| [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 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? |
| BORACHIO | Not honestly, my lord; but so covertly that no dishonesty shall appear in me. |
| DON JOHN | Show me briefly how. |
| BORACHIO | I think I told your lordship a year since, how much I am in the favour of Margaret, the waiting gentlewoman to Hero. |
| DON JOHN | I 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 this 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 honour in marrying the renowned Claudio--whose estimation do you 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 you for any other issue? |
| DON JOHN | Only to despite them, I will endeavour any thing. |
| BORACHIO | 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; 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 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,--for in the meantime 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 called assurance and all the preparation overthrown. |
| DON JOHN | Grow this to what adverse issue it can, I will put it in practise. 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 | I will presently go learn their day of marriage. |
| [Exeunt] |