Rose, Huntington Library and Gardens, Pasadena, California, USA (photo (c) Ulrike Boehm; all rights reserved)
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Oh, you just gotta love Beatrice – particularly in her incarnation as Emma Thompson in Sir Kenneth Branagh's sparkling, splendid movie adaptation of this play. Short of Rosalind in "As You Like It" and Portia in "The Merchant of Venice," did Shakespeare create any female character who is this charming, witty and independent at the same time ... can there possibly be any better heralds of women's cause, in the Bard's own time as much as today, than these three, together or alone? Beatrice won't get married until she has found the perfect match and is sure she is marrying for love. Benedick, her suitor of old, gets back as good as he gives whenever they meet – and the play lives of nothing as much as of their battle of wits. But not enough with that: when Beatrice's gentle young cousin Hero is slandered in an attempt to thwart her impending marriage to Benedick's friend Claudio (who buys into the slander as quickly as he had initially fallen in love with Hero), Beatrice would even be all but ready to take up arms in Hero's defence, were it not that she is a woman ... and realising that this is beyond her scope, she all the more furiously implores Benedick, who has renewed his attentions to her, to step up to the plate for Hero in her stead. Only after Benedick has proven his mettle as a defender of Hero's virtue will he be rewarded by Beatrice's admission of her affections for him. As I said: you just gotta love her ...
I pray you, is Signior Mountanto return'd from the wars or no?
I know none of that name, lady. There was none such in the
army of any sort.
What is he that you ask for, niece?
My cousin means Signior Benedick of Padua.
O, he's return'd, and as pleasant as ever he was.
He set up his bills here in Messina and challeng'd Cupid at
the flight, and my uncle's fool, reading the challenge,
subscrib'd for Cupid and challeng'd him at the burbolt. I pray
you, how many hath he kill'd and eaten in these wars? But how
many hath he kill'd? For indeed I promised to eat all of his
killing.
Faith, niece, you tax Signior Benedick too much; but he'll
be meet with you, I doubt it not.
He hath done good service, lady, in these wars.
You had musty victual, and he hath holp to eat it. He is a
very valiant trencherman; he hath an excellent stomach.
And a good soldier too, lady.
And a good soldier to a lady; but what is he to a lord?
A lord to a lord, a man to a man; stuff'd with all honourable
virtues.
It is so indeed. He is no less than a stuff'd man; but for
the stuffing –well, we are all mortal.
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.
Alas, he gets nothing by that! In our last conflict four of
his five wits went halting off, and now is the whole man govern'd
with one; so that if he have wit enough to keep himself warm, let
him bear it for a difference between himself and his horse; for
it is all the wealth that he hath left to be known a reasonable
creature. Who is his companion now? He hath every month a new
sworn brother.
Is't possible?
Very easily possible. He wears his faith but as the fashion
of his hat; it ever changes with the next block.
I see, lady, the gentleman is not in your books.
No. An he were, I would burn my study. But I pray you, who is
his companion? Is there no young squarer now that will make a
voyage with him to the devil?
He is most in the company of the right noble Claudio.
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 caught the Benedick, it will
cost him a thousand pound ere 'a be cured.
I will hold friends with you, lady.
Do, good friend.
You will never run mad, niece.
No, not till a hot January.
I wonder that you will still be talking, Signior Benedick.
Nobody marks you.
What, my dear Lady Disdain! are you yet living?
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.
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.
A dear happiness to women! They would else have 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.
God keep your ladyship still in that mind! So some gentleman
or other shall scape a predestinate scratch'd face.
Scratching could not make it worse an 'twere such a face as
yours were.
Well, you are a rare parrot-teacher.
A bird of my tongue is better than a beast of yours.
I would my horse had the speed of your tongue, and so good a
continuer. But keep your way, a God's name! I have done.
You always end with a jade's trick. I know you of old.
Was not Count John here at supper?
I saw him not.
How tartly that gentleman looks! I never can see him but I am
heart-burn'd an hour after.
He is of a very melancholy disposition.
He were an excellent man that were made just in the midway
between him and Benedick. The one is too like an image and says
nothing, and the other too like my lady's eldest son, evermore
tattling.
Then half Signior Benedick's tongue in Count John's mouth,
and half Count John's melancholy in Signior Benedick's face –
With a good leg and a good foot, uncle, and money enough in
his purse, such a man would win any woman in the world – if 'a
could get her good will.
By my troth, niece, thou wilt never get thee a husband if
thou be so shrewd of thy tongue.
In faith, she's too curst.
Too curst is more than curst. I shall lessen God's sending
that way, for it is said, 'God sends a curst cow short horns,'
but to a cow too curst he sends none.
So, by being too curst, God will send you no horns.
Just, if he send me no husband; for the which blessing I am
at him upon my knees every morning and evening. Lord, I could not
endure a husband with a beard on his face. I had rather lie in
the woollen!
