BENE. Like the old tale, my lord: "it is not so, nor 't was not so, but, indeed, God forbid it should be so." CLAUD. If my passion change not shortly, God forbid it should be otherwise.

D. PEDRO. Amen, if you love her; for the lady is very well worthy.

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. 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.

191

BENE. That I neither feel how she should be loved, 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. 201 D. PEDRO. Thou wast ever an obstinate heretic in the despite of beauty.

CLAUD. And never could maintain his part but in the force of his will.

BENE. That a woman conceived me, I thank her; that she brought me up, I likewise give her most humble

186 the old tale, etc.] No strictly contemporary tale which contains

these words has yet been found. A story of the 17th century
printed from oral tradition in the Variorum Edition (1821),
pp. 163-165, gives prominence to the phrase here cited, when
the heroine narrates to a guest — a concealed Bluebeard-
—a mur-
derous outrage which she, unknown to him, had witnessed him

commit.

192 fetch me in] entrap me, catch me out. 205 force of his will] wilful obstinacy.

thanks: but that I will have a recheat winded in my forehead, or hang my bugle 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.

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 drinking, pick 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.

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 clapped on the shoulder and called Adam.

213

221

208-209 recheat . . . baldrick] This is somewhat subtle quibbling on the vulgar notion that horns sprout from the forehead of the husband whose wife has wronged him. "To wind a recheat" is to sound a note on the huntsman's bugle horn. The "baldrick" is the huntsman's belt in which the bugle horn is carried. Benedick rejects marriage because he deprecates alike the publication of a wronged husband's shame and its concealment.

212 the fine finer] the conclusion is, as a result of which I may spend more on my dress and personal adornment.

221 a notable argument] a capital theme for jest.

is ap

222-223 hang shoot] The shooting at a cat enclosed in a wooden bottle or barrel was a favourite country sport; "Adam parently an allusion to Adam Bell, the outlaw of ballad tradition, who was reckoned the champion archer.

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.

CLAUD. If this should ever happen, thou wouldst be horn-mad.

D. PEDRO. Nay, if Cupid have not spent all his quiver in Venice, thou wilt quake for this shortly.

BENE. I look for an earthquake too, then.

D. PEDRO. Well, you will temporize with the hours. In the meantime, good Signior Benedick, repair to Leonato's: commend me to him, and tell him I will not fail him at supper; for indeed he hath made great preparation.

BENE. I have almost matter enough in me for such an embassage; and so I commit you

CLAUD. To the tuition of God: From my house, if I had it,

232

226 “In time... yoke"] This line, which is first found in Thomas Watson's Hecatompathia, Passion XLVII, “ In time the Bull is brought to weare the yoake," seems here to be loosely quoted from Kyd's adaptation of it in his Spanish Tragedy, II, i, 3: "In time the sauuage Bull sustaines the yoake." Further allusions are made to the quotation infra, V, i, 174-175 and V, iv, 43.

236 Venice] Venice enjoyed a reputation for dissolute gallantries, like Cyprus in the ancient world, and Paris in the modern world. 238 temporize... hours] come to terms in the process of time.

241

D. PEDRO. The sixth of July: Your loving friend, Benedick.

BENE. Nay, mock not, mock not. The body of your discourse is sometime guarded with fragments, and the guards are but slightly basted on neither: ere you flout old ends any further, examine your conscience: and so I leave you.

[Exit. 251

CLAUD. My liege, your highness now may do me good.

D. PEDRO. My love is thine to teach: teach it but

how,

And thou shalt see how apt it is to learn

Any hard lesson that may do thee good.

CLAUD. Hath Leonato any son, my lord?

D. PEDRO. No child but Hero; she's his only heir.
Dost thou affect her, Claudio?

CLAUD.
O, my lord,
When you went onward on this ended action,
I look'd upon her with a soldier's eye,
That liked, but had a rougher task in hand
Than to drive liking to the name of love:
But now I am return'd and that war-thoughts
Have left their places vacant, in their rooms

246 The sixth of July] Midsummer day, according to the old reckoning; a fit date for midsummer madness.

260

249 guards... basted] trimmings or facings lightly stitched or tacked on.

250 old ends] conventional tags (of epistolary correspondence). Cf. Rich. III, I, iii, 337: "With old odd ends stol'n out of holy writ."

Come thronging soft and delicate desires,
All prompting me how fair young Hero is,
Saying, I liked her ere I went to wars.

D. PEDRO. Thou wilt be like a lover presently,
And tire the hearer with a book of words.
If thou dost love fair Hero, cherish it;
And I will break with her and with her father,
And thou shalt have her. Was 't not to this end
That thou began'st to twist so fine a story?

CLAUD. HOW sweetly you do minister to love,
That know love's grief by his complexion!
But lest my liking might too sudden seem,
I would have salved it with a longer treatise.

D. PEDRO. What need the bridge much broader than the flood?

The fairest grant is the necessity.

Look, what will serve is fit: 't is once, thou lovest,
And I will fit thee with the remedy.

I know we shall have revelling to-night:
I will assume thy part in some disguise,

And tell fair Hero I am Claudio;

And in her bosom I'll unclasp my heart,

And take her hearing prisoner with the force
And strong encounter of my amorous tale:

271 break] broach, open the matter, as in line 288, infra, I, ii, 13, II, i, 137, and III, ii, 67.

279 The fairest . . . necessity] That boon is the most welcome which precisely supplies a pressing need.

280 once] once for all, in fine. Cf. Com. of Errors, III, i, 89: “Once

this."

270

280