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Leon. Nay, that's impossible; she may wear her heart out first.

D. Pedro. Well, we'll hear further of it by your daughter; let it cool the while. I love Benedick well: and I could wish he would modestly examine himself, to see how much he is unworthy to have so good a lady.

Leon. My lord, will you walk? dinner is ready. Claud. If he do not doat on her upon this, I will never trust my expectation. [Aside.

D. Pedro. Let there be the same net spread for her; and that must your daughter and her gentlewoman carry. The sport will be, when they hold one an opinion of another's dotage, and no such matter; that's the scene that I would see, which will be merely a dumb show. Let us send her to call him in to dinner. [Aside. [Exeunt DON PEDRO, CLAUDIO, and LEONATO.

BENEDICK advances from the arbour. Bene. This can be no trick: the conference was sadly borne.-They have the truth of this from Hero. They seem to pity the lady; it seems her affections have their full bent. Love me! why it must be requited. I hear how I am censured: they say, I will bear myself proudly, if I perceive the love come from her; they say, too, that she will rather die than give any sign of affection. I did never think to marry:-I must not seem proud.-Happy are they that hear their detractions, and can put them to mending. They say, the lady is fair; 't is a truth, I can bear them witness: and virtuous; - 't is so, I cannot reprove it: and wise, but for loving me:

-by my troth, it is no addition to her wit;nor no great argument of her folly, for I will be horribly in love with her. I may chance have some odd quirks and remnants of wit broken on me, because I have railed so long against marriage. But doth not the appetite alter? A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age. Shall quips, and sentences, and these paper bullets of the brain, awe a man from the career of his humour? No: the world must be peopled. When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married. Here comes Beatrice. By this day, she's a fair lady: I do spy some marks of love in her. Enter BEATRICE.

Beat. Against my will, I am sent to bid you come in to dinner.

Bene. Fair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains. Beat. I took no more pains for those thanks, than you take pains to thank me; if it had been painful, I would not have come.

Bene. You take pleasure in the message?

Beat. Yea, just so much as you may take upon a knife's point, and choke a daw withal.—You have no stomach, signior; fare you well. [Exit.

Bene. Ha! "Against my will I am sent to bid you come to dinner;" there's a double meaning in that. "I took no more pains for those thanks than you took pains to thank me;" that's as much as to say, "Any pains that I take for you is as easy as thanks."—If I do not take pity of her, I am a villain; if I do not love her, I am a Jew: I will go get her picture. [Exit.

ACTIIL

SCENE I.-LEONATO's Garden.

Enter HERO, MARGARET, and URSula.
Hero. Good Margaret, run thee into the parlour;
There shalt thou find my cousin Beatrice
Proposing with the Prince and Claudio:
Whisper her ear, and tell her, I and Ursula
Walk in the orchard, and our whole discourse
Is all of her; say that thou overheard'st us;
And bid her steal into the pleachéd bower,
Where honeysuckles, ripened by the sun,
Forbid the sun to enter;-like favourites,
Made proud by princes, that advance their pride
Against that power that bred it :-there will she
hide her,

To listen our propose. This is thy office;
Bear thee well in it, and leave us alone.
Marg. I'll make her come, I warrant you,
presently.
[Exit.
Hero. Now, Ursula, when Beatrice doth come,
As we do trace this alley up and down,
Our talk must only be of Benedick:
When I do name him, let it be thy part
To praise him more than ever man did merit:
My talk to thee must be, how Benedick
Is sick in love with Beatrice. Of this matter
Is little Cupid's crafty arrow made,
That only wounds by hearsay. Now begin;

Enter BEATRICE, behind.

For look where Beatrice, like a lapwing, runs Close by the ground, to hear our conference.

Urs. The pleasant'st angling is to see the fish Cut with her golden oars the silver stream,

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Urs. And did they bid you tell her of it, madam? Hero. They did intreat me to acquaint her of it: But I persuaded them, if they loved Benedick, To wish him wrestle with affection, And never to let Beatrice know of it.

Urs. Why did you so? Doth not the gentleman Deserve as full, as fortunate a bed, As ever Beatrice shall couch upon?

Hero. O god of love! I know he doth deserve As much as may be yielded to a man: But Nature never framed a woman's heart Of prouder stuff than that of Beatrice : Disdain and scorn ride sparkling in her eyes, Misprising what they look on; and her wit Values itself so highly, that to her

All matter else seems weak: she cannot love, Nor take no shape nor project of affection, She is so self-endeared.

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Urs. O, do not do your cousin such a wrong. She cannot be so much without true judgment (Having so swift and excellent a wit As she is prized to have) as to refuse So rare a gentleman as Signior Benedick. Hero. He is the only man of Italy, Always excepted my dear Claudio.

