Don Pedro Quotes in Fire Over England (1937)

Don Pedro: You see, Elena, the whole trouble comes from treating your enemies like human beings. Don't you see, my dear, that if you do that they cease to be enemies. Think what that leads to: the end of patriotism; the end of war; it's the end of everything."

Benedick: O, she misused me past the endurance of a block. She told me, not thinking I had been myself, that I was the Prince's jester, and that I was duller than a great thaw, huddling jest upon jest, with such impossible conveyance upon me, that I stood like a man at a mark, with a whole army shooting at me. She speaks poniards, and every word stabs. If her breath were as terrible as her terminations, there were no living near her, she would infect to the North star. So indeed all disquiet, horror, and perturbation follows her.

Don Pedro: Look, here she comes.

Benedick: Will your Grace command me any service to the world's end? I will go on the slightest errand now to the Antipodes that you can devise to send me on. I will fetch you a hair off the great Cham's beard, do you any embassage to the Pygmies, rather then hold three words conference with this Harpy. You have no employment for me?

Don Pedro: None but to desire your good company.

Benedick: O God, sir, here's a dish I love not. I cannot endure my lady Tongue.

Beatrice: Good Lord for alliance! Thus goes everyone to the world but I, and I am sunburnt; I may sit in a corner and cry 'heigh-ho!' for a husband.

Don Pedro: Lady Beatrice, I will get you one.

Beatrice: I would rather have one of your father's getting. Hath your grace not a brother like you? Your father got excellent husbands, if a maid could come by them.

Don Pedro: Will you have me, lady?

Beatrice: [pauses] No, my lord, unless I might have another for working-days. Your Grace is too costly to wear everyday. But I beseech your Grace to pardon me; for I was born to speak all mirth and no matter.

Don Pedro: Your silence most offends me, and to be merry best becomes you; for, out of question, you were born in a merry hour.

Beatrice: No, sure, my lord, my mother cried; but then there was a star danced, and under that was I born...

[Beatrice exits]

Don Pedro: By my troth, a pleasant-spirited lady.

Don Pedro: Good Signior Leonato, you are come to meet your trouble: the fashion of the world is to avoid cost, and you encounter it.

Leonato: Never came trouble to my house in the likeness of your grace.

Don Pedro: I shall see thee, ere I die, look pale with love.

Benedick: With anger, with sickness, or with hunger, my lord. Not with love.

Don Pedro: Will you have me, lady?

Beatrice: No, my lord, unless I might have another for working days. Your grace is too costly to wear everyday.

Don Pedro: Thou wilt be like a lover presently, and tire the hearer with a book of words.

Benedick: [Has been standing in front of the mirror, improving his looks, but stop when he notices the others' amusement] Gallants! I am not as I have been!

Leonato: So say I. Me thinks you are sadder!

[He and the other three start laughing again]

Claudio: I hope he be in love!

Leonato, Antonio, and Pedro: Ooohhh!

Benedick: [Turns indignantly to Leonato] Good signor, walk aside with me. I have studied eight or nine wise words to speak to you which these hoppy horses must not hear!

[Leaves with Leonato and Antonio, provoking more laughter from Claudio and Pedro]

Don Pedro: Oh my life! To break with him about Beatrice!

Leonato: Canst thou so daff me? Thou hast killed my child! If thou kill'st me, boy, thou shalt kill a man.

Antonio: He shall kill two of us, and men indeed. But that's no matter, let him kill one first. I'll whip you from your foining fence. Nay, as I am a gentleman, I will.

Leonato: Brother...

Antonio: Content yourself. God knows I loved my niece. And she is dead, slandered to death by villains scrambling, outfacing, fashion-monging boys that lie, and cog and flout, deprave and slander...

Leonato: Brother Antony.

Antonio: 'Tis no matter. Do not you meddle. Let me deal in this.

Don Pedro: Gentlemen both, we will not wake your patience. My heart is sorry for your daughter's death, but, on my honor, she was charged with nothing but what was true and very full of proof.

Leonato: My lord...

Don Pedro: I will not hear you.

Leonato: No? Come, brother, away. I will be heard.

Antonio: And shall, or some of us will smart for it.

[Both depart]

Don Pedro: [Benedick approaches] See, here comes the man we went to seek.

Claudio: Now, signior, what news?

Benedick: Good day, my lord.

Don Pedro: Welcome, signior. You are almost come to part almost a fray.

Claudio: We had like to have our two noses snapped off with two old men without teeth.

Benedick: Shall I speak a word in your ear?

[Grabs Claudio and holds against wall]

Benedick: You are a villain. I jest not. I will make it good how dare you and when you dare. Do me right, or I will protest your cowardice. You have killed a sweet lady, and her death shall fall heavy on you. Fare you well, boy. You know my mind.

[Releases Claudio and approaches Don Pedro]

Benedick: My lord, for your many courtesies I thank you. I must discontinue your company. Your brother is fled from Messina. You have among you killed a sweet and innocent lady. For my Lord Lackbeard there, he and I shall meet. Till then peace be with him.

[Departs]

Don Pedro: He is in earnest.

Claudio: In most profound earnest.

Don Pedro: And hath challenged thee.

Claudio: Most sincerely.

Leonato: Are you yet determined to marry with my brother's daughter?

[Claudio nods]

Leonato: Call her forth, brother. Here's the friar ready.

[Four veiled ladies are presented]

Claudio: Which is the lady I must seize upon?

Antonio: [Brings forth one lady] This same is she and I do give you her.

Claudio: Sweet, let me see your face.

Leonato: No, that you shall not till you take her hand before this friar and swear to marry her.

Claudio: [Kneels] Give me your hand, before this holy friar. I am your husband if you like of me.

Hero: [Removes veil]

Don Pedro: Hero that is dead.

Leonato: She died, my lord, but whiles her slander lived.

Hero: And when I lived, I was your other wife. And when you loved you were my other husband. One Hero died defiled, but I do live and surely as I live, I am a maid.

Don Pedro: Well, maybe that's your answer. That swamp is a very mysterious and sinister place.