LEONATO Then half Signor Benedick’s tongue in Count John’s mouth, and half Count John’s melancholy in Signor Benedick’s face—

BEATRICE 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.

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

ANTONIO In faith, she’s too curst.

BEATRICE 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.

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

BEATRICE 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.

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

BEATRICE 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 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 bearherd and lead his apes into hell.

LEONATO Well then, go you into hell?

BEATRICE 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 fore the heavens. He shows me where the bachelors sit, and there live we as merry as the day is long.

ANTONIO (to Hero) Well, niece, I trust you will be ruled by your father.

BEATRICE Yes, faith, it is my cousin’s duty to make curtsy and say, ‘Father, as it please you.’ But yet for all that, cousin, let him be a handsome fellow, or else make another curtsy and say, ‘Father, as it please me.’

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

BEATRICE Not till God make men of some other mettle than earth. Would it not grieve a woman to be overmastered with a piece of valiant dust?—to make an account of her life to a clod of wayward marl? No, uncle, I’ll none. Adam’s sons are my brethren, and truly I hold it a sin to match in my kindred.

LEONATO (to Hero) Daughter, remember what I told you. If the Prince do solicit you in that kind, you know your answer.

BEATRICE The fault will be in the music, cousin, if you be not wooed in good time. If the Prince be too important, tell him there is measure in everything, and so dance out the answer. For hear me, Hero, wooing, wedding, and repenting is as a Scotch jig, a measure, and a cinquepace. The first suit is hot and hasty, like a Scotch jig—and full as fantastical; the wedding mannerly modest, as a measure, full of state and ancientry. And then comes repentance, and with his bad legs falls into the cinquepace faster and faster till he sink into his grave.

LEONATO Cousin, you apprehend passing shrewdly.

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

LEONATO The revellers are entering, brother. Make good room.

Enter Don Pedro, Claudio, Benedick, and Balthasar, all masked, Don John, and Borachio, ⌈with a drummer⌉

DON PEDRO (to Hero) Lady, will you walk a bout with your friend?

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

DON PEDRO With me in your company?

HERO I may say so when I please.

DON PEDRO And when please you to say so?

HERO When I like your favour; for God defend the lute should be like the case.

DON PEDRO

My visor is Philemon’s roof. Within the house is Jove.

HERO

Why, then, your visor should be thatched.

DON PEDRO Speak low if you speak love. They move aside

⌈BALTHASAR⌉ (to Margaret) Well, I would you did like me.

MARGARET So would not I, for your own sake, for I have many ill qualities.

⌈BALTHASAR⌉ Which is one?

MARGARET I say my prayers aloud.

⌈BALTHASAR⌉ I love you the better—the hearers may cry amen.

MARGARET God match me with a good dancer.

BALTHASAR Amen.

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

BALTHASAR No more words. The clerk is answered. They move aside

URSULA (to Antonio) I know you well enough, you are Signor Antonio.

ANTONIO At a word, I am not.

URSULA I know you by the waggling of your head.

ANTONIO To tell you true, I counterfeit him.

URSULA You could never do him so ill-well unless you were the very man. Here’s his dry hand up and down. You are he, you are he.

ANTONIO At a word, I am not.

URSULA Come, come, do you think I do not know you by your excellent wit? Can virtue hide itself? Go to, mum, you are he. Graces will appear, and there’s an end.

They move aside

BEATRICE (to Benedick) Will you not tell me who told you so? 115 BENEDICK No, you shall pardon me.

BEATRICE Nor will you not tell me who you are?

BENEDICK Not now.

BEATRICE That I was disdainful, and that I had my good wit out of the Hundred Merry Tales—well, this was Signor Benedick that said so. BENEDICK What’s he?

BEATRICE I am sure you know him well enough.

BENEDICK Not I, believe me.

BEATRICE Did he never make you laugh?

BENEDICK I pray you, what is he?

BEATRICE Why, he is the Prince’s jester, a very dull fool. Only his gift is in devising impossible slanders. None but libertines delight in him, and the commendation is not in his wit but in his villainy, for he both pleases men and angers them, and then they laugh at him, and beat him. I am sure he is in the fleet. I would he had boarded me.

BENEDICK When I know the gentleman, I’ll tell him what you say.

BEATRICE Do, do. He’ll but break a comparison or two on me, which peradventure not marked, or not laughed at, strikes him into melancholy, and then there’s a partridge wing saved, for the fool will eat no supper that night.

⌈Music⌉

We must follow the leaders.

BENEDICK In every good thing.

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

Dance. Exeunt all but Don John, Borachio, and Claudio

DON JOHN (aside to Borachio) Sure my brother is amorous on Hero, and hath withdrawn her father to break with him about it. The ladies follow her, and but one visor remains.

BORACHIO (aside to Don John) And that is Claudio. I know him by his bearing.

DON JOHN Are not you Signor Benedick?

CLAUDIO You know me well. I am he.

DON JOHN Signor, you are very near my brother in his love. He is enamoured on Hero. I pray you dissuade him from her. She is no equal for his birth. You may do the part of an honest man in it.

CLAUDIO How know you he loves her?

DON JOHN I heard him swear his affection.

BORACHIO So did I, too, and he swore he would marry her tonight.

DON JOHN Come, let us to the banquet. Exeunt all but Claudio

CLAUDIO

Thus answer I in name of Benedick,

But hear these ill news with the ears of Claudio.

’Tis certain so, the Prince woos for himself.

Friendship is constant in all other things

Save in the office and affairs of love.

Therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues.

Let every eye negotiate for itself,

And trust no agent; for beauty is a witch