You may light on a husband that hath no beard.
What should I do with him? dress him in my apparel and make
him my waiting gentlewoman? He that hath a beard is more than a
youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man; and he that
is more than a youth is not for me; and he that is less than a
man, I am not for him. Therefore I will even take sixpence in
earnest of the berrord and lead his apes into hell.
Well then, go you into hell?
No; but to the gate, and there will the devil meet me like an
old cuckold with horns on his head, and say 'Get you to heaven,
Beatrice, get you to heaven. Here's no place for you maids.' So
deliver I up my apes, and away to Saint Peter –for the heavens.
He shows me where the bachelors sit, and there live we as merry
as the day is long.
Well, niece, I trust you will be rul'd by your
father.
Yes faith. It is my cousin's duty to make cursy and say,
'Father, as it please you.' But yet for all that, cousin, let him
be a handsome fellow, or else make another cursy, and say,
'Father, as it please me.'
Well, niece, I hope to see you one day fitted with a husband.
Not till God make men of some other metal than earth. Would
it not grieve a woman to be overmaster'd with a piece of valiant
dust? to make an account of her life to a clod of wayward marl?
No, uncle, I'll none. Adam's sons are my brethren, and truly I
hold it a sin to match in my kinred.
Daughter, remember what I told you. If the Prince do solicit
you in that kind, you know your answer.
The fault will be in the music, cousin, if you be not wooed
in good time. If the Prince be too important, tell him there is
measure in everything, and so dance out the answer. For, hear me,
Hero: wooing, wedding, and repenting is as a Scotch jig, a
measure, and a cinque-pace: the first suit is hot and hasty like
a Scotch jig – and full as fantastical; the wedding, mannerly
modest, as a measure, full of state and ancientry; and then comes
Repentance and with his bad legs falls into the cinque-pace
faster and faster, till he sink into his grave.
Cousin, you apprehend passing shrewdly.
I have a good eye, uncle; I can see a church by daylight.
Will you not tell me who told you so?
No, you shall pardon me.
Nor will you not tell me who you are?
Not now.
That I was disdainful, and that I had my good wit out of the
'Hundred Merry Tales.' Well, this was Signior Benedick that said
so.
What's he?
I am sure you know him well enough.
Not I, believe me.
Did he never make you laugh?
I pray you, what is he?
Why, he is the Prince's jester, a very dull fool. Only his
gift is in devising impossible slanders. None but libertines
delight in him; and the commendation is not in his wit, but in
his villany; for he both pleases men and angers them, and then
they laugh at him and beat him. I am sure he is in the fleet.
I would he had boarded me.
When I know the gentleman, I'll tell him what you say.
Do, do. He'll but break a comparison or two on me; which
peradventure, not marked or not laugh'd at, strikes him into
melancholy; and then there's a partridge wing saved, for the fool
will eat no supper that night.
The Lady Beatrice hath a quarrel to you. The gentleman that
danc'd with her told her she is much wrong'd by you.
O, she misus'd me past the endurance of a block! An oak but
with one green leaf on it would have answered her; my very visor
began to assume life and scold with her. She told me, not
thinking I had been myself, that I was the Prince's jester, that
I was duller than a great thaw; huddling jest upon jest with such
impossible conveyance upon me that I stood like a man at a mark,
with a whole army shooting at me. She speaks poniards, and every
word stabs. If her breath were as terrible as her terminations,
there were no living near her; she would infect to the North
Star. I would not marry her though she were endowed with all that
Adam had left him before he transgress'd. She would have made
Hercules have turn'd spit, yea, and have cleft his club to make
the fire too. Come, talk not of her. You shall find her the
infernal Ate in good apparel. I would to God some scholar would
conjure her, for certainly, while she is here, a man may live as
quiet in hell as in a sanctuary; and people sin upon purpose,
because they would go thither; so indeed all disquiet, horror,
and perturbation follows her.
Look, here she comes.
Will your Grace command me any service to the world's end? I
will go on the slightest errand now to the Antipodes that you can
devise to send me on; I will fetch you a toothpicker now from the
furthest inch of Asia; bring you the length of Prester John's
foot; fetch you a hair off the great Cham's beard; do you any
embassage to the Pygmies –rather than hold three words'
conference with this harpy. You have no employment for me?
None, but to desire your good company.
O God, sir, here's a dish I love not! I cannot endure my Lady
Tongue.
Come, lady, come; you have lost the heart of Signior
Benedick.
Indeed, my lord, he lent it me awhile, and I gave him use for
it – a double heart for his single one. Marry, once before he won
it of me with false dice; therefore your Grace may well say I
have lost it.
You have put him down, lady; you have put him down.
So I would not he should do me, my lord, lest I should prove
the mother of fools. I have brought Count Claudio, whom you sent
me to seek.
