady.”

“And she is exceedingly wise,” put in Claudio.

“In everything but in loving Benedick,” said Don Pedro.

“Oh, my lord, I am sorry for her, as I have just cause, being her uncle and her guardian,” said Leonato.

“I would she had bestowed this affection on me,” said Don Pedro. “I would marry her at once. Well, Leonato, I am sorry for your niece. I pray you tell Benedick of it, and hear what he will say.”

“Never tell him, my lord,” said Claudio. “Let her wear out her affection with good counsel.”

“Nay, that’s impossible,” said Leonato; “she may wear her heart out first.”

“Well, we will hear further of it from your daughter,” said Don Pedro. “I love Benedick well, and I could wish he would modestly examine himself to see how much he is unworthy so good a lady.”

“My lord, will you walk? Dinner is ready,” said Leonato.

“If he do not doat on her after this, I will never trust my expectation,” laughed Claudio, as the conspirators withdrew.

“Let there be the same net spread for Beatrice,” said Don Pedro, “and that your daughter and her gentlewomen must carry out. The sport will be when they each believe in the other’s doating, when there is no such matter; that’s the scene I should like to see… Let us send her to call him in to dinner.”

When the others had gone, Benedick came forth from his hiding-place, deeply impressed with what he had heard.

“Poor lady!” he thought. “So she really loves me! Well, her affection must be requited. I hear how I am censured. They say I will bear myself proudly if I see the love come from her. They say, too, she will rather die than give any sign of affection… I never thought to marry… I must not seem proud. Happy are those 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; it is so. And wise; but for loving me. By my troth, it is no addition to her wit, and no great argument of her folly, for I will be horribly in love with her. I may chance to have some odd quirks and remnants of wit broken on me, because I have railed so long against marriage; but does not a man’s opinion alter?.. When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I was married. Here comes Beatrice. By this day, she is a fair lady! I do spy some marks of love in her.”

Quite unconscious of all that had taken place, Beatrice advanced, and in her usual mocking style announced:

“Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner.”

“Fair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains,” said Benedick.

“I took no more pains for those thanks than you take pains to thank me,” said Beatrice carelessly. “If it had been painful I would not have come.”

“You take pleasure, then, in the message?” said Benedick eagerly.

“Yes, just so much as you may take upon a knife’s point, and choke a daw withal,” laughed Beatrice. “You have no appetite, signor? Fare you well.” And off she went gaily.

“Ha! ‘Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner.’ There’s a double meaning in that,” thought the poor deluded Benedick. “‘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 on her, I am a villain; if I do not love her, I am a Jew. I will go get her picture!”

The same trick which Don Pedro, Claudio, and Leonato had played on Benedick was played on Beatrice by her cousin Hero and her gentlewomen, Margaret and Ursula. Beatrice was lured into the garden, and there, unseen, as she imagined, by the others, she heard them discussing Benedick’s love for her. They followed much the same lines as the three men had done with regard to Beatrice. They spoke of Benedick’s hopeless affection, of his many good qualities, and of his fear of exciting Beatrice’s scorn if he should say anything of his devotion. They said it was a great pity that the lady Beatrice was so proud and hard-hearted, and that they certainly would never tell her of Benedick’s feelings towards her, for she would only laugh at him and treat him with cruel scorn.

“Yet tell her of it; hear what she will say,” Ursula pretended to urge Hero.

“No,” said Hero, “I would rather go to Benedick and counsel him to fight against his passion.”

Having skilfully performed their task, the ladies retired, leaving Beatrice overcome with wonder at what she had heard, and with all her pride melting into a strange new feeling of love.

The Night before the Wedding

It was not likely that Benedick’s changed behaviour should escape notice, and Don Pedro and Claudio pretended to think he was in love, and began to tease him unmercifully. Benedick met their raillery with an air of lofty scorn, but nothing would stop the shafts of wit which the light-hearted gentlemen levelled at their deluded companion, and they continued to twit him on his pensive demeanour, and the new air of fashion which he was adopting.

But all gladness and gaiety were suddenly clouded over with heavy gloom.

Having carefully prepared his villainous plot by the aid of his follower Borachio, Don John came to Claudio and the Prince of Arragon, and told them what had been agreed – namely, that Hero was unworthy to be the wife of Claudio, for she was already in love with Borachio, and that if the Prince and Count Claudio wished to prove the truth of his statement they had only to go that night to the street outside Leonato’s palace, where they would see Hero speaking out of a window to Borachio.

Don Pedro and Claudio were, of course, at first stunned and incredulous, but Don John never faltered in the terrible lie he was relating.

“If you will follow me I will show you enough,” he concluded, “and when you have heard more and seen more, proceed accordingly.”

“If I see anything to-night why I should not marry her to-morrow,” said Claudio, “in the congregation where I should wed, there will I shame her.”

“And as I helped you to woo her, I will join with you to disgrace her,” said Don Pedro.

Now, the watchmen who kept the streets of Messina were a set of silly old men, whose only idea of duty was to potter about the streets, and keep as far as possible out of the way of anyone who was likely to give them any trouble. Chief of them was a constable called Dogberry, whose ignorance and stupidity were only equalled by his enormous self-conceit. On the night before the wedding, however, these brilliant watchmen actually did contrive to effect a capture which led to the happiest results.