Urs. I pray you be not angry with me, madam, Speaking my fancy; Signior Benedick, For shape, for bearing, argument, and valour, Goes foremost in report through Italy.

Hero. Indeed he hath an excellent good name. Urs. His excellence did earn it ere he had it.When are you married, madam?

Hero. Why, every day ;-to-morrow. Come, go in ;

I'll shew thee some attires; and have thy counsel Which is the best to furnish me to-morrow.

Urs. She's limed, I warrant you; we have caught her, madam.

Hero. If it prove so, then loving goes by haps: Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps. [Exeunt HERO and URSULA.

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Enter DON PEDRO, CLAUDIO, BENEDICK, and LEONATO.

D. Pedro. I do but stay till your marriage be consummate, and then I go toward Arragon. Claud. I'll bring you thither, my lord, if you'll vouchsafe me.

D. Pedro. Nay, that would be as great a soil in the new gloss of your marriage, as to shew a child his new coat, and forbid him to wear it. I will only be bold with Benedick for his company; for, from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot, he is all mirth; he hath twice or thrice cut Cupid's bowstring, and the little hangman dare not shoot at him: he hath a heart as sound as a bell, and his tongue is the clapper; for what his heart thinks, his tongue speaks.

Bene. Gallants, I am not as I have been.
Leon. So say I; methinks you are sadder.
Claud. I hope he be in love.

D. Pedro. Hang him, truant; there's no true drop of blood in him, to be truly touched with love if he be sad, he wants money.

Bene. I have the tooth-ache.

D. Pedro. Draw it.

Bene. Hang it.

Claud. You must hang it first, and draw it afterwards.

D. Pedro. What? sigh for the tooth-ache? Leon. Where is but a humour, or a worm? Bene. Well, every one can master a grief, but he that has it.

Claud. Yet, say I, he is in love.

D. Pedro. There is no appearance of fancy in him, unless it be a fancy that he hath to strange disguises: as, to be a Dutchman to-day; a Frenchman to-morrow; or in the shape of two countries at once, as, a German from the waist downward, all slops; and a Spaniard from the hip upward, no doublet: unless he have a fancy to this foolery, as it appears he hath, he is no fool for fancy, as you would have it appear he is.

Claud. If he be not in love with some woman, there is no believing old signs: he brushes his hat o' mornings; what should that bode?

D. Pedro. Hath any man seen him at the barber's.

Claud. No, but the barber's man hath been seen with him; and the old ornament of his cheek hath already stuffed tennis-balls.

Leon. Indeed he looks younger than he did, by the loss of a beard.

D. Pedro. Nay, he rubs himself with civet: can you smell him out by that?

Claud. That's as much as to say, the sweet youth's in love

D. Pedro. The greatest note of it is his melancholy.

Claud. And when was he wont to wash his face?

D. Pedro. Yea, or to paint himself? for the which, I hear what they say of him.

Claud. Nay, but his jesting spirit; which is now crept into a lutestring, and now governed by stops.

D. Pedro. Indeed that tells a heavy tale for him conclude, conclude, he is in love.

Claud. Nay, but I know who loves him. D. Pedro. That would I know too; I warrant, one that knows him not.

Claud. Yes, and his ill conditions; and in despite of all, dies for him.

D. Pedro. She shall be buried with her face upwards.

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D. John. If it please you:-yet Count Claudio may hear; for what I would speak of concerns him.

D. Pedro. What's the matter?

D. John. Means your lordship to be married to-morrow? [TO CLAUDIO.

D. Pedro. You know he does. D. John. I know not that, when he knows what I know.

Claud. If there be any impediment, I pray you discover it.

D. John. You may think I love you not; let that appear hereafter, and aim better at me by that I now will manifest: for my brother, I think

he holds you well; and in dearness of heart hath holp to effect your ensuing marriage: surely, suit ill spent, and labour ill bestowed.

D. Pedro. Why, what's the matter?

D. John. I came hither to tell you: and, circumstances shortened (for she hath been too long a talking of), the lady is disloyal.

Claud. Who? Hero?

D. John. Even she; Leonato's Hero, your Hero, every man's Hero.

Claud. Disloyal?

D. John. The word is too good to paint out her wickedness; I could say, she were worse; think you of a worse title, and I will fit her to it.

Wonder not, till further warrant: go but with me to-night, you shall see her chamberwindow entered, even the night before her wedding-day; if you love her then, to-morrow wed her; but it would better fit your honour to change your mind.

Claud. May this be so?

D. Pedro. I will not think it.

D. John. If you dare not trust that you see, confess not that you know: if you will follow me, I will shew you enough; and when you have seen more and heard more, proceed accordingly.

Claud. If I see anything to-night why I should not marry her to-morrow,-in the congregation, where I should wed, there will I shame her.

D. Pedro. And, as I wooed for thee to obtain her, I will join with thee to disgrace her.

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