horse for it is all the wealth that he hath left, to be known a reasonable creature. Who is his companion now? He hath every month a new sworn brother. MESS. Is 't possible? BEAT. Very easily possible: he wears his faith but as the I pray you, who is his companion? Is there no young MESS. He is most in the company of the right noble BEAT. O, Lord! he will hang upon him like a disease: MESS. I will hold friends with you, Lady. BEAT. Do, good friend. LEON. You'll ne'er run mad, Niece. BEAT. No; not till a hot January. MESS. Don Pedro is approach'd. Enter DON PEDRO, CLAUDIO, BENEDICK, BAlthazar, and JOHN the Bastard. 80 D. PEDRO. Good Signior Leonato, you are come to meet your trouble: the fashion of the World is to avoid cost, and you encounter it. 88 LEON. Never came trouble to my house in the likeness of your Grace: for Trouble being gone, Comfort should remain; but when you depart from me, Sorrow abides, and Happiness takes his leave. D. PEDRO. You embrace your charge too willingly. I think this is your daughter. LEON. Her mother hath many times told me so. BENE. Were you in doubt that you ask'd her? by this what you are, being a man. Truly, the lady ACT I Sc. I ACT I fathers herself. Be happy, Lady, for you are like an honourable father. ΙΟΙ BENE. If Signior Leonato be her father, she would not BEAT. I wonder that you will still be talking, Signior BENE. What, my dear Lady Disdain! are you yet living? III BENE. Then is Courtesy a turncoat. But it is certain I am lov'd of all ladies, only you excepted: and I would I could find in my heart that I had not a hard heart; for, truly, I love none. BEAT. A dear happiness to women: they would else have been troubled with a pernicious suitor. I thank God and my cold blood I am of your humour for that: I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me. 120 BENE. God keep your Ladyship still in that mind! so some gentleman or other shall 'scape a predestinate scratch'd face. BEAT. Scratching could not make it worse, an 'twere such a face as your's were. BENE. Well, you are a rare parrot-teacher. BEAT. A bird of my tongue is better than a beast of your's. and so good a continuer ! But keep your way i' God's 130 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. 138 LEON. If you swear, my Lord, you shall not be forsworn. [to DON JOHN.] Let me bid you welcome, my Lord: D. JOHN. I thank you: I am not of many words, but LEON. Please it your Grace lead on? D. PEDRO. Your hand, Leonato; we will go together. 150 BENE. I noted her not; but I look'd on her. CLAUD. No; I pray thee speak in sober judgment. BENE. Would you buy her, that you inquire after her? BENE. Yea; and a case to put it into. But speak you 171 CLAUD. In mine eye she is the sweetest lady that ever 178 1 not blind but especially sharp-sighted. 2 a bad smith but a fine workman in wood. 3 join. 7 ACT I ACT I BENE. Is't come to this? In faith, hath not the World one man but he will wear his cap with suspicion ?1 Shall I never see a bachelor of threescore again? Go to, i̇'faith; an thou wilt needs thrust thy neck into a yoke, wear the print of it, and sigh away Sundays. Look; Don Pedro is return'd to seek you. Re-enter DON PEDRO and JOHN the Bastard. D. PEDRO. What secret hath held you here that you follow'd not to Leonato's? 188 BENE. I would your Grace would constrain me to tell. CLAUD. If this were so, so were it utter'd. BENE. Like the old tale, my Lord: It is not so, nor 'twas D. PEDRO. Amen, if you love her; for the lady is very 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. 201 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. 208 BENE. That I neither feel how she should be lov'd, 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 despite3 of Beauty. CLAUD. And never could maintain his part but in the force of his will. BENE. That a woman conceiv'd me, I thank her; that 1 that he is horned, for that another shares the wearing of it. she brought me up, I likewise give her most humble thanks: but that I will have a recheat1 winded in my forehead, or hang my bugle3 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. 223 D. PEDRO. I shall see thee, ere I die, look pale with love. 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 drinkingpick 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! 230 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 clapp'd on the shoulder, and call'd Adam.R D. PEDRO. Well, as Time shall try : In time the savage bull doth bear the yoke. 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. 243 CLAUD. If this should ever happen, thou would'st be horn-mad." D. PEDRO. Nay, if Cupid have not spent all his quiver BENE. I look for an earthquake too, then. 253 BENE. I have almost matters enough in me for such an embassage: and so I commit you— ACT I Sc. I |