Beat. A bird of my tongue, is better than a beast of yours. Bene. I would, my horse had the speed of your tongue; and so good a continuer: But keep your way o' God's name; I have done. Beat. You always end with a jade's trick; I know you of old. D. Pedro. This is the sum of all: Leonato, signior Claudio, and signior Benedick,-my dear friend Leonato hath invited you all. I tell him, we shall stay here at the least a month; and he heartily prays, some occasion may detain us longer: I dare swear he is no hypocrite, but prays from his heart. Leon. If you swear, my lord, you shall not be forsworn. -Let me bid you welcome, my lord: being reconciled to the prince your brother, I owe you all duty. D. John. I thank you: I am not of many words, but I thank you. Leon. Please it your grace lead on? D. Pedro. Your hand, Leonato; we will go together. [Exeunt all but BENEDICK and CLAUDIO. Claud. Benedick, didst thou note the daughter of signior Leonato? Bene. I noted her not; but I looked on her. Bene. Do you question me, as an honest man should do, for my simple true judgment; or would you have me speak after my custom, as being a professed tyrant to their sex? Claud. No, I pray thee, speak in sober judgment. Bene. Why, i'faith, methinks she is too low for a high praise, too brown for a fair praise, and too little for a great praise: only this commendation I can afford her; that were she other than she is, she were unhandsome; and being no other but as she is, I do not like her. Claud. Thou thinkest, I am in sport; I pray thee, tell me truly how thou likest her. Bene. Would you buy her, that you inquire after her? Bene. Yea, and a case to put it into. But speak you this with a sadi brow? or do you play the flouting Jack ;* to tell us Cupid is a good hare-finder, and Vulcan a rare carpenter? Come, in what key shall a man take you, to go in the song? Claud. In mine eye, she is the sweetest lady that ever I looked on. Bene. I can see yet without spectacles, and I see no such matter: there's her cousin, an she were not possessed with a fury, exceeds her as much in beauty, as the first of May doth the last of December. But I hope, you have no intent to turn husband; have you? Claud. I would scarce trust myself, though I had sworn the contrary, if Hero would be my wife. Bene. Is it come to this, i'faith? Hath not the world one man, but he will wear his cap with suspicion?m Shall I never see a bachelor of three-score again? Go to, i'faith; an thou wilt needs thrust thy neck into a yoke, wear the print of it, and sigh away Sundays. Look, Don Pedro is returned to seek you. Re-enter Don PEDRO. D. Pedro. What secret hath held you here, that you followed not to Leonato's? Bene. I would, your grace would constrain me to tell. D. Pedro. I charge thee on thy allegiance. Bene. You hear, Count Claudio: I can be secret as a dumb man, I would have you think so; but on my allegiance,-mark you this, on my allegiance:-He is in love. With who?-now that is your grace's part.-Mark, how short his answer is:-With Hero, Leonato's short daughter. k Claud. If this were so, so were it uttered." sad-] Serious, earnest. - the flouting Jack;] Jack, in our author's time, was, I know not why, a term of contempt. - MALONE. Jack and Gill were the familiar representatives of the two sexes in common conversation-as in the proverb, "a good Jack makes a good Gill." -NARES. 1 Cupid is a good hare-finder, and Vulcan a rare carpenter? Do you flout us by saying that Cupid, who is blind, can discover a hare; or that Vulcan the blacksmith is a rare carpenter?--TOLLET. m wear his cap with suspicion?] That is, subject his head to the disquiet of jealousy. -ЈоHNSON. n Claud. If this were so, so were it uttered.] i. e. If I had really confided such a secret to him, he would have blabbed it in this manner.- STEEVENS. There Bene. Like the old tale, my lord: "it is not so, nor 'twas not so; but, indeed, God forbid it should be so." Claud. If my passion change not shortly, God forbid it should be otherwise. D. Pedro. Amen, if you love her; for the lady is very well worthy. Claud. You speak this to fetch me in, my lord. D. Pedro. By my troth, I speak my thought. Claud. And, in faith, my lord, I spoke mine. Bene. And, by my two faiths and troths, my lord, I spoke mine. Claud. That I love her, I feel. D. Pedro. That she is worthy, I know. Bene. That I neither feel how she should be loved, nor know how she should be worthy, is the opinion that fire cannot melt out of me; I will die in it at the stake. D. Pedro. Thou wast ever an obstinate heretic in the despite of beauty. Claud. And never could maintain his part, but in the force of his will. Bene. That a woman conceived me, I thank her; that she brought me up, I likewise give her most humble thanks: but that I will have a recheat winded in my forehead, or hang my bugle in an invisible baldrick, all women shall pardon me: Because I will not do them the wrong to mistrust any, I will do myself the right to trust none; and the fine is, (for the which I may go the finer,) I will live a bachelor. D. Pedro. I shall see thee, ere I die, look pale with love. appears to be something omitted here, either relating to Hero's consent, or to Claudio's marriage. - JOHNSON.. • These words relate to an old nursery story which has been recovered, by Mr. Blakeway's having heard it told him as a child.