Leon.

Was not Count John here at supper?

Ant.

I saw him not.

Beat.

How tartly that gentleman looks! I never can see him but I am heart-burned an hour after.

Hero.

He is of a very melancholy disposition.

Beat.

He were an excellent man that were made just in the midway between him and Benedick: the one is too like an image and says nothing, and the other too like my lady's eldest son, evermore tattling.

Leon.

Then half Signior Benedick's tongue in Count John's mouth, and half Count John's melancholy in Signior Benedick's face,—

Beat.

With a good leg and a good foot, uncle, and money enough in his purse, such a man would win any woman in the world, if a' ^note could get her good-will.

Leon.

By my troth, niece, thou wilt never get thee a husband, if thou be so shrewd of thy tongue.

Ant.

In faith, she's too curst.

Beat.

Too curst is more than curst: I shall lessen God's sending that way; for it is said, ‘God sends a curst cow short horns;’ but to a cow too curst he sends none.

Leon.

So, by being too curst, God will send you no horns.

Beat.

Just, if he send me no husband; for the which blessing I am at him upon my knees every morning and evening. Lord, I could not endure a husband with a beard on his face: I had rather lie in the woollen ^note.

Leon.

You may light on ^note a husband that hath no beard.

Beat.

What should I do with him? dress him in my apparel, and make him my waiting-gentlewoman? He that hath a beard is more than a youth; and he that hath no beard is less than a man: and he that is more than a youth is not for me; and he that is less than a man, I am not for him: therefore I will even take sixpence in earnest of the bear-ward ^note, and lead his apes into hell.

Leon.

Well, then, go you into hell? ^note

Beat.

No, but to the gate; and there will the devil meet me, like an old cuckold, with horns ^note on his head, and say ‘Get you to heaven, Beatrice, get you to heaven; here's no place for you maids:’ so deliver I up my apes, and away to Saint Peter for the heavens; ^note he shows me where the bachelors sit, and there live we as merry as the day is long. ^note

Ant. [To Hero]

Well, niece, I trust you will be ruled by your father.

Beat.

Yes, faith; it is my cousin's duty to make courtesy ^note, and say, ‘Father ^note, as it please you.’ But yet for all that, cousin, let him be a handsome fellow, or else make another courtesy ^note, and say, ‘Father, as it please ^note me.’

Leon.

Well, niece, I hope to see you one day fitted with a husband.

Beat.

Not till God make men of some other metal than earth. Would it not grieve a woman to be overmastered with a piece of valiant dust? to make an account ^note of her life to a clod of wayward ^note marl? No, uncle, I'll none: Adam's sons are my ^note brethren; and, truly, I hold it a sin to match in my kindred.

Leon.

Daughter, remember what I told you: if the prince do solicit you in that kind, you know your answer.

Beat.

The fault will be in the music, cousin, if you be not wooed in good time: if the prince be too important ^note, tell him there is measure in every thing, and so dance out the answer. For, hear ^note me, Hero: wooing, wedding, and repenting, is as ^note a Scotch jig, a measure, and a cinque pace: the first suit is hot and hasty, like a Scotch jig, and full as fantastical; the wedding, mannerly-modest, as a measure, full of state and ancientry ^note; and then comes repentance, and, with his bad legs, falls into the cinque pace faster and faster, till he sink ^note into his grave.

Leon.

Cousin, you apprehend passing shrewdly.

Beat.

I have a good eye, uncle; I can see a church by daylight.

Leon.

The revellers are entering, brother: make good room.

^noteEnter Don Pedro, Claudio, Benedick, Balthasar, Don John, Borachio, Margaret, Ursula, and others, masked. ^note

D. Pedro.

Lady, will you walk about with your friend?

Hero.

So you walk softly, and look sweetly, and say nothing, I am yours for the walk; and especially when I walk away.

D. Pedro.

With me in your company?

Hero.

I may say so, when I please.

D. Pedro.

And when please you to say so?

Hero.

When I like your favour; for God defend the lute should be like the case!

D. Pedro.

My visor is Philemon's roof; within the house is Jove ^note.

Hero.

Why, then, your visor should be thatched.

D. Pedro ^note.

Speak low, if you speak love ^{note note}.

Balth.

Well, I would you did like me.

Marg. ^note

So would not I, for your own sake; for I have many ill qualities.

Balth.

Which is one?

Marg. ^note

I say my prayers aloud.

Balth.

I love you the better: the hearers may cry, Amen.

Marg.

God match me with a good dancer!

Balth.

Amen.

Marg.

And God keep him out of my sight when the dance is done! Answer, clerk.

Balth.

No more words: the clerk is answered.

Urs.

I know you well enough; you are Signior Antonio.

Ant.

At a word, I am not.

Urs.

I know you by the waggling of your head.

Ant.

To tell you true, I counterfeit him.

Urs.

You could never do him so ill-well ^note, unless you were the very man. Here's his dry hand up and down: you are he, you are he.

Ant.

At a word, I am not.

Urs.

Come, come, do you think I do not know you by your excellent wit? can virtue hide itself? Go to, mum, ^{note note}you are he: graces will appear, and there's an end.

Beat.

Will you not tell me who told you so?

Bene.

No, you shall pardon me.

Beat.

Nor will you not tell ^note me who you are?

Bene.

Not now.

Beat.

