Enter BORACHIO

What news, Borachio?

BORA. I came yonder from a great supper: the prince your brother is royally entertained by Leonato; and I can give you intelligence of an intended marriage.

D. JOHN. Will it serve for any model to build mischief on? What is he for a fool that betroths himself 40 to unquietness?

BORA. Marry, it is your brother's right hand.

D. JOHN. Who? the most exquisite Claudio?
BORA. Even he.

D. JOHN. A proper squire! And who, and who? which way looks he?

BORA. Marry, on Hero, the daughter and heir of Leonato.

D. JOHN. A very forward March-chick! How came you to this?

BORA. Being entertained for a perfumer, as I was smoking a musty room, comes me the prince and Claudio, hand in hand, in sad conference: I whipt me behind the arras; and there heard it agreed upon, that the prince should woo Hero for himself, and having obtained her, give her to Count Claudio.

40 What ... fool] What manner of fool is he? Cf. Middleton's Mad World, V, ii, 270: "What is she for a fool?"

50-51 Being entertained. . . room] Doing the work of a perfumer by smoking aromatic herbs (in a censer) in a foul-smelling room in order to sweeten the air. Cf. Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, "The smoake of Juniper is in great request with us at Oxford to sweeten our chambers."

50

D. JOHN. Come, come, let us thither: this may prove food to my displeasure. That young start-up hath all the glory of my overthrow: if I can cross him any way, I bless myself every way. You are both sure, and will assist me?

CON. To the death, my lord.

D. JOHN. Let us to the great supper: their cheer is the greater that I am subdued. Would the cook were of my mind! Shall we go prove what's to be done? BORA. We'll wait upon your lordship.

[Exeunt.

60

LEONATO

AS 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.

4 heart-burned] "Heart burn" is medically attributed to acidity of the stomach; hence "tart looks" might be able to produce it.

LEON. Then half Signior Benedick's tongue in Count 10 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' 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.

LEON. You may light on a husband that hath no beard.

20

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 30

17-18 shrewd . . . curst] Both words have the meaning of vicious in the modern colloquial sense of bad-tempered.

20-21 God... horns] A common English proverb, implying that an evil-disposed person has little means of doing an injury.

26 the woollen] a reference to the commonly used woollen or flannel shroud; Beatrice means that she would rather die.

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, and lead his apes into hell. LEON. Well, then, go you into hell?

BEAT. No, but to the gate; and there will the devil meet me, like an old cuckold, with horns 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; he 40 shows me where the bachelors sit, and there live we as merry as the day is long.

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, and say, "Father, as it please you." But yet for all that, cousin, let him be a handsome fellow, or else make another courtesy, and say, "Father, as it please me."

34 bear-ward] The Quarto and the First and Second Folios read Berrord; the Third and Fourth, bearherd, which seems formed on the analogy of "shep-herd" or "goat-herd." But it is objected that the keeper of bears does not tend them in flocks, and hence bear-ward (i. e., bear-keeper) has been adopted, as in 2 Hen. VI, V, i, 210. Beatrice uses the word loosely in the sense of "animal keeper," with a view to lightly punning on the word "beard" and to introducing an allusion to the old maid's traditional function of leading apes in hell.

40 for the heavens] before heaven, in heaven's name. Cf. Launcelot Gobbo's exclamation in Merch. of Ven., II, ii, 10: "For the heavens rouse up a brave mind,' says the fiend, and run.'"