Why, how now, Count? Wherefore are you sad?
Not sad, my lord.
How then? sick?
Neither, my lord.
The Count is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor well; but
civil count –civil as an orange, and something of that jealous
complexion.
I' faith, lady, I think your blazon to be true; though I'll
be sworn, if he be so, his conceit is false. Here, Claudio, I
have wooed in thy name, and fair Hero is won. I have broke with
her father, and his good will obtained. Name the day of marriage,
and God give thee joy!
Count, take of me my daughter, and with her my fortunes. His
Grace hath made the match, and all grace say Amen to it!
Speak, Count, 'tis your cue.
Silence is the perfectest herald of joy. I were but little
happy if I could say how much. Lady, as you are mine, I am yours.
I give away myself for you and dote upon the exchange.
Speak, cousin; or, if you cannot, stop his mouth with a kiss
and let not him speak neither.
In faith, lady, you have a merry heart.
Yea, my lord; I thank it, poor fool, it keeps on the windy
side of care. My cousin tells him in his ear that he is in her
heart.
And so she doth, cousin.
Good Lord, for alliance! Thus goes every one to the world but
I, and I am sunburnt. I may sit in a corner and cry 'Heigh-ho for
a husband!'
Lady Beatrice, I will get you one.
I would rather have one of your father's getting. Hath your
Grace ne'er a brother like you? Your father got excellent
husbands, if a maid could come by them.
Will you have me, lady?
No, my lord, unless I might have another for working days:
your Grace is too costly to wear every day. But I beseech your
Grace pardon me. I was born to speak all mirth and no matter.
Your silence most offends me, and to be merry best becomes
you, for out o' question you were born in a merry hour.
No, sure, my lord, my mother cried; but then there was a star
danc'd, and under that was I born. Cousins, God give you joy!
Against my will I am sent to bid You come in to dinner.
Fair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains.
I took no more pains for those thanks than you take pains to
thank me. If it had been painful, I would not have come.
You take pleasure then in the message?
Yea, just so much as you may take upon a knives point, and
choke a daw withal. You have no stomach, signior. Fare you well.
Good morrow, coz.
Good morrow, sweet Hero.
Why, how now? Do you speak in the sick tune?
I am out of all other tune, methinks.
Clap's into 'Light o' love.' That goes without a burden. Do
you sing it, and I'll dance it.
Yea, 'Light o' love' with your heels! then, if your husband
have stables enough, you'll see he shall lack no barnes.
O illegitimate construction! I scorn that with my heels.
'Tis almost five o'clock, cousin; 'tis time you were ready.
By my troth, I am exceeding ill. Hey-ho!
For a hawk, a horse, or a husband?
For the letter that begins them all, H.
Well, an you be not turn'd Turk, there's no more sailing by
the star.
What means the fool, trow?
Nothing I; but God send every one their heart's desire!
These gloves the Count sent me, they are an excellent
perfume.
I am stuff'd, cousin; I cannot smell.
A maid, and stuff'd! There's goodly catching of cold.
O, God help me! God help me! How long have you profess'd
apprehension?
Ever since you left it. Doth not my wit become me rarely?
It is not seen enough. You should wear it in your cap. By my
troth, I am sick.
Get you some of this distill'd carduus benedictus and lay it
to your heart. It is the only thing for a qualm.
There thou prick'st her with a thistle.
Benedictus? why benedictus? You have some moral in this
'benedictus.'
Moral? No, by my troth, I have no moral meaning; I meant
plain holy thistle. You may think perchance that I think you are
in love. Nay, by'r lady, I am not such a fool to think what I
list; nor I list not to think what I can; nor indeed I cannot
think, if I would think my heart out of thinking, that you are in
love, or that you will be in love, or that you can be in love.
Yet Benedick was such another, and now is he become a man. He
swore he would never marry; and yet now in despite of his heart
he eats his meat without grudging; and how you may be converted I
know not, but methinks you look with your eyes as other women do.
What pace is this that thy tongue keeps?
Not a false gallop.
Lady Beatrice, have you wept all this while?
Yea, and I will weep a while longer.
I will not desire that.
You have no reason. I do it freely.
Surely I do believe your fair cousin is wronged.
Ah, how much might the man deserve of me that would right
her!
Is there any way to show such friendship?
A very even way, but no such friend.
May a man do it?
It is a man's office, but not yours.
I do love nothing in the world so well as you. Is not that
strange?
As strange as the thing I know not. It were as possible for
me to say I loved nothing so well as you. But believe me not; and
yet I lie not. I confess nothing, nor I deny nothing. I am sorry
for my cousin.
By my sword, Beatrice, thou lovest me.
Do not swear, and eat it.
I will swear by it that you love me, and I will make him eat
it that says I love not you.
Will you not eat your word?
With no sauce that can be devised to it. I protest I love
thee.
