Tales from Shakespeare. Charles Lamb

the noble guests; and while Claudio was attentively observing the improvement which time had made in her beauty, and was contemplating the exquisite graces of her fine figure (for she was an admirable young lady), the prince was highly amused with listening to the humorous dialogue between Benedick and Beatrice; and he said in a whisper to Leonato: ‘This is a pleasant-spirited young lady. She were an excellent wife for Benedick.’ Leonato replied to this suggestion: ‘O, my lord, my lord, if they were but a week married, they would talk themselves mad.’ But though Leonato thought they would make a discordant pair, the prince did not give up the idea of matching these two keen wits together.

      When the prince returned with Claudio from the palace, he found that the marriage he had devised between Benedick and Beatrice was not the only one projected in that good company, for Claudio spoke in such terms of Hero, as made the prince guess at what was passing in his heart; and he liked it well, and he said to Claudio: ‘Do you affect Hero?’ To this question Claudio replied: ‘O my lord, when I was last at Messina, I looked upon her with a soldier’s eye, that liked, but had no leisure for loving; but now, in this happy time of peace, thoughts of war have left their places vacant in my mind, and in their room come thronging soft and delicate thoughts, all prompting me how fair young Hero is, reminding me that I liked her before I went to the wars.’ Claudio’s confession of his love for Hero so wrought upon the prince, that he lost no time in soliciting the consent of Leonato to accept of Claudio for a son-in-law. Leonato agreed to this proposal, and the prince found no great difficulty in persuading the gentle Hero herself to listen to the suit of the noble Claudio, who was a lord of rare endowments, and highly accomplished, and Claudio, assisted by his kind prince, soon prevailed upon Leonato to fix an early day for the celebration of his marriage with Hero.

      Claudio was to wait but a few days before he was to be married to his fair lady; yet he complained of the interval being tedious, as indeed most young men are impatient when they are waiting for the accomplishment of any event they have set their hearts upon: the prince, therefore, to make the time seem short to him, proposed as a kind of merry pastime that they should invent some artful scheme to make Benedick and Beatrice fall in love with each other. Claudio entered with great satisfaction into this whim of the prince, and Leonato promised them his assistance, and even Hero said she would do any modest office to help her cousin to a good husband.

      The device the prince invented was, that the gentlemen should make Benedick believe that Beatrice was in love with him, and that Hero should make Beatrice believe that Benedick was in love with her.

      The prince, Leonato, and Claudio began their operations first: and watching upon an opportunity when Benedick was quietly seated reading in an arbour, the prince and his assistants took their station among the trees behind the arbour, so near that Benedick could not choose but hear all they said; and after some careless talk the prince said: ‘Come hither, Leonato. What was it you told me the other day that your niece Beatrice was in love with signior Benedick? I did never think that lady would have loved any man.’ ‘No, nor I neither, my lord.’ answered Leonato. ‘It is most wonderful that she should so dote on Benedick, whom she in all outward behaviour seemed ever to dislike.’ Claudio confirmed all this with saying that Hero had told him Beatrice was so in love with Benedick, that she would certainly die of grief, if he could not be brought to love her; which Leonato and Claudio seemed to agree was impossible, he having always been such a railer against all fair ladies, and in particular against Beatrice.

      The prince affected to hearken to all this with great compassion for Beatrice, and he said: ‘It were good that Benedick were told of this.’ ‘To what end?’ said Claudio; ‘he would but make sport of it, and torment the poor lady worse.’ ‘And if he should,’ said the prince, ‘it were a good deed to hang him; for Beatrice is an excellent sweet lady, and exceeding wise in everything but in loving Benedick.’ Then the prince motioned to his companions that they should walk on, and leave Benedick to meditate upon what he had overheard.

