Enter ⌜Don⌝ John and Borachio.DON JOHN It is so. The Count Claudio shall marry the daughter of Leonato.BORACHIO Yea, my lord, but I can cross it.DON JOHN Any bar, any cross, any impediment will be5 med’cinable 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?BORACHIO Not honestly, my lord, but so covertly that10 no dishonesty shall appear in me.DON JOHN Show me briefly how.
61
Much Ado About Nothing
ACT 2. SC. 2
BORACHIO I think I told your Lordship a year since, how much I am in the favor of Margaret, the waiting gentlewoman to Hero.DON JOHN 15I remember.BORACHIO I can, at any unseasonable instant of the night, appoint her to look out at her lady’s chamber window.DON JOHN What life is in that to be the death of this20 marriage?BORACHIO 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 honor in marrying the renowned Claudio, whose estimation do you25 mightily hold up, to a contaminated stale, such a one as Hero.DON JOHN What proof shall I make of that?BORACHIO Proof enough to misuse the Prince, to vex Claudio, to undo Hero, and kill Leonato. Look you30 for any other issue?DON JOHN Only to despite them I will endeavor anything.BORACHIO Go then, find me a meet hour to draw Don Pedro and the Count Claudio alone. Tell them that35 you know that Hero loves me; intend a kind of zeal both to the Prince and Claudio, as in love of your brother’s honor, 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 discovered40 thus. They will scarcely believe this without trial. 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 very45 night before the intended wedding, for in the meantime I will so fashion the matter that Hero shall be absent, and there shall appear such seeming truth
63
Much Ado About Nothing
ACT 2. SC. 3
of Hero’s disloyalty that jealousy shall be called assurance and all the preparation overthrown.DON JOHN 50Grow 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.BORACHIO Be you constant in the accusation, and my cunning shall not shame me.DON JOHN 55I will presently go learn their day of marriage.⌜They⌝ exit.