The body of your discourse 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.

Claudio. My liege, your Highness now may do me good.

260 horn-mad mad with jealousy (perhaps also “sexually insatiable”)

262 Venice (famous for sexual license)

264 temporize with the hours change temper or attitude with time

269 matter sense

271 tuition custody

276 guarded trimmed (used of clothing)

278 flout old ends i.e., indulge in derision at my expense

Don Pedro. My love is thine to teach. Teach it but how,

And thou shalt see how apt it is to learn

Any-hard lesson that may do thee good.

Claudio. Hath Leonato any son, my lord?

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

Dost thou affect° her, Claudio?

Claudio. O my lord, When you went onward on this ended action,° I looked 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 returned and that° war-thoughts 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.

Don Pedro. Thou wilt be like a lover presently And tire the hearer with a book of words. If thou dost love fair Hero, cherish it, And I will break° with her and with her father, And thou shalt have her. Was’t not to this end That thou began‘st to twist so fine a story?

Claudio. 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.

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

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 reveling tonight.

286 affect love

287 ended action war just concluded

291 that because

299 break open negotiations

303 complexion appearance

307 The fairest grant is the necessity the most attractive giving is when the receiver really needs something

308 ‘Tis once in short

I will assume thy part in some disguise And tell fair Hero I am Claudio, And in her bosom I’ll unclasp my heart And take her hearing prisoner with the force And strong encounter of my amorous tale; Then after to her father will I break, And the conclusion is, she shall be thine. In practice let us put it presently. Exeunt.

[Scene 2. Leonato’s house.]

Enter Leonato and an old man [Antonio], brother
to Leonato.

Leonato. How now, brother? Where is my cousin° your son? Hath he provided this music?

Antonio. He is very busy about it; But, brother, I can tell you strange news that you yet dreamt not of.

Leonato. Are they° good?

Antonio. As the events stamps° them. But they have a good cover, they show well outward. The Prince and Count Claudio, walking in a thick-pleached alley in mine orchard,° were thus much overheard by a man of mine. The Prince discovered° to Claudio that he loved my niece your daughter and meant to acknowledge it this night in a dance, and if he found her accordant,° he meant to take the present time by the top° and instantly break with you of it.

Leonato. Hath the fellow any wit that told you this?

1.2.1 cousin kinsman

5 they i.e., the news (plural in the sixteenth century)

6 As the events stamps them as the outcome proves them to be (a plural noun, especially when felt to be singular often has a verb ending in -s)

8-9 thick-pleached alley in mine orchard walk or arbor fenced by interwoven branches in my garden

10 discovered disclosed

13 accordant agreeing

14 top forelock

Antonio. A good sharp fellow. I will send for him, and question him yourself.

Leonato. No, no. We will hold it as a dream till it appear itself. But I will acquaint my daughter withal, that she may be the better prepared for an answer, if peradventure this be true. Go you and tell her of it.

[Enter Attendants.]

Cousin, you know what you have to do. O, I cry you mercy,° friend. Go you with me, and I will use your skill. Good cousin, have a care this busy time.

Exeunt.

[Scene 3. Leonato’s house.]

Enter Sir John the Bastard and Conrade, his
companion.

Conrade. What the goodyear,° my lord! Why are you thus out of measure sad?°

Don John. There is no measure in the occasion that breeds; therefore the sadness is without limit.

Conrade. You should hear reason.

Don John. And when I have heard it, what blessing brings it?

Conrade. If not a present remedy, at least a patient sufferance.

Don John. I wonder that thou, being (as thou say‘st thou art) born under Saturn,° goest about to apply a moral medicine to a mortifying mischief.° I cannot hide what I am. I must be sad when I have cause, and smile at no man’s jests; eat when I have stomach, and wait for no man’s leisure; sleep when I am drowsy, and tend on no man’s business; laugh when I am merry, and claw no man in his humor.°

23-24 cry you mercy beg your pardon

1.3.1 What the goodyear (an expletive)

2 out of measure sad unduly morose

11 under Saturn i.e., naturally sullen

Conrade. Yea, but you must not make the full show of this till you may do it without controlment. You have of late stood out against your brother, and he hath ta‘en you newly into his grace, where it is impossible you should take true root but by the fair weather that you make yourself. It is needful that you frame° the season for your own harvest.

Don John. I had rather be a canker° in a hedge than a rose in his grace, and it better fits my blood to be disdained of all than to fashion a carnage° to rob love from any. In this, though I cannot be said to be a flattering honest man, it must not be denied but I am a plain-dealing villain. I am trusted with a muzzle and enfranchised with a clog; therefore I have decreed not to sing in my cage. If I had my mouth, I would bite; if I had my liberty, I would do my liking.