1    Was not Count John here at supper?

2    I saw him not.

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

5    He is of a very melancholy disposition.

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

10   Then half Signior Benedick's tongue in Count John's
11   mouth, and half Count John's melancholy in Signior
12   Benedick's face,--

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

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

18   In faith, she's too curst.

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

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

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

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

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

36   Well, then, go you into hell?

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

To HERO
44    Well, niece, I trust you will be ruled
45   by your father.

46   Yes, faith; it is my cousin's duty to make curtsy
47   and say 'Father, as it please you.' But yet for all
48   that, cousin, let him be a handsome fellow, or else
49   make another curtsy and say 'Father, as it please
50   me.'

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

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

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

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

71   Cousin, you apprehend passing shrewdly.

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

73   The revellers are entering, brother: make good room.

74   Lady, will you walk about with your friend?

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

77   With me in your company?

78   I may say so, when I please.

79   And when please you to say so?

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

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

83   Why, then, your visor should be thatched.

84   Speak low, if you speak love.

85   Well, I would you did like me.

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

88   Which is one?

89   I say my prayers aloud.

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

91   God match me with a good dancer!

92   Amen.

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

95   No more words: the clerk is answered.

96   I know you well enough; you are Signior Antonio.

97   At a word, I am not.

98   I know you by the waggling of your head.

99   To tell you true, I counterfeit him.

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

103  At a word, I am not.

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

108  Will you not tell me who told you so?

109  No, you shall pardon me.

110  Nor will you not tell me who you are?

111  Not now.

112  That I was disdainful, and that I had my good wit
113  out of the 'Hundred Merry Tales:'--well this was
114  Signior Benedick that said so.

115  What's he?

116  I am sure you know him well enough.

117  Not I, believe me.

118  Did he never make you laugh?

119  I pray you, what is he?

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

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

128  Do, do: he'll but break a comparison or two on me;
129  which, peradventure not marked or not laughed at,
130  strikes him into melancholy; and then there's a
131  partridge wing saved, for the fool will eat no
132  supper that night.
Music
133  We must follow the leaders.

134  In every good thing.

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

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

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

141  Are not you Signior Benedick?

142  You know me well; I am he.

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

147  How know you he loves her?

148  I heard him swear his affection.

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

150  Come, let us to the banquet.

151  Thus answer I in the name of Benedick,
152  But hear these ill news with the ears of Claudio.
153  'Tis certain so; the prince wooes for himself.
154  Friendship is constant in all other things
155  Save in the office and affairs of love:
156  Therefore, all hearts in love use their own tongues;
157  Let every eye negotiate for itself
158  And trust no agent; for beauty is a witch
159  Against whose charms faith melteth into blood.
160  This is an accident of hourly proof,
161  Which I mistrusted not. Farewell, therefore, Hero!

162  Count Claudio?

163  Yea, the same.

164  Come, will you go with me?

165  Whither?

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

171  I wish him joy of her.

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

175  I pray you, leave me.

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

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

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

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

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

195  To be whipped! What's his fault?

196  The flat transgression of a schoolboy, who, being
197  overjoyed with finding a birds' nest, shows it his
198  companion, and he steals it.

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

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

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

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

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

212  O, she misused me past the endurance of a block!
213  an oak but with one green leaf on it would have
214  answered her; my very visor began to assume life and
215  scold with her. She told me, not thinking I had been
216  myself, that I was the prince's jester, that I was
217  duller than a great thaw; huddling jest upon jest
218  with such impossible conveyance upon me that I stood
219  like a man at a mark, with a whole army shooting at
220  me. She speaks poniards, and every word stabs:
221  if her breath were as terrible as her terminations,
222  there were no living near her; she would infect to
223  the north star. I would not marry her, though she
224  were endowed with all that Adam bad left him before
225  he transgressed: she would have made Hercules have
226  turned spit, yea, and have cleft his club to make
227  the fire too. Come, talk not of her: you shall find
228  her the infernal Ate in good apparel. I would to God
229  some scholar would conjure her; for certainly, while
230  she is here, a man may live as quiet in hell as in a
231  sanctuary; and people sin upon purpose, because they
232  would go thither; so, indeed, all disquiet, horror
233  and perturbation follows her.

234  Look, here she comes.

235  Will your grace command me any service to the
236  world's end? I will go on the slightest errand now
237  to the Antipodes that you can devise to send me on;
238  I will fetch you a tooth-picker now from the
239  furthest inch of Asia, bring you the length of
240  Prester John's foot, fetch you a hair off the great
241  Cham's beard, do you any embassage to the Pigmies,
242  rather than hold three words' conference with this
243  harpy. You have no employment for me?