That I was disdainful, and that I had my good wit out of the ‘Hundred Merry Tales’:—well, this was Signior Benedick that said so.

Bene.

What's he?

Beat. ^note

I am sure you know him well enough.

Bene.

Not I, believe me.

Beat.

Did he never make you laugh?

Bene.

I pray you, what is he?

Beat.

Why, he is the prince's jester: a very dull fool; only his gift is in devising impossible ^note slanders: none but libertines delight in him; and the commendation is not in his wit, but in his villany; for he both pleases ^note men and angers them, and then they laugh at him and beat him. I am sure he is in the fleet: I would he had boarded me.

Bene.

When I know the gentleman, I'll tell him what you say.

Beat.

Do, do: he'll but break a comparison or two on me; which, peradventure not marked or not laughed at, strikes him into melancholy; and then there's a partridge

wing saved, for the fool will eat no supper that night. [Music ^note.] We must follow the leaders.

Bene.

In every good thing.

Beat.

Nay, if they lead to any ill, I will leave them at the next turning.

D. John.

Sure my brother is amorous on Hero, and hath withdrawn her father to break with him about it. The ladies follow her, and but one visor remains.

Bora.

And that is Claudio: I know him by his bearing.

D. John.

Are not you Signior Benedick?

Claud.

You know me well; I am he.

D. John.

Signior, you are very near my brother in his love: he is enamoured on Hero; I pray you, dissuade him from her: she is no equal for his birth: you may do the part of an honest man in it.

Claud.

How know you ^note he loves her?

D. John.

I heard him swear his affection.

Bora.

So did I too; and he swore he would marry her to-night.

D. John.

Come, let us to the banquet.

Claud.
Thus answer I in name of Benedick,
But hear these ^note ill news with the ears of Claudio.
'Tis certain so; the prince wooes for himself.
Friendship is constant in all other things
Save in the office and affairs of love:
Therefore all hearts in love use their ^note own tongues;
Let every eye negotiate for itself,
And trust no agent; for ^note beauty is a witch,
Against whose charms faith melteth into blood.

This is an accident of hourly proof,
Which I mistrusted not. Farewell, therefore ^note, Hero! Re-enter Benedick.

Bene.
Count Claudio?

Claud.

Yea, the same.

Bene.

Come, will you go with me?

Claud.

Whither?

Bene.

Even to the next willow, about your own business, county ^note. What fashion will you wear the garland of ^note? about your neck, like an ^note usurer's chain? or under your arm, like a lieutenant's scarf? You must wear it one way, for the prince hath got your Hero.

Claud.

I wish him joy of her.

Bene.

Why, that's spoken like an honest drovier ^note: so they sell bullocks. But did you think the prince would have served you thus?

Claud.

I pray you, leave me.

Bene.

Ho! now ^note you strike like the blind man: 'twas the boy that stole your meat, and you'll beat the post.

Claud.

If it will not be, I'll leave you.

Bene.

Alas, poor hurt fowl ^note! now will he creep into sedges. But, that my Lady Beatrice should know me, and not know me! The prince's fool! Ha? ^note It may be I go under that title because I am merry. Yea ^note, but so I am apt to do myself wrong; ^note I am not so reputed: it is the base, ^note though bitter ^note, disposition of Beatrice that puts the world ^note into her person, and so gives me out. Well, I'll be revenged as I may.

^noteRe-enter Don Pedro. ^note

D. Pedro.

Now, signior, where's the count? did you see him?

Bene.

Troth, my lord, I have played the part of Lady Fame. I found him here as melancholy as a lodge in a warren: I told ^note him, and I think I told him true, that your grace had got the good ^note will of this ^note young lady; and I offered him my company to a willow-tree, either to make him a garland, as being forsaken, or to bind him up ^note a rod, as being worthy to be whipped.

D. Pedro.

To be whipped! What's his fault?

Bene.

The flat transgression of a school-boy, who, being overjoyed with finding a birds' ^note nest, shows it his companion, and he steals it.

D. Pedro.

Wilt thou make a trust a transgression? The transgression is in the stealer.

Bene.

Yet it had not been amiss the rod had been made, and the garland too; for the garland he might have worn himself, and the rod he might have bestowed on you, who, as I take it, have stolen his birds' ^note nest.

D. Pedro.

I will but teach them to sing, and restore them to the owner.

Bene.

If their singing answer your saying, by my faith, you say honestly.

D. Pedro.

The Lady Beatrice hath a quarrel to you: the gentleman that danced with her told her she is much wronged by you.

Bene.

O, she misused me past the endurance of a block! an oak but with ^note one green leaf on it would have answered her; my very visor began to assume life and scold with her. She told me, not thinking I had been myself, that ^note I was the prince's jester, that I was duller

than a great thaw; huddling jest upon jest, with such impossible ^note 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 ^note, there were no living near her; she would infect to the north ^note star. I would not marry her, though she were endowed with all that Adam had left ^note him before he transgressed: she would have made Hercules have turned spit, yea, and have cleft his club to make the fire too. Come, talk not of her: you shall find her the infernal ^note Ate in good apparel. I would to God some scholar would conjure her; for certainly, while she is here, a man may live as quiet in hell as in a sanctuary; and people sin upon purpose, because they would go thither; so, indeed, all disquiet, horror, and perturbation follows ^note her.

D. Pedro.

Look, here she comes.