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Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare
KING LEAR
King Lear was old and tired. He was aweary of the business of his kingdom, and wished only to end his days quietly near his three daughters. Two of his daughters were married to the Dukes of Albany and Cornwall; and the Duke of Burgundy and the King of France were both suitors for the hand of Cordelia, his youngest daughter.
Lear called his three daughters together, and told them that he proposed to divide his kingdom between them. “But first,” said he, “I should like to know much you love me.”
Goneril, who was really a very wicked woman, and did not love her father at all, said she loved him more than words could say; she loved him dearer than eyesight, space or liberty, more than life, grace, health, beauty, and honor.
“I love you as much as my sister and more,” professed Regan, “since I care for nothing but my father’s love.”
Lear was very much pleased with Regan’s professions, and turned to his youngest daughter, Cordelia. “Now, our joy, though last not least,” he said, “the best part of my kingdom have I kept for you. What can you say?”
“Nothing, my lord,” answered Cordelia.
“Nothing can come of nothing. Speak again,” said the King.
And Cordelia answered, “I love your Majesty according to my duty-no more, no less.”
And this she said, because she was disgusted with the way in which her sisters professed love, when really they had not even a right sense of duty to their old father.
“I am your daughter,” she went on, “and you have brought me up and loved me, and I return you those duties back as are right and fit, obey you, love you, and most honor you.”
Lear, who loved Cordelia best, had wished her to make more extravagant professions of love than her sisters. “Go,” he said, “be for ever a stranger to my heart and me.”
The Earl of Kent, one of Lear’s favorite courtiers and captains, tried to say a word for Cordelia’s sake, but Lear would not listen. He divided the kingdom between Goneril and Regan, and told them that he should only keep a hundred knights at arms, and would live with his daughters by turns.
When the Duke of Burgundy knew that Cordelia would have no share of the kingdom, he gave up his courtship of her. But the King of France was wiser, and said, “Thy dowerless daughter, King, is Queen of us-of ours, and our fair France.”
“Take her, take her,” said the King; “for I will never see that face of hers again.”
So Cordelia became Queen of France, and the Earl of Kent, for having ventured to take her part, was banished from the kingdom. The King now went to stay with his daughter Goneril, who had got everything from her father that he had to give, and now began to grudge even the hundred knights that he had reserved for himself. She was harsh and undutiful to him, and her servants either refused to obey his orders or pretended that they did not hear them.
Now the Earl of Kent, when he was banished, made as though he would go into another country, but instead he came back in the disguise of a servingman and took service with the King. The King had now two friends-the Earl of Kent, whom he only knew as his servant, and his Fool, who was faithful to him. Goneril told her father plainly that his knights only served to fill her Court with riot and feasting; and so she begged him only to keep a few old men about him such as himself.
“My train are men who know all parts of duty,” said Lear. “Goneril, I will not trouble you further-yet I have left another daughter.”
And his horses being saddled, he set out with his followers for the castle of Regan. But she, who had formerly outdone her sister in professions of attachment to the King, now seemed to outdo her in undutiful conduct, saying that fifty knights were too many to wait on him, and Goneril (who had hurried thither to prevent Regan showing any kindness to the old King) said five were too many, since her servants could wait on him.
Then when Lear saw that what they really wanted was to drive him away, he left them. It was a wild and stormy night, and he wandered about the heath half mad with misery, and with no companion but the poor Fool. But presently his servant, the good Earl of Kent, met him, and at last persuaded him to lie down in a wretched little hovel. At daybreak the Earl of Kent removed his royal master to Dover, and hurried to the Court of France to tell Cordelia what had happened.
Cordelia’s husband gave her an army and with it she landed at Dover. Here she found poor King Lear, wandering about the fields, wearing a crown of nettles and weeds. They brought him back and fed and clothed him, and Cordelia came to him and kissed him.
“You must bear with me,” said Lear; “forget and forgive. I am old and foolish.”
