Tales from Shakespeare, Charles and Mary Lamb [reading books for 7 year olds TXT] 📗

in love with each other. Claudio entered with great satisfaction into this whim of the prince, and Leonato promised them his assistance, and even Hero said she would do any modest office to help her cousin to a good husband.

The device the prince invented was, that the gentlemen should make Benedick believe that Beatrice was in love with him, and that Hero should make Beatrice believe that Benedick was in love with her.

The prince, Leonato, and Claudio began their operations first: and watching upon an opportunity when Benedick was quietly seated reading in an arbour, the prince and his assistants took their station among the trees behind the arbour, so near that Benedick could not choose but hear all they said; and after some careless talk the prince said: ‘Come hither, Leonato. What was it you told me the other day that your niece Beatrice was in love with signior Benedick? I did never think that lady would have loved any man.’ ‘No, nor I neither, my lord.’ answered Leonato. ‘It is most wonderful that she should so dote on Benedick, whom she in all outward behaviour seemed ever to dislike.’ Claudio confirmed all this with saying that Hero had told him Beatrice was so in love with Benedick, that she would certainly die of grief, if he could not be brought to love her; which Leonato and Claudio seemed to agree was impossible, he having always been such a railer against all fair ladies, and in particular against Beatrice.

The prince affected to hearken to all this with great compassion for Beatrice, and he said: ‘It were good that Benedick were told of this.’

‘To what end?’ said Claudio; ‘he would but make sport of it, and torment the poor lady worse.’ ‘And if he should,’ said the prince, ‘it were a good deed to hang him; for Beatrice is an excellent sweet lady, and exceeding wise in everything but in loving Benedick.’ Then the prince motioned to his companions that they should walk on, and leave Benedick to meditate upon what he had overheard.

Benedick had been listening with great eagerness to this conversation; and he said to himself when he heard Beatrice loved him: ‘Is it possible? Sits the wind in that corner?’ And when they were gone, he began to reason in this manner with himself: ‘This can be no trick!

they were very serious, and they have the truth from Hero, and seem to pity the lady. Love me! Why it must be requited! I did never think to marry. But when I said I should die a bachelor, I did not think I should live to be married. They say the lady is virtuous and fair. She is so. And wise in everything but loving me. Why, that is no great argument of her folly. But here comes Beatrice. By this day, she is a fair lady. I do spy some marks of love in her.’ Beatrice now approached him, and said with her usual tartness: ‘Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner.’ Benedick, who never felt himself disposed to speak so politely to her before, replied: ‘Fair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains’: and when Beatrice, after two or three more rude speeches, left him, Benedick thought he observed a concealed meaning of kindness under the uncivil words she uttered, and he said aloud: ‘If I do not take pity on her, I am a villain. If I do not love her, I am a Jew. I will go get her picture.’

The gentleman being thus caught in the net they had spread for him, it was now Hero’s turn to play her part with Beatrice; and for this purpose she sent for Ursula and Margaret, two gentlewomen who attended upon her, and she said to Margaret: ‘Good Margaret, run to the parlour; there you will kind my cousin Beatrice talking with the prince and Claudio. Whisper in her ear, that I and Ursula are walking in the orchard, and that our discourse is all of her. Bid her steal into that pleasant arbour, where honeysuckles, ripened by the sun, like ungrateful minions, forbid the sun to enter.’ This arbour, into which Hero desired Margaret to entice Beatrice, was the very same pleasant arbour where Benedick had so lately been an attentive listener.

‘I will make her come, I warrant, presently,’ said Margaret.

Hero, then taking Ursula with her into the orchard, said to her: ‘Now, Ursula, when Beatrice comes, we will walk up and down this alley, and our talk must be only of Benedick, and when I name him, let it be your part to praise him more than ever man did merit. My talk to you must be how Benedick is in love with Beatrice. Now begin; for look where Beatrice like a lapwing runs close by the ground, to hear our conference.’ They then began; Hero saying, as if in answer to something which Ursula had said: ‘No, truly, Ursula. She is too disdainful; her spirits are as coy as wild birds of the rock.’ ‘But are you sure,’ said Ursula, ‘that Benedick loves Beatrice so entirely?’ Hero replied: ‘ So says the prince, and my lord Claudio, and they entreated me to acquaint her with it; but I persuaded them, if they loved Benedick, never to let Beatrice know of it.’ ‘Certainly,’ replied Ursula, ‘it were not good she knew his love, lest she made sport of it.’ ‘Why, to say truth,’ said Hero, ‘I never yet saw a man, how wise soever, or noble, young, or rarely featured, but she would dispraise him.’ ‘Sure, sure, such carping is not commendable,’ said Ursula. ‘No,’ replied Hero, ‘but who dare tell her so? If I should speak, she would mock me into air.’ ‘O! you wrong your cousin,’ said Ursula: ‘she cannot be so much without true judgment, as to refuse so rare a gentleman as signior Benedick.’ ‘He hath an excellent good name,’ said Hero: ‘indeed, he is the first man in Italy, always excepting my dear Claudio.’ And now, Hero giving her attendant a hint that it was time to change the discourse, Ursula said: ‘And when are you to be married, madam?’ Hero then told her, that she was to be married to Claudio the next day, and desired she would go in with her, and look at some new attire, as she wished to consult with her on what she would wear on the morrow. Beatrice, who had been listening with breathless eagerness to this dialogue, when they went away, exclaimed: ‘What fire is in mine ears? Can this be true? Farewell, contempt and scorn, and maiden pride, adieu! Benedick, love on! I will requite you, taming my wild heart to your loving hand.’

