Act 2
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Enter DON JOHN
andBORACHIO
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Enter DON JOHN
andBORACHIO
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DON JOHN It is so. The Count Claudio shall marry the daughter of
Leonato.
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DON JOHN It’s arranged. The Count Claudio will marry
Leonato’s daughter.
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BORACHIO Yea, my lord, but I can cross it.
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BORACHIO Yes, my lord, but I can spoil it.
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DON JOHN Any bar, any cross, any impediment will be med'cinable
to
5me. I am sick in displeasure to him, and whatsoever comes
athwart his affection ranges evenly with mine. How canst
thou cross this marriage?
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DON JOHN Any obstacle or barrier to Claudio’s happiness will be
like medicine to me. I hate him so much it makes me sick, and
whoever can ruin his happiness will make me happy. How will you
wreck this marriage?
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BORACHIO Not honestly, my lord, but so covertly that no dishonesty
shall appear in me.
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BORACHIO I can only do it by lying, my lord, but I can do it so secretly
that no one will suspect me.
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DON JOHN
10Show me briefly how.
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DON JOHN Quickly, tell me how.
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BORACHIO I think I told your lordship a year since how much I am in
the favor of Margaret, the waiting gentlewoman to Hero.
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BORACHIO I think it was a year ago that I told you how much Margaret,
Hero’s servant woman, likes me.
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DON JOHN I remember.
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DON JOHN I remember.
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BORACHIO I can, at any unseasonable instant of the night, appoint her
15to look out at her lady’s chamber window.
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BORACHIO I can arrange it so that at some indecent hour of the night, she
looks out Hero’s bedroom window.
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DON JOHN What life is in that to be the death of this marriage?
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DON JOHN How will that kill this marriage?
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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,
20whose estimation do you mightily hold up, to a
contaminated stale, such a one as Hero.
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BORACHIO That part is up to you. Go to the Prince, your brother, and tell
him that he has done a terrible thing by matching the renowned
Claudio—whom you greatly admire—with such a
tainted whore as Hero.
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