And now he knew at last which of his children it was that had loved him best, and who was worthy of his love.
Goneril and Regan joined their armies to fight Cordelia’s army, and were successful; and Cordelia and her father were thrown into prison. Then Goneril’s husband, the Duke of Albany, who was a good man, and had not known how wicked his wife was, heard the truth of the whole story; and when Goneril found that her husband knew her for the wicked woman she was, she killed herself, having a little time before given a deadly poison to her sister, Regan, out of a spirit of jealousy.
But they had arranged that Cordelia should be hanged in prison, and though the Duke of Albany sent messengers at once, it was too late. The old King came staggering into the tent of the Duke of Albany, carrying the body of his dear daughter Cordelia, in his arms.
And soon after, with words of love for her upon his lips, he fell with her still in his arms, and died.
TWELFTH NIGHT
Orsino, the Duke of Illyria, was deeply in love with a beautiful Countess named Olivia. Yet was all his love in vain, for she disdained his suit; and when her brother died, she sent back a messenger from the Duke, bidding him tell his master that for seven years she would not let the very air behold her face, but that, like a nun, she would walk veiled; and all this for the sake of a dead brother’s love, which she would keep fresh and lasting in her sad remembrance.
The Duke longed for someone to whom he could tell his sorrow, and repeat over and over again the story of his love. And chance brought him such a companion. For about this time a goodly ship was wrecked on the Illyrian coast, and among those who reached land in safety were the captain and a fair young maid, named Viola. But she was little grateful for being rescued from the perils of the sea, since she feared that her twin brother was drowned, Sebastian, as dear to her as the heart in her bosom, and so like her that, but for the difference in their manner of dress, one could hardly be told from the other. The captain, for her comfort, told her that he had seen her brother bind himself “to a strong mast that lived upon the sea,” and that thus there was hope that he might be saved.
Viola now asked in whose country she was, and learning that the young Duke Orsino ruled there, and was as noble in his nature as in his name, she decided to disguise herself in male attire, and seek for employment with him as a page.
In this she succeeded, and now from day to day she had to listen to the story of Orsino’s love. At first she sympathized very truly with him, but soon her sympathy grew to love. At last it occurred to Orsino that his hopeless love-suit might prosper better if he sent this pretty lad to woo Olivia for him. Viola unwillingly went on this errand, but when she came to the house, Malvolio, Olivia’s steward, a vain, officious man, sick, as his mistress told him, of self-love, forbade the messenger admittance.
Viola, however (who was now called Cesario), refused to take any denial, and vowed to have speech with the Countess. Olivia, hearing how her instructions were defied and curious to see this daring youth, said, “We’ll once more hear Orsino’s embassy.”
When Viola was admitted to her presence and the servants had been sent away, she listened patiently to the reproaches which this bold messenger from the Duke poured upon her, and listening she fell in love with the supposed Cesario; and when Cesario had gone, Olivia longed to send some love-token after him. So, calling Malvolio, she bade him follow the boy.
“He left this ring behind him,” she said, taking one from her finger. “Tell him I will none of it.”
Malvolio did as he was bid, and then Viola, who of course knew perfectly well that she had left no ring behind her, saw with a woman’s quickness that Olivia loved her. Then she went back to the Duke, very sad at heart for her lover, and for Olivia, and for herself.
It was but cold comfort she could give Orsino, who now sought to ease the pangs of despised love by listening to sweet music, while Cesario stood by his side.
“Ah,” said the Duke to his page that night, “you too have been in love.”
“A little,” answered Viola.
“What kind of woman is it?” he asked.
“Of your complexion,” she answered.
“What years, i’ faith?” was his next question.
To this came the pretty answer, “About your years, my lord.”
“Too old, by Heaven!” cried the Duke. “Let still the woman take an elder than herself.”
And Viola very meekly said, “I think it well, my lord.”