It must have been a pleasant sight to see these old enemies converted into new and loving friends, and to behold their first meeting after being cheated into mutual liking by the merry artifice of the good-humoured prince. But a sad reverse in the fortunes of Hero must now be thought of. The morrow, which was to have been her wedding-day, brought sorrow on the heart of Hero and her good father Leonato.

The prince had a half-brother, who came from the wars along with him to Messina. This brother (his name was Don John) was a melancholy, discontented man, whose spirits seemed to labour in the contriving of villanies. He hated the prince his brother, and he hated Claudio, because he was the prince’s friend, and determined to prevent Claudio’s marriage with Hero, only for the malicious pleasure of making Claudio and the prince unhappy; for he knew the prince had set his heart upon this marriage, almost as much as Claudio himself; and to effect this wicked purpose, he employed one Borachio, a man as bad as himself, whom he encouraged with the offer of a great reward. This Borachio paid his court to Margaret, Hero’s attendant; and Don John, knowing this, prevailed upon him to make Margaret promise to talk with him from her lady’s chamber window that night, after Hero was asleep, and also to dress herself in Hero’s clothes, the better to deceive Claudio into the belief that it was Hero; for that was the end he meant to compass by this wicked plot.

Don John then went to the prince and Claudio, and told them that Hero was an imprudent lady, and that she talked with men from her chamber window at midnight. Now this was the evening before the wedding, and he offered to take them that night, where they should themselves hear Hero discoursing with a man from her window; and they consented to go along with him, and Claudio said: ‘If I see anything to-night why I should not marry her, to-morrow in the congregation, where I intended to wed her, there will I shame her.’

The prince also said: ‘And as I assisted you to obtain her, I will join with you to disgrace her.’

When Don John brought them near Hero’s chamber that night, they saw Borachio standing under the window, and they saw Margaret looking out of Hero’s window, and heard her talking with Borachio: and Margaret being dressed in the same clothes they had seen Hero wear, the prince and Claudio believed it was the lady Hero herself.

Nothing could equal the anger of Claudio, when he had made (as he thought) this discovery. All his love for the innocent Hero was at once converted into hatred, and he resolved to expose her in the church, as he had said he would, the next day; and the prince agreed to this, thinking no punishment could be too severe for the naughty lady, who talked with a man from her window the very night before she was going to be married to the noble Claudio.

The next day, when they were all met to celebrate the marriage, and Claudio and Hero were standing before the priest, and the priest, or friar, as he was called, was proceeding to pronounce the marriage ceremony, Claudio, in the most passionate language, proclaimed the guilt of the blameless Hero, who, amazed at the strange words he uttered, said meekly: ‘Is my lord well, that he does speak so wide?’

Leonato, in the utmost horror, said to the prince: ‘My lord, why speak not you?’ ‘What should I speak?’ said the prince; ‘I stand dishonoured, that have gone about to link my dear friend to an unworthy woman.

Leonato, upon my honour, myself, my brother, and this grieved Claudio, did see and hear her last night at midnight talk with a man at her chamber window.’

Benedick, in astonishment at what he heard, said: ‘This looks not like a nuptial.’

‘True, O God!’ replied the heart-struck Hero; and then this hapless lady sunk down in a fainting fit, to all appearance dead. The prince and Claudio left the church, without staying to see if Hero would recover, or at all regarding the distress into which they had thrown Leonato. So hard-hearted had their anger made them.

Benedick remained, and assisted Beatrice to recover Hero from her swoon, saying: ‘How does the lady?’ ‘Dead, I think,’ replied Beatrice in great agony, for she loved her cousin; and knowing her virtuous principles, she believed nothing of what she had heard spoken against her. Not so the poor old father; he believed the story of his child’s shame, and it was piteous to hear him lamenting over her, as she lay like one dead before him, wishing she might never more open her eyes.

But the ancient friar was a wise man, and full of observation on human nature, and he had attentively marked the lady’s countenance when she heard herself accused, and noted a thousand blushing shames to start into her face, and then he saw an angel-like whiteness bear away those blushes, and in her eye