Why then, God forgive me!
What offence, sweet Beatrice?
You have stayed me in a happy hour. I was about to protest I
loved you.
And do it with all thy heart.
I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to
protest.
Come, bid me do anything for thee.
Kill Claudio.
Ha! not for the wide world!
You kill me to deny it. Farewell.
Tarry, sweet Beatrice.
I am gone, though I am here. There is no love in you. Nay, I
pray you let me go.
Beatrice –
In faith, I will go.
We'll be friends first.
You dare easier be friends with me than fight with mine
enemy.
Is Claudio thine enemy?
Is 'a not approved in the height a villain, that hath
slandered, scorned, dishonoured my kinswoman? O that I were a
man! What? bear her in hand until they come to take hands, and
then with public accusation, uncover'd slander, unmitigated
rancour – O God, that I were a man! I would eat his heart in the
market place.
Hear me, Beatrice!
Talk with a man out at a window! – a proper saying!
Nay but Beatrice –
Sweet Hero! she is wrong'd, she is sland'red, she is undone.
Beat –
Princes and Counties! Surely a princely testimony, a goodly
count, Count Comfect, a sweet gallant surely! O that I were a man
for his sake! or that I had any friend would be a man for my
sake! But manhood is melted into cursies, valour into compliment,
and men are only turn'd into tongue, and trim ones too. He is now
as valiant as Hercules that only tells a lie, and swears it. I
cannot be a man with wishing; therefore I will die a woman with
grieving.
Tarry, good Beatrice. By this hand, I love thee.
Use it for my love some other way than swearing by it.
Think you in your soul the Count Claudio hath wrong'd Hero?
Yea, as sure is I have a thought or a soul.
Enough, I am engag'd, I will challenge him. I will kiss your
hand, and so I leave you. By this hand, Claudio shall render me a
dear account. As you hear of me, so think of me. Go comfort your
cousin. I must say she is dead-and so farewell.
Sweet Beatrice, wouldst thou come when I call'd thee?
Yea, signior, and depart when you bid me.
O, stay but till then!
'Then' is spoken. Fare you well now. And yet, ere I go, let
me go with that I came for, which is, with knowing what hath
pass'd between you and Claudio.
Only foul words; and thereupon I will kiss thee.
Foul words is but foul wind, and foul wind is but foul
breath, and foul breath is noisome. Therefore I will depart
unkiss'd.
Thou hast frighted the word out of his right sense, so
forcible is thy wit. But I must tell thee plainly, Claudio
undergoes my challenge; and either I must shortly hear from him
or I will subscribe him a coward. And I pray thee now tell me,
for which of my bad parts didst thou first fall in love with me?
For them all together, which maintain'd so politic a state of
evil that they will not admit any good part to intermingle with
them. But for which of my good parts did you first suffer love
for me?
Suffer love! – a good epithet. I do suffer love indeed, for I
love thee against my will.
In spite of your heart, I think. Alas, poor heart! If you
spite it for my sake, I will spite it for yours, for I will never
love that which my friend hates.
Thou and I are too wise to woo peaceably.
It appears not in this confession. There's not one wise man
among twenty, that will praise himself.
An old, an old instance, Beatrice, that liv'd in the time of
good neighbours. If a man do not erect in this age his own tomb
ere he dies, he shall live no longer in monument than the bell
rings and the widow weeps.
And how long is that, think you?
Question: why, an hour in clamour and a quarter in rheum.
Therefore is it most expedient for the wise, if Don Worm (his
conscience) find no impediment to the contrary, to be the trumpet
of his own virtues, as I am to myself. So much for praising
myself, who, I myself will bear witness, is praiseworthy.
Soft and fair, friar. Which is Beatrice?
I answer to that name. What is your will?
Do not you love me?
Why, no; no more than reason.
Why, then your uncle, and the Prince, and Claudio
Have been deceived; for they swore you did.
Do not you love me?
Troth, no; no more than reason.
Why, then my cousin, Margaret, and Ursula
Are much deceiv'd; for they did swear you did.
They swore that you were almost sick for me.
They swore that you were well-nigh dead for me.
'Tis no such matter. Then you do not love me?
No, truly, but in friendly recompense.
Come, cousin, I am sure you love the gentleman.
And I'll be sworn upon't that he loves her;
For here's a paper written in his hand,
A halting sonnet of his own pure brain,
Fashion'd to Beatrice.
And here's another,
Writ in my cousin's hand, stol'n from her pocket,
Containing her affection unto Benedick.
A miracle! Here's our own hands against our hearts.
Come, I will have thee; but, by this light, I take thee for pity.
I would not deny you; but, by this good day, I yield upon
great persuasion, and partly to save your life, for I was told
you were in a consumption.
Peace! I will stop your mouth.
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Copyright 2002 – 2009: Ulrike Böhm, all rights reserved.