MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING
Page: 18

LEONATO.
My lord, I am for you, though it cost me ten nights' watchings.

CLAUDIO.
And I, my lord.

DON PEDRO.
And you too, gentle Hero?

HERO.
I will do any modest office, my lord, to help my cousin to a good
husband.

DON PEDRO.
And Benedick is not the unhopefullest husband that I know. Thus far
can I praise him; he is of a noble strain, of approved valour, and
confirmed honesty. I will teach you how to humour your cousin, that
she shall fall in love with Benedick; and I, with your two helps, will
so practise on Benedick that, in despite of his quick wit and his
queasy stomach, 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. Go in with me, and I will tell you my drift.

[Exeunt.]



Scene 2. Another room in LEONATO'S house.

[Enter DON JOHN and BORACHIO.]

DON JOHN.
It is so; the Count Claudio shall marry the daughter of Leonato.

BORACHIO.
Yea, my lord; but I can cross it.

DON JOHN.
Any bar, any cross, any impediment will be medicinable to me: I am
sick in displeasure to him, and whatsoever comes athwart his affection
ranges evenly with mine. How canst thou cross this marriage?

BORACHIO.
Not honestly, my lord; but so covertly that no dishonesty shall appear
in me.

DON JOHN.
Show me briefly how.

BORACHIO.
I think I told your lordship, a year since, how much I am in the
favour of Margaret, the waiting-gentlewoman to Hero.

DON JOHN.
I remember.

BORACHIO.
I can, at any unseasonable instant of the night, appoint her to look
out at her lady's chamber window.

DON JOHN.
What life is in that, to be the death of this marriage?

BORACHIO.
The poison of that lies in you to temper. Go you to the prince your
brother; spare not to tell him, that he hath wronged his honour in
marrying the renowned Claudio,--whose estimation do you mightily hold
up,--to a contaminated stale, such a one as Hero.

DON JOHN.
What proof shall I make of that?

BORACHIO.
Proof enough to misuse the prince, to vex Claudio, to undo Hero,
and kill Leonato. Look you for any other issue?