ARKCODEX
Act V, Scene 2
1Leonato’sgarden.
2Enter Benedick and Margaret, meeting.
3BenedickPray thee, sweet Mistress Margaret, deserve well at my hands by helping me to the speech of Beatrice.
4MargaretWill you then write me a sonnet in praise of my beauty?
5BenedickIn so high a style, Margaret, that no man living shall come over it; for, in most comely truth, thou deservest it.
6MargaretTo have no man come over me! why, shall I always keep below stairs?
7BenedickThy wit is as quick as the greyhound’s mouth; it catches.
8MargaretAnd yours as blunt as the fencer’s foils, which hit, but hurt not.
9BenedickA most manly wit, Margaret; it will not hurt a woman: and so, I pray thee, call Beatrice: I give thee the bucklers.
10MargaretGive us the swords; we have bucklers of our own.
11BenedickIf you use them, Margaret, you must put in the pikes with a vice; and they are dangerous weapons for maids.
12MargaretWell, I will call Beatrice to you, who I think hath legs.
13BenedickAnd therefore will come. Exit Margaret.
Sings. The god of love,
That sits above,
And knows me, and knows me,
How pitiful I deserve—
I mean, in singing; but in loving, Leander the good swimmer, Troilus the first employer of panders, and a whole book full of these quondam carpet-mongers, whose names yet run smoothly in the even road of a blank verse, why, they were never so truly turned over and over as my poor self in love. Marry, I cannot show it in rhyme; I have tried: I can find out no rhyme to “lady” but “baby,” an innocent rhyme; for “scorn,” “horn,” a hard rhyme; for “school,” “fool,” a babbling rhyme; very ominous endings: no, I was not born under a rhyming planet, nor I cannot woo in festival terms.
14Enter Beatrice.
15Sweet Beatrice, wouldst thou come when I called thee?
16BeatriceYea, signior, and depart when you bid me.
17BenedickO, stay but till then!
18Beatrice“Then” is spoken; fare you well now: and yet, ere I go, let me go with that I came; which is, with knowing what hath passed between you and Claudio.
19BenedickOnly foul words; and thereupon I will kiss thee.
20BeatriceFoul words is but foul wind, and foul wind is but foul breath, and foul breath is noisome; therefore I will depart unkissed.
21BenedickThou hast frighted the word out of his right sense, so forcible is thy wit. But I must tell thee plainly, Claudio undergoes my challenge; and either I must shortly hear from him, or I will subscribe him a coward. And, I pray thee now, tell me for which of my bad parts didst thou first fall in love with me?
22BeatriceFor them all together; which maintained so politic a state of evil that they will not admit any good part to intermingle with them. But for which of my good parts did you first suffer love for me?
23BenedickSuffer love! a good epithet! I do suffer love indeed, for I love thee against my will.
24BeatriceIn spite of your heart, I think; alas, poor heart! If you spite it for my sake, I will spite it for yours; for I will never love that which my friend hates.
25BenedickThou and I are too wise to woo peaceably.
26BeatriceIt appears not in this confession: there’s not one wise man among twenty that will praise himself.
27BenedickAn old, an old instance, Beatrice, that lived in the time of good neighbours. If a man do not erect in this age his own tomb ere he dies, he shall live no longer in monument than the bell rings and the widow weeps.
28BeatriceAnd how long is that, think you?
29BenedickQuestion: why, an hour in clamour and a quarter in rheum: therefore is it most expedient for the wise, if Don Worm, his conscience, find no impediment to the contrary, to be the trumpet of his own virtues, as I am to myself. So much for praising myself, who, I myself will bear witness, is praiseworthy: and now tell me, how doth your cousin?
30BeatriceVery ill.
31BenedickAnd how do you?
32BeatriceVery ill too.
33BenedickServe God, love me and mend. There will I leave you too, for here comes one in haste.
34Enter Ursula.
35UrsulaMadam, you must come to your uncle. Yonder’s old coil at home: it is proved, my Lady Hero hath been falsely accused, the prince and Claudio mightily abused; and Don John is the author of all, who is fled and gone. Will you come presently?
36BeatriceWill you go hear this news, signior?
37BenedickI will live in thy heart, die in thy lap and be buried in thy eyes; and moreover I will go with thee to thy uncle’s. Exeunt.