William Shakespeare: Much Ado About Nothing

ACT 3. 3. Scene III. A Street. (continued)

WATCH.
[Aside.] Some treason, masters; yet stand close.

BORACHIO.
Therefore know, I have earned of Don John a thousand ducats.

CONRADE.
Is it possible that any villany should be so dear?

BORACHIO.
Thou shouldst rather ask if it were possible any villany should be
so rich; for when rich villains have need of poor ones, poor ones may
make what price they will.

CONRADE.
I wonder at it.

BORACHIO.
That shows thou art unconfirmed. Thou knowest that the fashion of
a doublet, or a hat, or a cloak, is nothing to a man.

CONRADE.
Yes, it is apparel.

BORACHIO.
I mean, the fashion.

CONRADE.
Yes, the fashion is the fashion.

BORACHIO.
Tush! I may as well say the fool's the fool. But seest thou not what
a deformed thief this fashion is?

WATCH.
[Aside.] I know that Deformed; a' bas been a vile thief this seven
years; a' goes up and down like a gentleman: I remember his name.

BORACHIO.
Didst thou not hear somebody?

CONRADE.
No: 'twas the vane on the house.

BORACHIO.
Seest thou not, I say, what a deformed thief this fashion is? how
giddily he turns about all the hot bloods between fourteen and
five-and-thirty? sometime fashioning them like Pharaoh's soldiers
in the reechy painting; sometime like god Bel's priests in the old
church-window; sometime like the shaven Hercules in the smirched
worm-eaten tapestry, where his codpiece seems as massy as his club?

CONRADE.
All this I see, and I see that the fashion wears out more apparel than
the man. But art not thou thyself giddy with the fashion too, that
thou hast shifted out of thy tale into telling me of the fashion?