1    Pray thee, sweet Mistress Margaret, deserve well at
2    my hands by helping me to the speech of Beatrice.

3    Will you then write me a sonnet in praise of my beauty?

4    In so high a style, Margaret, that no man living
5    shall come over it; for, in most comely truth, thou
6    deservest it.

7    To have no man come over me! why, shall I always
8    keep below stairs?

9    Thy wit is as quick as the greyhound's mouth; it catches.

10   And yours as blunt as the fencer's foils, which hit,
11   but hurt not.

12   A most manly wit, Margaret; it will not hurt a
13   woman: and so, I pray thee, call Beatrice: I give
14   thee the bucklers.

15   Give us the swords; we have bucklers of our own.

16   If you use them, Margaret, you must put in the
17   pikes with a vice; and they are dangerous weapons for maids.

18   Well, I will call Beatrice to you, who I think hath legs.

19   And therefore will come.
Exit MARGARET
Sings
20   The god of love,
21   That sits above,
22   And knows me, and knows me,
23   How pitiful I deserve,--
24   I mean in singing; but in loving, Leander the good
25   swimmer, Troilus the first employer of panders, and
26   a whole bookful of these quondam carpet-mangers,
27   whose names yet run smoothly in the even road of a
28   blank verse, why, they were never so truly turned
29   over and over as my poor self in love. Marry, I
30   cannot show it in rhyme; I have tried: I can find
31   out no rhyme to 'lady' but 'baby,' an innocent
32   rhyme; for 'scorn,' 'horn,' a hard rhyme; for,
33   'school,' 'fool,' a babbling rhyme; very ominous
34   endings: no, I was not born under a rhyming planet,
35   nor I cannot woo in festival terms.
Enter BEATRICE
36   Sweet Beatrice, wouldst thou come when I called thee?

37   Yea, signior, and depart when you bid me.

38   O, stay but till then!

39   'Then' is spoken; fare you well now: and yet, ere
40   I go, let me go with that I came; which is, with
41   knowing what hath passed between you and Claudio.

42   Only foul words; and thereupon I will kiss thee.

43   Foul words is but foul wind, and foul wind is but
44   foul breath, and foul breath is noisome; therefore I
45   will depart unkissed.

46   Thou hast frighted the word out of his right sense,
47   so forcible is thy wit. But I must tell thee
48   plainly, Claudio undergoes my challenge; and either
49   I must shortly hear from him, or I will subscribe
50   him a coward. And, I pray thee now, tell me for
51   which of my bad parts didst thou first fall in love with me?

52   For them all together; which maintained so politic
53   a state of evil that they will not admit any good
54   part to intermingle with them. But for which of my
55   good parts did you first suffer love for me?

56   Suffer love! a good epithet! I do suffer love
57   indeed, for I love thee against my will.

58   In spite of your heart, I think; alas, poor heart!
59   If you spite it for my sake, I will spite it for
60   yours; for I will never love that which my friend hates.

61   Thou and I are too wise to woo peaceably.

62   It appears not in this confession: there's not one
63   wise man among twenty that will praise himself.

64   An old, an old instance, Beatrice, that lived in
65   the lime of good neighbours. If a man do not erect
66   in this age his own tomb ere he dies, he shall live
67   no longer in monument than the bell rings and the
68   widow weeps.

69   And how long is that, think you?

70   Question: why, an hour in clamour and a quarter in
71   rheum: therefore is it most expedient for the
72   wise, if Don Worm, his conscience, find no
73   impediment to the contrary, to be the trumpet of his
74   own virtues, as I am to myself. So much for
75   praising myself, who, I myself will bear witness, is
76   praiseworthy: and now tell me, how doth your cousin?

77   Very ill.

78   And how do you?

79   Very ill too.

80   Serve God, love me and mend. There will I leave
81   you too, for here comes one in haste.

82   Madam, you must come to your uncle. Yonder's old
83   coil at home: it is proved my Lady Hero hath been
84   falsely accused, the prince and Claudio mightily
85   abused; and Don John is the author of all, who is
86   fed and gone. Will you come presently?

87   Will you go hear this news, signior?

88   I will live in thy heart, die in thy lap, and be
89   buried in thy eyes; and moreover I will go with
90   thee to thy uncle's.