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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."
He then gravely, as became a gentleman whose heart was Hero's, made
ready to marry a girl whom he did not love. He was told to meet her
in Leonato's house, and was faithful to his appointment.
He was shown into a room where Antonio (Leonato's brother) and
several masked ladies entered after him. Friar Francis, Leonato, and
Benedick were present.
Antonio led one of the ladies towards Claudio.
"Sweet," said the young man, "let me see your face."
"Swear first to marry her," said Leonato.
"Give me your hand," said Claudio to the lady; "before this holy
friar I swear to marry you if you will be my wife."
"Alive I was your wife," said the lady, as she drew off her mask.
"Another Hero!" exclaimed Claudio.
"Hero died," explained Leonato, "only while slander lived."
The Friar was then going to marry the reconciled pair, but Benedick
interrupted him with, "Softly, Friar; which of these ladies is
Beatrice?"
Hereat Beatrice unmasked, and Benedick said, "You love me, don't
you?"
"Only moderately," was the reply. "Do you love me?"
"Moderately," answered Benedick.
"I was told you were well-nigh dead for me," remarked Beatrice.
"Of you I was told the same," said Benedick.
"Here's your own hand in evidence of your love," said Claudio,
producing a feeble sonnet which Benedick had written to his
sweetheart. "And here," said Hero, "is a tribute to Benedick, which
I picked out of the pocket of Beatrice."
"A miracle!" exclaimed Benedick. "Our hands are against our hearts!
Come, I will marry you, Beatrice."
"You shall be my husband to save your life," was the rejoinder.
Benedick kissed her on the mouth; and the Friar married them after
he had married Claudio and Hero.
"How is Benedick the married man?" asked Don Pedro.
"Too happy to be made unhappy," replied Benedick. "Crack what jokes
you will. As for you, Claudio, I had hoped to run you through the
body, but as you are now my kinsman, live whole and love my cousin."
"My cudgel was in love with you, Benedick, until to-day," said
Claudio; but, "Come, come, let's dance," said Benedick.
And dance they did. Not even the news of the capture of Don John was
able to stop the flying feet of the happy lovers, for revenge is not
sweet against an evil man who has failed to do harm.
Much Ado About Nothing
A Classic English Shakespeare Story
by
Edith Nesbit |