By and by Orsino begged Cesario once more to visit Olivia and to plead his love-suit. But she, thinking to dissuade him, said-
“If some lady loved you as you love Olivia?”
“Ah! that cannot be,” said the Duke.
“But I know,” Viola went on, “what love woman may have for a man. My father had a daughter loved a man, as it might be,” she added blushing, “perhaps, were I a woman, I should love your lordship.”
“And what is her history?” he asked.
“A blank, my lord,” Viola answered. “She never told her love, but let concealment like a worm in the bud feed on her damask cheek: she pined in thought, and with a green and yellow melancholy she sat, like Patience on a monument, smiling at grief. Was not this love indeed?”
“But died thy sister of her love, my boy?” the Duke asked; and Viola, who had all the time been telling her own love for him in this pretty fashion, said-
“I am all the daughters my father has and all the brothers- Sir, shall I go to the lady?”
“To her in haste,” said the Duke, at once forgetting all about the story, “and give her this jewel.”
So Viola went, and this time poor Olivia was unable to hide her love, and openly confessed it with such passionate truth, that Viola left her hastily, saying-
“Nevermore will I deplore my master’s tears to you.”
But in vowing this, Viola did not know the tender pity she would feel for other’s suffering. So when Olivia, in the violence of her love, sent a messenger, praying Cesario to visit her once more, Cesario had no heart to refuse the request.
But the favors which Olivia bestowed upon this mere page aroused the jealousy of Sir Andrew Aguecheek, a foolish, rejected lover of hers, who at that time was staying at her house with her merry old uncle Sir Toby. This same Sir Toby dearly loved a practical joke, and knowing Sir Andrew to be an arrant coward, he thought that if he could bring off a duel between him and Cesario, there would be rare sport indeed. So he induced Sir Andrew to send a challenge, which he himself took to Cesario. The poor page, in great terror, said-
“I will return again to the house, I am no fighter.”
“Back you shall not to the house,” said Sir Toby, “unless you fight me first.”
And as he looked a very fierce old gentleman, Viola thought it best to await Sir Andrew’s coming; and when he at last made his appearance, in a great fright, if the truth had been known, she tremblingly drew her sword, and Sir Andrew in like fear followed her example. Happily for them both, at this moment some officers of the Court came on the scene, and stopped the intended duel. Viola gladly made off with what speed she might, while Sir Toby called after her-
“A very paltry boy, and more a coward than a hare!”
Now, while these things were happening, Sebastian had escaped all the dangers of the deep, and had landed safely in Illyria, where he determined to make his way to the Duke’s Court. On his way thither he passed Olivia’s house just as Viola had left it in such a hurry, and whom should he meet but Sir Andrew and Sir Toby. Sir Andrew, mistaking Sebastian for the cowardly Cesario, took his courage in both hands, and walking up to him struck him, saying, “There’s for you.”
“Why, there’s for you; and there, and there!” said Sebastian, bitting back a great deal harder, and again and again, till Sir Toby came to the rescue of his friend. Sebastian, however, tore himself free from Sir Toby’s clutches, and drawing his sword would have fought them both, but that Olivia herself, having heard of the quarrel, came running in, and with many reproaches sent Sir Toby and his friend away. Then turning to Sebastian, whom she too thought to be Cesario, she besought him with many a pretty speech to come into the house with her.
Sebastian, half dazed and all delighted with her beauty and grace, readily consented, and that very day, so great was Olivia’s baste, they were married before she had discovered that he was not Cesario, or Sebastian was quite certain whether or not he was in a dream.
Meanwhile Orsino, hearing how ill Cesario sped with Olivia, visited her himself, taking Cesario with him. Olivia met them both before her door, and seeing, as she thought, her husband there, reproached him for leaving her, while to the Duke she said that his suit was as fat and wholesome to her as howling after music.
“Still so cruel?” said Orsino.
“Still so constant,” she answered.
