do, for my simple true judgement? 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 judgement. BENE. Why, i' faith, methinks she's 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. 151 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 Jack, 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

157 do you play the flouting Jack, etc.] do you play the mocker? (contrasted with one who speaks "with a sad brow," i, e. in all seriousness). It is obvious mockery to identify blind Cupid with a hare-finder, a director of a hare hunt chosen for his keenness of vision, or to identify Vulcan the blacksmith with a carpenter. 160 go in the song] join with you in your song.

160

first of May doth the last of December. But I hope you have no intent to turn husband, have you?

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

BENE. Is 't come to this? In faith, hath not the world one man but he will wear his cap with suspicion? Shall I never see a bachelor of threescore again? Go to, i' faith; an 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.

171 will wear

.. suspicion] will provoke the suspicion that he wears his cap in order to conceal the horns on his head. Cf. Painter's Palace of Pleasure, novel 51: "All they that weare hornes be pardoned to weare their capps vpon their heads."

174 sigh away Sundays] spend Sunday in that dull domestic fashion which evokes sighing from men of spirit.

169

179

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 murderous 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 e.] 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.

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.

222-223 hang. shoot] The shooting at a cat enclosed in a wooden

bottle or barrel was a favourite country sport; "Adam" is apparently an allusion to Adam Bell, the outlaw of ballad tradition, who was reckoned the champion archer.

213

221

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

241

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.