CLAUDIO

What honey can be as sickly sweet, what panacea as falsely promising, as that of a woman? Nectar and ambrosia! I hath laid bare my heart on the doorstep of Eros’ home, and I hath been thrown into the gutters of despair. Hero, my Hero, has betrayed me! Here, in my woeful agony, I cannot permit myself to love even the memory of who I thought she was. Now every glance I shared with her makes me want to pierce mine own eyes with this sword. If my heart still loves, pray that I may be able to tear it out! Oh Hero, so many wasted minutes spent courting a viper. Our wedding was planned an entire week in advance! Dost thou not know how infinite that time seemed to me? Don Pedro implored me multiple times to cease my incessant pacing, out of fear that I would wear a hole in the floor in anticipation of the union. Now your name tastes bitter on my tongue. Now each ounce of love my heart once held has curdled, spilling its poison into my chest.

 

I see now what foolishness I possessed before. I hath been like a child, mesmerized by a toffee wrapped in wax paper, or a marble twinkling before the midday sun. That is all that love is — a twinkle — nay, a bubble. Yes! ‘Tis it! Love is a bubble. It enchants fresh-faced young men with its paradoxical existence. A solid shape that can float like a kite? Such a thing seems impossible, such a thing must be investigated. But when the bubble falls within the grasp of Man, it bursts, leaving naught but a disappointing husk behind. Such has happened to me. I hath reached out to that bubble which is called Love, and I hath been met with naught but a ‘pop,’ a profound emptiness, a hole which will never be filled.

 

I hath traveled far and seen many of the horrors of war, yet even still I wouldst now think myself as being like a newborn in my innocence until this moment. I bear no relation to the Claudio my brethren knew last week. He believed in such saccharine concepts as loyalty. His eyes were yet untainted by the sight of his fiance in bed with another man. Now, I hath grown world-weary beyond my years. I am infinitely older and regrettably wiser. I am tempted to look with contempt upon those who still hold hope in their hearts, but I instead choose to look upon them with pity out of respect for the memory of my former self.

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CLAUDIO (CONT.)

There exists not in all the world so fruitless an endeavor as love. There never was in all of history so useless a tradition as marriage.

 

URSULA

(jokingly)

Had I not seen with mine own eyes that ‘twas Claudio speaking, I wouldst have thought these words came from Benedick, whose lack of love lost with love is no small secret. Indeed, I heard from him a speech quite similar at last week’s revelry.

 

BENEDICK

(fully aware of what she's referring to)

I doth not know what thy mean. I have no recollection of my words ever being as naively nihilistic as those that Claudio speaks. If ever I had spoken as such, surely I would have remembered. If ever I had denounced the sacred holiness of marriage or cursed God’s greatest gift of love, then may my fate be the same as that of poor Hero, lying breathless on the ground.

 

If, however, with an almighty ‘if,’ — if thou speak truly, Ursula, and I hath, in some moment of poorer judgment (brought on by Sicilian wine, I should think) cast some insult upon the pride of Eros (which I wouldst have meant to be perceived as ironic, no doubt), then permit me now to renounce these prior statements (though you misheard them, most likely). 

 

I was uninformed in my perception of love, but who is there to say that I could be blamed for my uninformedness? I was an inexperienced lover at that masquerade, barely much older than a boy! I mistook cynicism for maturity, and crafted my worldview around a false sense of pessimistic superiority. Beatrice, lovely Beatrice, hath shown me the truth. Love is patient! Love is kind! I sense love is described in other ways too, yet I can only seem to recollect these two... Still, the benefits of love hath been well-documented, but they struck me not until I experienced them myself with Beatrice. Oh, my only regret is that I had not loved her sooner! My days are filled with a wonderful feeling, as if I could burst like a bubble, filled with songs and sonnets and candy and fruit and sugar and spice and all of the goodness that hath existed before Pandora.

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Ever since I have found my home in Beatrice, I am spiritually younger and happily wiser. I look upon with pity any sad bachelor who is determined that a woman shall never warm his heart. Claudio, if thou live past the date of our duel (the possibility of which I must regretfully pray against), then this advice I give as my final words to you: There exists not in all the world so fulfilling an endeavor as love. There never was in all of history so beautiful a tradition as marriage.