Dogb.
Ha, ha, ha! Well, masters, good night an there be any matter
of weight chances, call up me: keep your fellows' counsels and
your own, and good night.--Come, neighbour.
2. Watch.
Well, masters, we hear our charge: let us go sit here
upon the church-bench till two, and then all to bed.
Dogb.
One word more, honest neighbours: I pray you, watch about
signior Leonato's door; for the wedding being there to-morrow,
there is a great coil to-night: Adieu, be vigitant, I beseech
you.
[Exeunt Dogberry and Verges.]
[Enter Borachio and Conrade.]
Bora.
What! Conrade,--
Watch.
Peace! stir not. [Aside.]
Bora.
Conrade, I say!
Con.
Here, man, I am at thy elbow.
Bora.
Mass, and my elbow itched; I thought there would a scab follow.
Con.
I will owe thee an answer for that; and now forward with thy
tale.
Bora.
Stand thee close then under this penthouse, for it drizzles
rain; and I will, like a true drunkard, utter all to thee.
Watch.
[aside.] Some treason, masters; yet stand close.
Bora.
Therefore know, I have earned of don John a thousand ducats.
Con.
Is it possible that any villany should be so dear?
Bora.
Thou shouldst rather ask, if it were possible any villany
should be so rich; for when rich villains have need of poor ones,
poor ones may make what price they will.
Con.
I wonder at it.
Bora.
That shows thou art unconfirmed: Thou knowest, that the
fashion of a doublet, or a hat, or a cloak, is nothing to a man.
Con.
Yes, it is apparel.
Bora.
I mean, the fashion.
Con.
Yes, the fashion is the fashion.
Bora.
Tush! I may as well say, the fool's the fool. But seest thou
not what a deformed thief this fashion is?
Watch.
I know that Deformed; a has been a vile thief
this seven year; a goes up and down like a gentleman: I remember
his name.
Bora.
Didst thou not hear somebody?
Con.
No; 't was the vane on the house.
Bora.
Seest thou not, I say, what a deformed thief this fashion is?
how giddily he turns about all the hot-bloods, between fourteen
and five-and-thirty? sometime, fashioning them like Pharaoh's
soldiers in the reechy painting; sometime, like god Bel's priests
in the old church window; sometime, like the shaven Hercules in
the smirched worm-eaten tapestry, where his codpiece seems as
massy as his club?
Con.
All this I see; and I see that the fashion wears out more
apparel than the man: But art not thou thyself giddy with the
fashion too, that thou hast shifted out of thy tale into telling
me of the fashion?
Bora.
Not so neither: but know, that I have to-night wooed Margaret,
the Lady Hero's gentlewoman, by the name of Hero; she leans me
out at her mistress' chamber-window, bids me a thousand times
good night,--I tell this tale vilely:--I should first tell thee
how
the prince, Claudio, and my master, planted, and placed, and
possessed by my master don John, saw afar off in the orchard this
amiable encounter.
Con.
And thought they Margaret was Hero?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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