Then Orsino’s anger growing to cruelty, he vowed that, to be revenged on her, he would kill Cesario, whom he knew she loved. “Come, boy,” he said to the page.
And Viola, following him as he moved away, said, “I, to do you rest, a thousand deaths would die.”
A great fear took hold on Olivia, and she cried aloud, “Cesario, husband, stay!”
“Her husband?” asked the Duke angrily.
“No, my lord, not I,” said Viola.
“Call forth the holy father,” cried Olivia.
And the priest who had married Sebastian and Olivia, coming in, declared Cesario to be the bridegroom.
“O thou dissembling cub!” the Duke exclaimed. “Farewell, and take her, but go where thou and I henceforth may never meet.”
At this moment Sir Andrew came up with bleeding crown, complaining that Cesario had broken his head, and Sir Toby’s as well.
“I never hurt you,” said Viola, very positively; “you drew your sword on me, but I bespoke you fair, and hurt you not.”
Yet, for all her protesting, no one there believed her; but all their thoughts were on a sudden changed to wonder, when Sebastian came in.
“I am sorry, madam,” he said to his wife, “I have hurt your kinsman. Pardon me, sweet, even for the vows we made each other so late ago.”
“One face, one voice, one habit, and two persons!” cried the Duke, looking first at Viola, and then at Sebastian.
“An apple cleft in two,” said one who knew Sebastian, “is not more twin than these two creatures. Which is Sebastian?”
“I never had a brother,” said Sebastian. “I had a sister, whom the blind waves and surges have devoured.” “Were you a woman,” he said to Viola, “I should let my tears fall upon your cheek, and say, ‘Thrice welcome, drowned Viola!’”
Then Viola, rejoicing to see her dear brother alive, confessed that she was indeed his sister, Viola. As she spoke, Orsino felt the pity that is akin to love.
“Boy,” he said, “thou hast said to me a thousand times thou never shouldst love woman like to me.”
“And all those sayings will I overswear,” Viola replied, “and all those swearings keep true.”
“Give me thy hand,” Orsino cried in gladness. “Thou shalt be my wife, and my fancy’s queen.”
Thus was the gentle Viola made happy, while Olivia found in Sebastian a constant lover, and a good husband, and he in her a true and loving wife.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING
In Sicily is a town called Messina, which is the scene of a curious storm in a teacup that raged several hundred years ago.
It began with sunshine. Don Pedro, Prince of Arragon, in Spain, had gained so complete a victory over his foes that the very land whence they came is forgotten. Feeling happy and playful after the fatigues of war, Don Pedro came for a holiday to Messina, and in his suite were his stepbrother Don John and two young Italian lords, Benedick and Claudio.
Benedick was a merry chatterbox, who had determined to live a bachelor. Claudio, on the other hand, no sooner arrived at Messina than he fell in love with Hero, the daughter of Leonato, Governor of Messina.
One July day, a perfumer called Borachio was burning dried lavender in a musty room in Leonato’s house, when the sound of conversation floated through the open window.
“Give me your candid opinion of Hero,” Claudio, asked, and Borachio settled himself for comfortable listening.
“Too short and brown for praise,” was Benedick’s reply; “but alter her color or height, and you spoil her.”
“In my eyes she is the sweetest of women,” said Claudio.
“Not in mine,” retorted Benedick, “and I have no need for glasses. She is like the last day of December compared with the first of May if you set her beside her cousin. Unfortunately, the Lady Beatrice is a fury.”
Beatrice was Leonato’s niece. She amused herself by saying witty and severe things about Benedick, who called her Dear Lady Disdain. She was wont to say that she was born under a dancing star, and could not therefore be dull.
Claudio and Benedick were still talking when Don Pedro came up and said good-humoredly, “Well, gentlemen, what’s the secret?”
“I am longing,” answered Benedick, “for your Grace to command me to tell.”
“I charge you, then, on your allegiance to tell me,” said Don Pedro, falling in with his humor.