      Benedick had been listening with great eagerness to this conversation; and he said to himself when he heard Beatrice loved him: ‘Is it possible? Sits the wind in that corner?’ And when they were gone, he began to reason in this manner with himself: ‘This can be no trick! they were very serious, and they have the truth from Hero, and seem to pity the lady. Love me! Why it must be requited! I did never think to marry. But when I said I should die a bachelor, I did not think I should live to be married. They say the lady is virtuous and fair. She is so. And wise in everything but loving me. Why, that is no great argument of her folly. But here comes Beatrice. By this day, she is a fair lady. I do spy some marks of love in her.’ Beatrice now approached him, and said with her usual tartness: ‘Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner.’ Benedick, who never felt himself disposed to speak so politely to her before, replied: ‘Fair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains’: and when Beatrice, after two or three more rude speeches, left him, Benedick thought he observed a concealed meaning of kindness under the uncivil words she uttered, and he said aloud: ‘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 gentleman being thus caught in the net they had spread for him, it was now Hero’s turn to play her part with Beatrice; and for this purpose she sent for Ursula and Margaret, two gentlewomen who attended upon her, and she said to Margaret: ‘Good Margaret, run to the parlour; there you will kind my cousin Beatrice talking with the prince and Claudio. Whisper in her ear, that I and Ursula are walking in the orchard, and that our discourse is all of her. Bid her steal into that pleasant arbour, where honeysuckles, ripened by the sun, like ungrateful minions, forbid the sun to enter.’ This arbour, into which Hero desired Margaret to entice Beatrice, was the very same pleasant arbour where Benedick had so lately been an attentive listener.

      ‘I will make her come, I warrant, presently,’ said Margaret.

      Hero, then taking Ursula with her into the orchard, said to her: ‘Now, Ursula, when Beatrice comes, we will walk up and down this alley, and our talk must be only of Benedick, and when I name him, let it be your part to praise him more than ever man did merit. My talk to you must be how Benedick is in love with Beatrice. Now begin; for look where Beatrice like a lapwing runs close by the ground, to hear our conference.’ They then began; Hero saying, as if in answer to something which Ursula had said: ‘No, truly, Ursula. She is too disdainful; her spirits are as coy as wild birds of the rock.’ ‘But are you sure,’ said Ursula, ‘that Benedick loves Beatrice so entirely?’ Hero replied: ‘So says the prince, and my lord Claudio, and they entreated me to acquaint her with it; but I persuaded them, if they loved Benedick, never to let Beatrice know of it.’ ‘Certainly,’ replied Ursula, ‘it were not good she knew his love, lest she made sport of it.’ ‘Why, to say truth,’ said Hero, ‘I never yet saw a man, how wise soever, or noble, young, or rarely featured, but she would dispraise him.’ ‘Sure, sure, such carping is not commendable,’ said Ursula. ‘No,’ replied Hero, ‘but who dare tell her so? If I should speak, she would mock me into air.’ ‘O! you wrong your cousin,’ said Ursula: ‘she cannot be so much without true judgment, as to refuse so rare a gentleman as signior Benedick.’ ‘He hath an excellent good name,’ said Hero: ‘indeed, he is the first man in Italy, always excepting my dear Claudio.’ And now, Hero giving her attendant a hint that it was time to change the discourse, Ursula said: ‘And when are you to be married, madam?’ Hero then told her, that she was to be married to Claudio the next day, and desired she would go in with her, and look at some new attire, as she wished to consult with her on what she would wear on the morrow. Beatrice, who had been listening with breathless eagerness to this dialogue, when they went away, exclaimed: ‘What fire is in mine ears? Can this be true? Farewell, contempt and scorn, and maiden pride, adieu! Benedick, love on! I will requite you, taming my wild heart to your loving hand.’

      It must have been a pleasant sight to see these old enemies converted into new and loving friends, and to behold their first meeting after being cheated into mutual liking by the merry artifice of the good-humoured prince. But a sad reverse in the fortunes of Hero must now be thought of. The morrow, which was to have been her wedding-day, brought sorrow on the heart of Hero and her good father Leonato.

      The prince had a half-brother, who came from the wars along with him to Messina. This brother (his name was Don John) was a melancholy,