The Shakespeare Story-Book. Уильям Шекспир

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