244  None, but to desire your good company.

245  O God, sir, here's a dish I love not: I cannot
246  endure my Lady Tongue.

247  Come, lady, come; you have lost the heart of
248  Signior Benedick.

249  Indeed, my lord, he lent it me awhile; and I gave
250  him use for it, a double heart for his single one:
251  marry, once before he won it of me with false dice,
252  therefore your grace may well say I have lost it.

253  You have put him down, lady, you have put him down.

254  So I would not he should do me, my lord, lest I
255  should prove the mother of fools. I have brought
256  Count Claudio, whom you sent me to seek.

257  Why, how now, count! wherefore are you sad?

258  Not sad, my lord.

259  How then? sick?

260  Neither, my lord.

261  The count is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor
262  well; but civil count, civil as an orange, and
263  something of that jealous complexion.

264  I' faith, lady, I think your blazon to be true;
265  though, I'll be sworn, if he be so, his conceit is
266  false. Here, Claudio, I have wooed in thy name, and
267  fair Hero is won: I have broke with her father,
268  and his good will obtained: name the day of
269  marriage, and God give thee joy!

270  Count, take of me my daughter, and with her my
271  fortunes: his grace hath made the match, and an
272  grace say Amen to it.

273  Speak, count, 'tis your cue.

274  Silence is the perfectest herald of joy: I were
275  but little happy, if I could say how much. Lady, as
276  you are mine, I am yours: I give away myself for
277  you and dote upon the exchange.

278  Speak, cousin; or, if you cannot, stop his mouth
279  with a kiss, and let not him speak neither.

280  In faith, lady, you have a merry heart.

281  Yea, my lord; I thank it, poor fool, it keeps on
282  the windy side of care. My cousin tells him in his
283  ear that he is in her heart.

284  And so she doth, cousin.

285  Good Lord, for alliance! Thus goes every one to the
286  world but I, and I am sunburnt; I may sit in a
287  corner and cry heigh-ho for a husband!

288  Lady Beatrice, I will get you one.

289  I would rather have one of your father's getting.
290  Hath your grace ne'er a brother like you? Your
291  father got excellent husbands, if a maid could come by them.

292  Will you have me, lady?

293  No, my lord, unless I might have another for
294  working-days: your grace is too costly to wear
295  every day. But, I beseech your grace, pardon me: I
296  was born to speak all mirth and no matter.

297  Your silence most offends me, and to be merry best
298  becomes you; for, out of question, you were born in
299  a merry hour.

300  No, sure, my lord, my mother cried; but then there
301  was a star danced, and under that was I born.
302  Cousins, God give you joy!

303  Niece, will you look to those things I told you of?

304  I cry you mercy, uncle. By your grace's pardon.

305  By my troth, a pleasant-spirited lady.

306  There's little of the melancholy element in her, my
307  lord: she is never sad but when she sleeps, and
308  not ever sad then; for I have heard my daughter say,
309  she hath often dreamed of unhappiness and waked
310  herself with laughing.

311  She cannot endure to hear tell of a husband.

312  O, by no means: she mocks all her wooers out of suit.

313  She were an excellent wife for Benedict.

314  O Lord, my lord, if they were but a week married,
315  they would talk themselves mad.

316  County Claudio, when mean you to go to church?

317  To-morrow, my lord: time goes on crutches till love
318  have all his rites.

319  Not till Monday, my dear son, which is hence a just
320  seven-night; and a time too brief, too, to have all
321  things answer my mind.

322  Come, you shake the head at so long a breathing:
323  but, I warrant thee, Claudio, the time shall not go
324  dully by us. I will in the interim undertake one of
325  Hercules' labours; which is, to bring Signior
326  Benedick and the Lady Beatrice into a mountain of
327  affection the one with the other. I would fain have
328  it a match, and I doubt not but to fashion it, if
329  you three will but minister such assistance as I
330  shall give you direction.

331  My lord, I am for you, though it cost me ten
332  nights' watchings.

333  And I, my lord.

334  And you too, gentle Hero?

335  I will do any modest office, my lord, to help my
336  cousin to a good husband.

337  And Benedick is not the unhopefullest husband that
338  I know. Thus far can I praise him; he is of a noble
339  strain, of approved valour and confirmed honesty. I
340  will teach you how to humour your cousin, that she
341  shall fall in love with Benedick; and I, with your
342  two helps, will so practise on Benedick that, in
343  despite of his quick wit and his queasy stomach, he
344  shall fall in love with Beatrice. If we can do this,
345  Cupid is no longer an archer: his glory shall be
346  ours, for we are the only love-gods. Go in with me,
347  and I will tell you my drift.