-A young lady going accidentally to the house of a gentleman, saw him, while she herself remained concealed, murder a young lady. On the gentleman's next visit at her father's, she related the occurrence which she had seen, as if she had dreamt it, repeating at the end of every particular, "it is not so, nor it was not so, and God forbid it should be so." -The story at full length is told in the last edition of Malone's Shakspeare, vol. vii. 164, and a very fearful story it is. P in the force of his will.] By obstinacy against conviction, alluding to the definition of a heretic in the schools. - WARBURTON. ۹ - recheat winded in my forehead,] A recheat, a hunting term for a certain set of notes sounded on the horn, to call the dogs off.-NARES. the fine-] i. e. The conclusion. Bene. With anger, with sickness, or with hunger, my lord; not with love: prove, that ever I lose more blood with love, than I will get again with drinking, pick out mine eyes with a ballad-maker's pen, and hang me up at the door of a brothel-house, for the sign of blind Cupid. D. Pedro. Well, if ever thou dost fall from this faith, thou wilt prove a notable argument. Bene. If I do, hang me in a bottle like a cat, and shoot at me: and he that hits me, let him be clapped on the shoulder, and called Adam. D. Pedro. Well, as time shall try : Bene. The savage bull may; but if ever the sensible Benedick bear it, pluck off the bull's horns, and set them in my forehead: and let me be vilely painted; and in such great letters as they write, Here is good horse to hire, let them signify under my sign, Here you may see Benedick the married man. Claud. If this should ever happen, thou would'st be horn-mad. D. Pedro. Nay, if Cupid have not spent all his quiver in Venice, thou wilt quake for this shortly. Bene. I look for an earthquake too then. D. Pedro. Well, you will temporize with the hours. In the mean time, good signior Benedick, repair to Leonato's; commend me to him, and tell him, I will not fail him at supper; for, indeed, he hath made great preparation. Bene. I have almost matter enough in me for such an embassage; and so I commit you in a bottle like a cat,] That it was the habit to shoot at a cat hung up in wicker basket or bottle, is evident from the following quotation : t Cornucopiæ, or Pasguil's Night-Cap, p. 48, 1623. Adam.] This may allude perhaps to Adam Bell, "a substantial outlaw, and a passing good archer;"-but Adam is also used as a term of praise in cant language, signifying "the first-i. e. the most excellent, of men." u In time the savage bull doth bear the yoke.] A line from The Spanish Tragedy, or Hieronymo, &c. Venice,] All modern writers represent Venice in the same light as the ancients did Cyprus, and it is this character of the people that is here alluded to.- WARBURTON. Claud. To the tuition of God: From my house, (if I had it) D. Pedro. The sixth of July: Your loving friend, Benedick. Bene. Nay, mock not, mock not: The body of your discourse is sometime guarded with fragments, and the guards are but slightly basted on neither: ere you flout old ends any further, examine your conscience; and so I leave you. [Exit BENEDICK. Claud. My liege, your highness now may do me good. D. Pedro. My love is thine to teach; teach it but how, And thou shalt see how apt it is to learn Any hard lesson that may do thee good. Claud. Hath Leonato any son, my lord? D. Pedro. No child but Hero, she's his only heir. Dost thou affect her, Claudio? Claud. D. Pedro. Thou wilt be like a lover presently, Claud. How sweetly do you minister to love, y Z guarded-] Guards were ornamental lace or borders.--STEEVENS. - flout old ends any further,] The duke and Claudio have been quizzing Benedick on the formal beginning of his leave-taking and so I commit youwhich they immediately interrupt in the midst and finish according to the usual epistolary style of the time.---Benedick desires them not to flout old ends, to scorn old conclusions, but to examine their conscience, and remember whether they have never been guilty of using such formalities. |