Love's Labour's Lost (version 2) - Free Audiobook

ACT I.

000 Scene I. Before Leonato’s house.

MAAN I. 1 Enter Leonato, Hero, and Beatrice, with a Messenger.

001 Leon. I learn in this letter that Don Peter of Arragon comes this night to Messina.

Mess. He is very near by this: he was not three leagues off when I left him.

005 Leon. How many gentlemen have you lost in this action?

Mess. But few of any sort, and none of name.

Leon. A victory is twice itself when the achiever brings 008 home full numbers. I find here that Don Peter hath bestowed much honour on a young Florentine called Claudio.

010 Mess. 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.

015 Leon. He hath an uncle here in Messina will be very much glad of it.

Mess. 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.

020 Leon. Did he break out into tears?

Mess. In great measure.

Leon. 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!

025 Beat. I pray you, is Signior Mountanto returned from the wars or no?

Mess. I know none of that name, lady: there was none such in the army of any sort.

Leon. What is he that you ask for, niece?

030 Hero. My cousin means Signior Benedick of Padua.

Mess. O, he’s returned; and as pleasant as ever he was.

Beat. 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 035 bird-bolt. I pray you, how many hath he killed and eaten in these wars? But how many hath he killed? for, indeed, 037 I promised to eat all of his killing.

Leon. Faith, niece, you tax Signior Benedick too much; 039 but he’ll be meet with you, I doubt it not.

040 Mess. He hath done good service, lady, in these wars.

041 Beat. You had musty victual, and he hath help to eat 042 it: he is a very valiant trencher-man; he hath an excellent stomach.

Mess. And a good soldier too, lady.

045 Beat. And a good soldier to a lady: but what is he to a lord?

Mess. A lord to a lord, a man to a man; stuffed with all honourable virtues.

Beat. It is so, indeed; he is no less than a stuffed 050 man: but for the stuffing,—well, we are all mortal.

Leon. 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.

Beat. Alas, he gets nothing by that! In our last conflict 055 four of his five wits went halting off, and now is the whole man governed with one: so that if he have wit enough 057 to keep himself warm, let him bear it for a difference between 058 himself and his horse; for it is all the wealth that he hath left, to be known a reasonable creature. Who is his companion 060 now? He hath every month a new sworn brother.

Mess. Is’t possible?

Beat. Very easily possible: he wears his faith but as the fashion of his hat; it ever changes with the next block.

Mess. I see, lady, the gentleman is not in your books.

065 Beat. No; an he were, I would burn my study. But, pray you, who is his companion? Is there no young squarer now that will make a voyage with him to the devil?

Mess. He is most in the company of the right noble Claudio.

070 Beat. 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 073 caught the Benedick, it will cost him a thousand pound ere 074 a’ be cured.

075 Mess. I will hold friends with you, lady.

Beat. Do, good friend.

077 Leon. You will never run mad, niece.

Beat. No, not till a hot January.

079 Mess. Don Pedro is approached.

Enter Don Pedro, Don John, Claudio, Benedick, and Balthasar.

080 D. Pedro. Good Signior Leonato, you are come to meet your trouble: the fashion of the world is to avoid cost, and 081 you encounter it.

Leon. Never came trouble to my house in the likeness of your Grace: for trouble being gone, comfort should 085 remain; but when you depart from me, sorrow abides, and happiness takes his leave.

087 D. Pedro. You embrace your charge too willingly. I think this is your daughter.

Leon. Her mother hath many times told me so.

090 Bene. Were you in doubt, sir, that you asked her?

Leon. Signior Benedick, no; for then were you a child.

092 D. 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 095 father.

Bene. If Signior Leonato be her father, she would not have his head on her shoulders for all Messina, as like him as she is.

Beat. I wonder that you will still be talking, Signior 100 Benedick: nobody marks you.

Bene. What, my dear Lady Disdain! are you yet living?

Beat. 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.

105 Bene. 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.

Beat. A dear happiness to women: they would else have 110 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.

Bene. God keep your ladyship still in that mind! so some gentleman or other shall ’scape a predestinate scratched face.

115 Beat. Scratching could not make it worse, an ’twere such 116 a face as yours were.

Bene. Well, you are a rare parrot-teacher.

Beat. A bird of my tongue is better than a beast of yours.

Bene. I would my horse had the speed of your tongue, 120 and so good a continuer. But keep your way, i’ God’s name; I have done.

Beat. You always end with a jade’s trick: I know you of old.

124 D. Pedro. That is the sum of all, Leonato. Signior 125 Claudio and Signior Benedick, my dear friend Leonato 126 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.

130 Leon. If you swear, my lord, you shall not be forsworn. 131 [To Don John] Let me bid you welcome, my lord: being reconciled to the prince your brother, I owe you all duty.

