“Show me briefly how.”
“I think I told your lordship a year since how much I am in favour with Margaret, the waiting gentlewoman to Hero.”
“I remember.”
“I can at any unseasonable instant of the night appoint her to look out at her lady’s chamber window.”
“What good will that be to put an end to the marriage?”
“The poison of it lies with you to mix. Go to the Prince your brother, tell him he has wronged his honour in allowing the renowned Claudio—whom you must praise warmly—to marry lady like Hero, who has already another lover.”
“What proof shall I make of that?”
“Proof enough to hurt the Prince, to vex Claudio, to ruin Hero, and to kill Leonato. Do you look for any other result?”
“I will do anything only to spite them.”
“Go, then, find a fitting hour when Don Pedro and Count Claudio are alone, and tell them that you know Hero loves me,” said the wicked Borachio. “They will scarcely believe this without proof. Offer them the opportunity to test the truth of your words. Bring them outside Leonato’s house the night before the wedding; and in the meanwhile I will so fashion the matter that they shall see Margaret speak to me out of the window, they shall hear me call her ‘Hero,’ and there shall appear such seeming truth of Hero’s disloyalty that Claudio in his jealousy will feel quite assured of it, and all the preparations for the wedding shall be overthrown.”