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Hero. I may say so, when I please.

D. Pedro. And when please you to say so? Hero. When I like your favour; for God defend, the lute should be like the case1!

D. Pedro. My visor is Philemon's roof; within the house is Jove 5.

Hero. Why, then your visor should be thatch'd.
D. Pedro. Speak low, if you speak love.
[Takes her aside.
Bene. Well, I would you did like me.

Marg. So would not I, for your own sake; for I have many ill qualities.

Bene. Which is one?

Marg. I say my prayers aloud.

Bene. I love you the better; the hearers may cry, Amen.

Marg. God match me with a good dancer!
Balth. Amen.

Marg. And God keep him out of my sight, when the dance is done!-Answer, clerk.

Balth. No more words; the clerk is answered. Urs. I know you well enough; you are signior Antonio.

Ant. At a word, I am not.

Urs. I know you by the waggling of your head. Ant. To tell you true, I counterfeit him.

4 That is, God forbid that your face should be as homely and coarse as your mask.'

5 Alluding to the fable of Baucis and Philemon in Ovid, who describes the old couple as living in a thatched cottage:

Stipulis et cannâ tecta palustri,'

which Golding renders:

'The roofe thereof was thatched all with straw and fennish reede.'

Jacques, in As You Like It, again alludes to it:

"O knowledge ill-inhabited, worse than Jove in a thatchedhouse,'

Urs. You could never do him so ill-well, unless you were the very man: Here's his dry hand up and down; you are he, you are he.

Ant. At a word, I am not.

Urs. Come, come; do you think I do not know you by your excellent wit? Can virtue hide itself? Go to, mum, you are he: graces will appear, and there's an end.

Beat. Will you not tell me who told
Bene. No, you shall pardon me.

Beat. Nor will you not tell me who

Bene. Not now.

you so?

you are?

Beat. That I was disdainful,-and that I had

my good wit out of the Hundred merry Tales;-
Well, this was signior Benedick that said so.
Bene. What's he?

Beat. I am sure, you know him well enough.
Bene. Not I, believe me.

Beat. Did he never make you laugh?

Bene. I pray you, what is he?

Beat. Why, he is the prince's jester; a very dull fool; only his gift is in devising impossible slanders: none but libertines delight in him; and the

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6 This was the term for a jest-book in Shakspeare's time, from a popular collection of that name, about which the commentators were much puzzled, until a large fragment was discovered in 1815, by my late lamented friend the Rev. J. Conybeare, Professor of Poetry in Oxford. I had the gratification of printing a few copies at the Chiswick press, under the title of Shakspeare's Jest Book.' It was printed by Rastell, and therefore must have been published previous to 1533. Another collection of the same kind, called Tales and Quicke Answeres,' printed by Berthelette, and of nearly equal antiquity, was also reprinted at the same time; and it is remarkable that this collection is cited by Sir John Harrington under the title of the hundred merry tales.' It continued for a long period to be the popular name for collections of this sort, for in the London Chaunticlere, 1659, it is mentioned as being cried for sale by a ballad man. 7 Incredible, or inconceivable.

commendation is not in his wit, but in his villany; for he both pleaseth men, and angers them, and then they laugh at him, and beat him: I am sure, he is in the fleet: I would he had boarded me.

Bene. When I know the gentleman, I'll tell him what you say.

Beat. Do, do: he'll but break a comparison or two on me; which, peradventure, not marked, or not laughed at, strikes him into melancholy; and then there's a partridge' wing saved, for the fool will eat no supper that night. [Musick within.] We must follow the leaders.

Bene. In every good thing.

Beat. Nay, if they lead to any ill, I will leave them at the next turning.

[Dance. Then exeunt all but DON JOHN,

BORACHIO, and CLAUDIO.

D. John. Sure, my brother is amorous on Hero, and hath withdrawn her father to break with him about it: The ladies follow her, and but one visor remains.

Bora. And that is Claudio: I know him by his bearing 9.

D. John. Are not you signior Benedick?

Claud. You know me well; I am he.

D. John. Signior, you are very near my brother in his love: he is enamoured on Hero; I pray you, dissuade him from her, she is no equal for his birth: you may do the part of an honest man in it.

Claud. How know you he loves her?

D. John. I heard him swear his affection.

Bora. So did I too; and he swore he would marry her to-night.

8 Boarded, besides its usual meaning, signified accosted. 9 Carriage, demeanour.

D. John. Come, let us to the banquet.

[Exeunt DON JOHN and BORACHIO.

Claud. Thus answer I in name of Benedick, But hear these ill news with the ears of Claudio.'Tis certain so;-the prince woos for himself. Friendship is constant in all other things,

Save in the office and affairs of love:

Therefore 10, all hearts in love use their own tongues;

Let every eye negotiate for itself,

And trust no agent: for beauty is a witch,

Against whose charms faith melteth into blood11.

This is an accident of hourly proof,

Which I mistrusted not: Farewell therefore, Hero!

Re-enter BENEDICK.

Bene. Count Claudio?

Claud. Yea, the same.

Bene. Come, will you go with me?

Claud. Whither?

Bene. Even to the next willow, about your own business, count. What fashion will you wear the garland of? About your neck, like an usurer's chain 12? or under your arm, like a lieutenant's scarf? You must wear it one way, for the prince hath got your Hero.

10 Let, which is found in the next line, is understood here. 11 Blood signifies amorous heat or passion. So, in All's Well that Ends Well, Act iii. Sc. 7:

'Now his important blood will nought deny,

That she'll demand.'

12 Chains of gold of considerable value were, in Shakspeare's time, worn by wealthy citizens, and others, in the same manner as they are now on public occasions by the aldermen of London. Usury was then a common topic of invective. So, in 'The Choice of Change,' 1598, Three sortes of people, in respect of necessity, may be accounted good:-Merchants, for they may play the usurers, instead of the Jews, &c.' Again, 'There is a scarcity of Jews, because Christians make an occupation of usurie.

Claud. I wish him joy of her.

Bene. Why, that's spoken like an honest drover; so they sell bullocks. But did you think the prince would have served you thus?

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Bene. Ho! now you strike like the blind man ; 'twas the boy that stole your meat, and you'll beat the post.

Claud. If it will not be, I'll leave you. [Exit. Bene. Alas, poor hurt fowl! Now will he creep into sedges. -But, that my lady Beatrice should know me, and not know me! The Prince's fool!Ha! it may be, I go under that title, because I am merry.-Yea; but so; I am apt to do myself wrong: I am not so reputed: it is the base, the bitter disposition of Beatrice, that puts the world into her person, and so gives me out 13. Well, I'll be revenged as I may.

Re-enter DON Pedro.

D. Pedro. Now, signior, where's the count; Did you see him?

Bene. Troth, my lord, I have play'd the part of lady Fame. I found him here as melancholy as a lodge in a warren 14; I told him, and, I think, I told him true, that your grace had got the good will of this young lady; and I offered him my company to a willow tree, either to make him a garland, as

13 It is the disposition of Beatrice, who takes upon herself to personate the world, and therefore represents the world as saying what she only says herself.'

14 A parallel thought occurs in Isaiah, c. i. where the prophet, in describing the desolation of Judah, says: The daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers,' &c. It appears that these lonely buildings were necessary, as the cucumbers, &c. were obliged to be constantly watched and watered, and that as soon as the crop was gathered they were forsaken.

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