“I can be as dumb as a mute,” apologized Benedick to Claudio, “but his Grace commands my speech.” To Don Pedro he said, “Claudio is in love with Hero, Leonato’s short daughter.”
Don Pedro was pleased, for he admired Hero and was fond of Claudio. When Benedick had departed, he said to Claudio, “Be steadfast in your love for Hero, and I will help you to win her. To-night her father gives a masquerade, and I will pretend I am Claudio, and tell her how Claudio loves her, and if she be pleased, I will go to her father and ask his consent to your union.”
Most men like to do their own wooing, but if you fall in love with a Governor’s only daughter, you are fortunate if you can trust a prince to plead for you.
Claudio then was fortunate, but he was unfortunate as well, for he had an enemy who was outwardly a friend. This enemy was Don Pedro’s stepbrother Don John, who was jealous of Claudio because Don Pedro preferred him to Don John.
It was to Don John that Borachio came with the interesting conversation which he had overheard.
“I shall have some fun at that masquerade myself,” said Don John when Borachio ceased speaking.
On the night of the masquerade, Don Pedro, masked and pretending he was Claudio, asked Hero if he might walk with her.
They moved away together, and Don John went up to Claudio and said, “Signor Benedick, I believe?” “The same,” fibbed Claudio.
“I should be much obliged then,” said Don John, “if you would use your influence with my brother to cure him of his love for Hero. She is beneath him in rank.”
“How do you know he loves her?” inquired Claudio.
“I heard him swear his affection,” was the reply, and Borachio chimed in with, “So did I too.”
Claudio was then left to himself, and his thought was that his Prince had betrayed him. “Farewell, Hero,” he muttered; “I was a fool to trust to an agent.”
Meanwhile Beatrice and Benedick (who was masked) were having a brisk exchange of opinions.
“Did Benedick ever make you laugh?” asked she.
“Who is Benedick?” he inquired.
“A Prince’s jester,” replied Beatrice, and she spoke so sharply that “I would not marry her,” he declared afterwards, “if her estate were the Garden of Eden.”
But the principal speaker at the masquerade was neither Beatrice nor Benedick. It was Don Pedro, who carried out his plan to the letter, and brought the light back to Claudio’s face in a twinkling, by appearing before him with Leonato and Hero, and saying, “Claudio, when would you like to go to church?”
“To-morrow,” was the prompt answer. “Time goes on crutches till I marry Hero.”
“Give her a week, my dear son,” said Leonato, and Claudio’s heart thumped with joy.
“And now,” said the amiable Don Pedro, “we must find a wife for Signor Benedick. It is a task for Hercules.”
“I will help you,” said Leonato, “if I have to sit up ten nights.”
Then Hero spoke. “I will do what I can, my lord, to find a good husband for Beatrice.”
Thus, with happy laughter, ended the masquerade which had given Claudio a lesson for nothing.
Borachio cheered up Don John by laying a plan before him with which he was confident he could persuade both Claudio and Don Pedro that Hero was a fickle girl who had two strings to her bow. Don John agreed to this plan of hate.
Don Pedro, on the other hand, had devised a cunning plan of love. “If,” he said to Leonato, “we pretend, when Beatrice is near enough to overhear us, that Benedick is pining for her love, she will pity him, see his good qualities, and love him. And if, when Benedick thinks we don’t know he is listening, we say how sad it is that the beautiful Beatrice should be in love with a heartless scoffer like Benedick, he will certainly be on his knees before her in a week or less.”
So one day, when Benedick was reading in a summer-house, Claudio sat down outside it with Leonato, and said, “Your daughter told me something about a letter she wrote.”
“Letter!” exclaimed Leonato. “She will get up twenty times in the night and write goodness knows what. But once Hero peeped, and saw the words ‘Benedick and Beatrice’ on the sheet, and then Beatrice tore it up.”