D. John. I thank you: I am not of many words, but I thank you.

135 Leon. Please it your Grace lead on?

136 D. Pedro. Your hand, Leonato; we will go together. [Exeunt all except Benedick and Claudio.

137 Claud. Benedick, didst thou note the daughter of Signior Leonato?

Bene. I noted her not; but I looked on her.

140 Claud. Is she not a modest young lady?

Bene. Do you question me, as an honest man should do, for my simple true judgement; or would you have me speak 143 after my custom, as being a professed tyrant to their sex?

144 Claud. No; I pray thee speak in sober judgement.

145 Bene. 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.

150 Claud. Thou thinkest I am in sport: I pray thee tell me truly how thou likest her.

Bene. Would you buy her, that you inquire after her?

Claud. Can the world buy such a jewel?

154 Bene. Yea, and a case to put it into. But speak you this 155 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?

158 Claud. In mine eye she is the sweetest lady that ever I looked on.

160 Bene. I can see yet without spectacles, and I see no such matter: there’s her cousin, an she were not possessed 162 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?

165 Claud. I would scarce trust myself, though I had sworn the contrary, if Hero would be my wife.

167 Bene. 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 threescore again? Go to, i’faith; 170 an thou wilt needs thrust thy neck into a yoke, wear the print of it, and sigh away Sundays. Look; Don Pedro is 172 returned to seek you.

Re-enter Don Pedro.

173 D. Pedro. What secret hath held you here, that you 174 followed not to Leonato’s?

175 Bene. I would your Grace would constrain me to tell.

D. Pedro. I charge thee on thy allegiance.

177 Bene. 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. 180 With who? now that is your Grace’s part. Mark how 181 short his answer is;—With Hero, Leonato’s short daughter.

182 Claud. If this were so, so were it uttered.

Bene. Like the old tale, my lord: ‘it is not so, nor ’twas not so, but, indeed, God forbid it should be so.’

185 Claud. If my passion change not shortly, God forbid it should be otherwise.

D. Pedro. Amen, if you love her; for the lady is very well worthy.

Claud. You speak this to fetch me in, my lord.

190 D. Pedro. By my troth, I speak my thought.

Claud. And, in faith, my lord, I spoke mine.

Bene. And, by my two faiths and troths, my lord, I 193 spoke mine.

Claud. That I love her, I feel.

195 D. Pedro. That she is worthy, I know.

Bene. 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.

D. Pedro. Thou wast ever an obstinate heretic in the 200 despite of beauty.

Claud. And never could maintain his part but in the force of his will.

Bene. That a woman conceived me, I thank her; that she brought me up, I likewise give her most humble thanks: 205 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.

210 D. Pedro. I shall see thee, ere I die, look pale with love.

Bene. 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 215 a brothel-house for the sign of blind Cupid.

D. Pedro. Well, if ever thou dost fall from this faith, thou wilt prove a notable argument.

Bene. If I do, hang me in a bottle like a cat, and shoot 219 at me; and he that hits me, let him be clapped on the 220 shoulder, and called Adam.

D. Pedro. Well, as time shall try: ‘In time the savage bull doth bear the yoke.’

Bene. The savage bull may; but if ever the sensible Benedick bear it, pluck off the bull’s horns, and set them 225 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.’

Claud. If this should ever happen, thou wouldst be 230 horn-mad.

D. Pedro. Nay, if Cupid have not spent all his quiver in Venice, thou wilt quake for this shortly.

Bene. I look for an earthquake too, then.

D. Pedro. Well, you will temporize with the hours. In 235 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.

Bene. I have almost matter enough in me for such an embassage; and so I commit you—

240 Claud. To the tuition of God: From my house, if I had it,—

D. Pedro. The sixth of July: Your loving friend, Benedick.

Bene. Nay, mock not, mock not. The body of your discourse 245 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.

248 Claud. My liege, your highness now may do me good.

249 D. Pedro. My love is thine to teach: teach it but how,

250 And thou shalt see how apt it is to learn

Any hard lesson that may do thee good.

Claud. Hath Leonato any son, my lord?

D. Pedro. No child but Hero; she’s his only heir.

Dost thou affect her, Claudio?

Claud.

O, my lord,

255 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

260 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.

D. Pedro. Thou wilt be like a lover presently,

265 And tire the hearer with a book of words.

If thou dost love fair Hero, cherish it;

267 And I will break with her and with her father,

268 And thou shalt have her. Was’t not to this end

269 That thou began’st to twist so fine a story?

270 Claud. 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.

D. Pedro. What need the bridge much broader than the flood?

275 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,

280 And tell fair Hero I am Claudio;

And in her bosom I’ll unclasp my heart,

282 And take her hearing prisoner with the force

And strong encounter of my amorous tale:

Then after to her father will I break;

285 And the conclusion is, she shall be thine.

286 In practice let us put it presently. [Exeunt.