D. John. I thank you: I am not of many words, but I thank you.

Leon. Please it your grace lead on?

D. Pedro. Your hand, Leonato; we will go together. [Exeunt all but BENEDICK and CLAUDIO. Claud. Benedick, didst thou note the daughter of signior Leonato?

Bene. I noted her not; But I looked on her.
Claud. Is she not a modest young lady?

Bene. Do you question me, as an honest man should do, for my simple true judgment; or would you have me speak after my custom, as being a professed tyrant to their sex?

Claud. No, I pray thee, speak in sober judgment.

Bene. Why, i'faith methinks she is too low for a high praise, too brown for a fair praise, and too little for a great praise: only this commendation I can afford her; that were she other than she is, she were unhandsome; and being no other but as she is, I do not like her.

Claud. Thou thinkest, I am in sport; I pray thee, tell me truly how thou likest her.

Bene. Would you buy her, that you inquire after her? Claud. Can the world buy such a jewel?

Bene. Yea, and a case to put it into. But speak you this with a sad brow? or do you play the flouting JackR; to tell us Cupid is a good hare-finder, and Vulcan a rare carpenter? Come, in what key shall a man take you, to go in the song?

Claud. In mine eye, she is the sweetest lady that ever I looked on.

Bene. I can see yet without spectacles, and I see no such matter: there's her cousin, an she were not possessed with a fury, exceeds her as much in beauty, as the first of May doth the last of December. But I hope you have no intent to turn husband; have you?

8

the flouting Jack ;] Jack, in our author's time, was a term of contempt.

Claud. I would scarce trust myself, though I had sworn the contrary, if Hero would be my wife.

Bene. Is it come to this, i'faith? Hath not the world one man, but he will wear his cap with suspicion ?? Shall I never see a bachelor of three-score again? Go to, i'faith; and thou wilt needs thrust thy neck into a yoke, wear the print of it, and sigh away Sundays. Look, Don Pedro is returned to seek you.

Re-enter Don PEDRO.

D. Pedro. What secret hath held you here, that you followed not to Leonato's.

Bene. I would, your grace would constrain me to tell. D. Pedro. I charge thee on thy allegiance.

Bene. You hear, Count Claudio: I can be secret as a dumb man, I would have you think so; but on my allegiance, mark you this, on my allegiance:- He is in love. With who? now that is your grace's part. Mark, how short his answer is: -With Hero, Leonato's short daughter.

Claud. If this were so, so were it uttered.1

Bene. Like the old tale, my lord: "it is not so, nor 'twas 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.

wear his cap with suspicion?] that is, subject his head to the disquiet of jealousy.

1 Claud. If this were so, so were it uttered.] i. e. If I had really confided such a secret to him, he would have blabbed it in this

manner.

↑ These were the words used in a tragic nursery tale, common in Shakspeare's days and since.

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.

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.

D. Pedro. Thou wast ever an obstinate heretick 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 thanks: but that I will have a recheat winded in my forehead2, 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 finet 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.

2

Bene. If I do, hang me in a bottle like a cat3, and

but that I will have a recheat winded in my forehead,] that is, I will wear a horn on my forehead which the huntsman may blow. A recheate is the sound by which dogs are called back. Shakspeare had no mercy upon the poor cuckold, his horn is an inexhaustible subject of merriment. JOHNSON.

+ The fine-] i. e. the conclusion.

3

in a bottle like a cat,] In some counties in England, a cat was formerly closed up with a quantity of soot in a wooden bottle,

shoot at me; and he that hits me, let him be clapped on the shoulder, and called Adam.4

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 a 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 would'st 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 mean time, 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)

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 6, and the

(such as that in which shepherds carry their liquor,) and was suspended on a line. He who beat out the bottom as he ran under it, and was nimble enough to escape its contents, was regarded as the hero of this inhuman diversion. STEEVENS.

4

and he that hits me, let him be clapped on the shoulder, and called Adam.] Perhaps Adam Bell, a famous archer.

5 In time the savage bull doth bear the yoke.] A line from The Spanish Tragedy, or Hieronymo, &c.

6 guarded with fragments,] Guards were ornamental lace or borders.

guards are but slightly basted on neither: ere you flout old ends any further 7, examine your conscience; and so I leave you. [Exit. 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 lik'd, 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
Come thronging soft and delicate desires,
All prompting me how fair young Hero is,
Saying, I lik'd 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 do you minister to love,
That know love's grief by his complexion!
But lest my liking might too sudden seem,

I would have salv'd 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: 'tis once, thou lov'st ;

7- ere you flout old ends, &c.] Before you endeavour to distinguish yourself any more by antiquated allusions.

81- ·’tis once, thou lov'st;] Once may mean “'tis enough to say at once.” STEEVENS.

once for all,"