“Hero told me,” said Claudio, “that she cried, ‘O sweet Benedick!’”
Benedick was touched to the core by this improbable story, which he was vain enough to believe. “She is fair and good,” he said to himself. “I must not seem proud. I feel that I love her. People will laugh, of course; but their paper bullets will do me no harm.”
At this moment Beatrice came to the summerhouse, and said, “Against my will, I have come to tell you that dinner is ready.”
“Fair Beatrice, I thank you,” said Benedick.
“I took no more pains to come than you take pains to thank me,” was the rejoinder, intended to freeze him.
But it did not freeze him. It warmed him. The meaning he squeezed out of her rude speech was that she was delighted to come to him.
Hero, who had undertaken the task of melting the heart of Beatrice, took no trouble to seek an occasion. She simply said to her maid Margaret one day, “Run into the parlor and whisper to Beatrice that Ursula and I are talking about her in the orchard.”
Having said this, she felt as sure that Beatrice would overhear what was meant for her ears as if she had made an appointment with her cousin.
In the orchard was a bower, screened from the sun by honeysuckles, and Beatrice entered it a few minutes after Margaret had gone on her errand.
“But are you sure,” asked Ursula, who was one of Hero’s attendants, “that Benedick loves Beatrice so devotedly?”
“So say the Prince and my betrothed,” replied Hero, “and they wished me to tell her, but I said, ‘No! Let Benedick get over it.’”
“Why did you say that?”
“Because Beatrice is unbearably proud. Her eyes sparkle with disdain and scorn. She is too conceited to love. I should not like to see her making game of poor Benedick’s love. I would rather see Benedick waste away like a covered fire.”
“I don’t agree with you,” said Ursula. “I think your cousin is too clear-sighted not to see the merits of Benedick.” “He is the one man in Italy, except Claudio,” said Hero.
The talkers then left the orchard, and Beatrice, excited and tender, stepped out of the summer-house, saying to herself, “Poor dear Benedick, be true to me, and your love shall tame this wild heart of mine.”
We now return to the plan of hate.
The night before the day fixed for Claudio’s wedding, Don John entered a room in which Don Pedro and Claudio were conversing, and asked Claudio if he intended to be married to-morrow.
“You know he does!” said Don Pedro.
“He may know differently,” said Don John, “when he has seen what I will show him if he will follow me.”
They followed him into the garden; and they saw a lady leaning out of Hero’s window talking love to Borachio.
Claudio thought the lady was Hero, and said, “I will shame her for it to-morrow!” Don Pedro thought she was Hero, too; but she was not Hero; she was Margaret.
Don John chuckled noiselessly when Claudio and Don Pedro quitted the garden; he gave Borachio a purse containing a thousand ducats.
The money made Borachio feel very gay, and when he was walking in the street with his friend Conrade, he boasted of his wealth and the giver, and told what he had done.
A watchman overheard them, and thought that a man who had been paid a thousand ducats for villainy was worth taking in charge. He therefore arrested Borachio and Conrade, who spent the rest of the night in prison.
Before noon of the next day half the aristocrats in Messina were at church. Hero thought it was her wedding day, and she was there in her wedding dress, no cloud on her pretty face or in her frank and shining eyes.
The priest was Friar Francis.
Turning to Claudio, he said, “You come hither, my lord, to marry this lady?” “No!” contradicted Claudio.
Leonato thought he was quibbling over grammar. “You should have said, Friar,” said he, “‘You come to be married to her.’”
Friar Francis turned to Hero. “Lady,” he said, “you come hither to be married to this Count?” “I do,” replied Hero.
“If either of you know any impediment to this marriage, I charge you to utter it,” said the Friar.
“Do you know of any, Hero?” asked Claudio. “None,” said she.
“Know you of any, Count?” demanded the Friar. “I dare reply for him, ‘None,’” said Leonato.
