longer an archer; his glory shall be ours, for we are the only love-gods. Go in with me, and I will you my drift. tell [Exeunt. SCENE II. Another Room in Leonato's House. Enter Don JOHN and BORACHIO. D. JOHN. It is so; the count Claudio shall marry the daughter of Leonato. BORA. Yea, my lord: but I can cross it. D. 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? BORA. Not honestly, my lord; but so covertly that no dishonesty shall appear in me. D. JOHN. Show me briefly how. BORA. I think, I told your lordship, a year since, how much I am in the favour of Margaret, the waiting-gentlewoman to Hero. D. JOHN. I remember. BORA. I can, at any unseasonable instant of the night, appoint her to look out at her lady's chamber-window. D. JOHN. What life is in that, to be the death of this marriage? BORA. 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. D. JOHN. What proof shall I make of that? BORA. Proof enough to misuse the prince, to vex Claudio, to undo Hero, and kill Leonato: Look you for any other issue? D. JOHN. Only to despite them, I will endeavour any thing. BORA. Go then, find me a meet hour to draw Bora. Go then, find me a meet hour to draw Don Pedro and the count Claudio, alone: tell them, that you know that Hero loves me; -offer them instances; which shall bear no less likelihood, than to see me at her chamber-window; hear me call Margaret, Hero; hear Margaret term me Claudio; and bring them to see this, the very night before the intended wedding] Thus the whole stream of the editions from the first quarto downwards. I am obliged here to give a short account of the plot depending, that the emendation I have made may appear the more clear and unquestionable. The business stands thus: Claudio, a favourite of the Arragon prince, is, by his intercessions with her father, to be married to fair Hero; Don John, natural brother of the prince, and a hater of Claudio, is in his spleen zealous to disappoint the match. Borachio, a rascally dependant on Don John, offers his assistance, and engages to break off the marriage by this stratagem. "Tell the prince and Claudio (says he) that Hero is in love with me; they won't believe it: offer them proofs, as, that they shall see me converse with her in her chamber-window. I am in the good graces of her waiting-woman, Margaret; and I'll prevail with Margaret, at a dead hour of night, to personate her mistress Hero; do you then bring the Prince and Claudio to overhear our discourse; and they shall have the torment to hear me address Margaret by the name of Hero, and her say sweet things to me by the name of Claudio."-This is the substance of Borachio's device to make Hero suspected of disloyalty; and to break off her match with Claudio. But, in the name of common sense, could it displease Claudio, to hear his mistress making use of his name tenderly? If he saw another man with her, Don Pedro and the count Claudio, alone: tell them, that you know that Hero loves me: intend a kind of zeal both to the prince and Claudio, as-in love of your brother's honour who hath made this match; and his friend's reputation, who is thus like to be cozened with the semblance of a maid,-that you have discovered thus. They will scarcely believe this without trial: offer them instances; which shall and heard her call him Claudio, he might reasonably think her betrayed, but not have the same reason to accuse her of disloy alty. Besides, how could her naming Claudio, make the Prince and Claudio delieve that she loved Borachio, as he desires Don John to insinuate to them that she did? The circumstances weighed, there is no doubt but the passage ought to be reformed, as I have settled in the text-hear me call Margaret, Hero; hear Margaret term me, Borachio. THEOBALD. Though I have followed Mr. Theobald's direction, I am not convinced that this change of names is absolutely necessary. Claudio would naturally resent the circumstance of hearing another called by his own name; because, in that case, baseness of treachery would appear to be aggravated by wantonness of insult; and, at the same time, he would imagine the person so distinguished to be Borachio, because Don John was previously to have informed both him and Don Pedro, that Borachio was the favoured lover. STEEVENS. We should surely read Borachio instead of Claudio. There could be no reason why Margaret should call him Claudio; and that would ill agree with what Borachio says in the last Act, where he declares that Margaret knew not what she did when she spoke to him. M. MASON. Claudio would naturally be enraged to find his mistress, Hero, (for such he would imagine Margaret to be,) address Borachio, or any other man, by his name, as he might suppose that she called him by the name of Claudio in consequence of a secret agreement between them, as a cover, in case she were overheard; and he would know, without a possibility of error, that it was not Claudio, with whom, in fact, she conversed. MALONE. 7 — intend a kind of zeal -] i. e. pretend. So, in King Richard III: "Intending deep suspicion." STEEVENS.. bear no less likelihood, than to see me at her chamber-window; hear me call Margaret, Hero; hear Margaret term me Borachio; and bring them to see this, the very night before the intended wedding: for, in the mean time, I will so fashion the matter, that Hero shall be absent; and there shall appear such seeming truth of Hero's disloyalty, that jealousy shall be call'd assurance, and all the preparation overthrown. D. JOHN. Grow this to what adverse issue it can, I will put it in practice: Be cunning in the working this, and thy fee is a thousand ducats. BORA. Be you constant in the accusation, and my cunning shall not shame me. D. JOHN. I will presently go learn their day of marriage. [Exeunt. SCENE III. Leonato's Garden. Enter BENEDICK and a Boy. BENE. Boy, Bor. Signior. BENE. In my chamber-window lies a book; bring it hither to me in the orchard.8 Bor. I am here already, sir. BENE. I know that;-but I would have thee in the orchard.] Gardens were anciently called orchards. So, in Romeo and Juliet: "The orchard walls are high, and hard to climb." STEEVENS. hence, and here again. [Exit Boy.]—I do much wonder, that one man, seeing how much another man is a fool when he dedicates his behaviours to love, will, after he hath laughed at such shallow follies in others, become the argument of his own scorn, by falling in love: And such a man is Claudio. I have known, when there was no musick with him but the drum and fife; and now had he rather hear the tabor and the pipe: I have known, when he would have walked ten mile afoot, to see a good armour; and now will he lie ten nights awake, carving the fashion of a new doublet." He was wont to speak plain, and to the purpose, like an honest man, and a soldier; and now is he - carving the fashion of a new doublet.] This folly, so conspicuous in the gallants of former ages, is laughed at by all our comic writers. So, in Greene's Farewell to Folly, 1617: "We are almost as fantastic as the English gentleman that is painted naked, with a pair of sheers in his hand, as not being resolved after what fashion to have his coat cut." STEEVENS. The English gentleman in the above extract alludes to a plate in Borde's Introduction of Knowledge. In Barnaby Riche's Faults and nothing but Faults, 4to. 1606, p. 6, we have the following account of a Fashionmonger: "here comes first the Fashionmonger that spends his time in the contemplation of Alas! good gentleman, there is something amisse with him. I perceive it by his sad and heavie countenance: for my life his tailer and he are at some square about the making of his new sute; he hath cut it after the old stampe of some stale fashion that is at the least of a whole fortnight's standing." sutes. REED. The English gentleman is represented [by Borde] naked, with a pair of tailor's sheers in one hand, and a piece of cloth on his arm, with the following verses: "I am an Englishman, and naked I stand here, "Musing in my mynde what rayment I shall were, See Camden's Remaines, 1614, p. 17. MALONE. |