Claudio exclaimed bitterly, “O! what will not men dare say! Father,” he continued, “will you give me your daughter?” “As freely,” replied Leonato, “as God gave her to me.”
“And what can I give you,” asked Claudio, “which is worthy of this gift?” “Nothing,” said Don Pedro, “unless you give the gift back to the giver.”
“Sweet Prince, you teach me,” said Claudio. “There, Leonato, take her back.”
These brutal words were followed by others which flew from Claudio, Don Pedro and Don John.
The church seemed no longer sacred. Hero took her own part as long as she could, then she swooned. All her persecutors left the church, except her father, who was befooled by the accusations against her, and cried, “Hence from her! Let her die!”
But Friar Francis saw Hero blameless with his clear eyes that probed the soul. “She is innocent,” he said; “a thousand signs have told me so.”
Hero revived under his kind gaze. Her father, flurried and angry, knew not what to think, and the Friar said, “They have left her as one dead with shame. Let us pretend that she is dead until the truth is declared, and slander turns to remorse.”
“The Friar advises well,” said Benedick. Then Hero was led away into a retreat, and Beatrice and Benedick remained alone in the church.
Benedick knew she had been weeping bitterly and long. “Surely I do believe your fair cousin is wronged,” he said. She still wept.
“Is it not strange,” asked Benedick, gently, “that I love nothing in the world as well as you?”
“It were as possible for me to say I loved nothing as well as you,” said Beatrice, “but I do not say it. I am sorry for my cousin.”
“Tell me what to do for her,” said Benedick. “Kill Claudio.”
“Ha! not for the wide world,” said Benedick. “Your refusal kills me,” said Beatrice. “Farewell.”
“Enough! I will challenge him,” cried Benedick.
During this scene Borachio and Conrade were in prison. There they were examined by a constable called Dogberry.
The watchman gave evidence to the effect that Borachio had said that he had received a thousand ducats for conspiring against Hero.
Leonato was not present at this examination, but he was nevertheless now thoroughly convinced Of Hero’s innocence. He played the part of bereaved father very well, and when Don Pedro and Claudio called on him in a friendly way, he said to the Italian, “You have slandered my child to death, and I challenge you to combat.”
“I cannot fight an old man,” said Claudio.
“You could kill a girl,” sneered Leonato, and Claudio crimsoned.
Hot words grew from hot words, and both Don Pedro and Claudio were feeling scorched when Leonato left the room and Benedick entered.
“The old man,” said Claudio, “was like to have snapped my nose off.”
“You are a villain!” said Benedick, shortly. “Fight me when and with what weapon you please, or I call you a coward.”
Claudio was astounded, but said, “I’ll meet you. Nobody shall say I can’t carve a calf’s head.”
Benedick smiled, and as it was time for Don Pedro to receive officials, the Prince sat down in a chair of state and prepared his mind for justice.
The door soon opened to admit Dogberry and his prisoners.
“What offence,” said Don Pedro, “are these men charged with?”
Borachio thought the moment a happy one for making a clean breast of it. He laid the whole blame on Don John, who had disappeared. “The lady Hero being dead,” he said, “I desire nothing but the reward of a murderer.”
Claudio heard with anguish and deep repentance.
Upon the re-entrance of Leonato be said to him, “This slave makes clear your daughter’s innocence. Choose your revenge.
“Leonato,” said Don Pedro, humbly, “I am ready for any penance you may impose.”
“I ask you both, then,” said Leonato, “to proclaim my daughter’s innocence, and to honor her tomb by singing her praise before it. As for you, Claudio, I have this to say: my brother has a daughter so like Hero that she might be a copy of her. Marry her, and my vengeful feelings die.”
“Noble sir,” said Claudio, “I am yours.” Claudio then went to his room and composed a solemn song. Going to the church with Don Pedro and his attendants, he sang it before the monument of Leonato’s family. When he had ended he said, “Good night, Hero. Yearly will I do this.”
