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 BENE. and CLAUD. 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 '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.

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?a Come, in what key shall a man take you, to go in the song? b

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

a Benedick is laughing at Claudio for his love of Hero, which indeed he still scarcely credits. He asks him-"Speak you this with a sad brow?"-i.e. are you serious in your passion? or are you flouting or mocking us,-as though you were to say that Cupid, the blind god, has the keenest sight to spy a hare, and that Vulcan, the smith, is a rare carpenter?

b To join in the song.

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?

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

Bene. Is 't 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: 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.

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.

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 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 thanks but that I will have a recheat" winded in my forehead, or hang my bugle in an invisible baldrick,b 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.

с

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.d

D. Pedro. Well, as time shall try :

"In time the savage bull doth bear the yoke."

a Recheat-the huntsman's note to recall the hounds.

b Baldrick-a belt.

The fine-the conclusion.

d In allusion to the old archer of ballad notoriety-Adam Bell.

Bene. The savage bull may; but if ever this 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 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 a 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 BENE. 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?

a Guarded-trimmed, as with guards on apparel.

b The old ends flouted at were the long-winded conclusions of private letters.

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 begann'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: 't is once,a 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 :
Then, after, to her father will I break;
And, the conclusion is, she shall be thine:
In practice let us put it presently.

a Once-ouce for all.

[Exeunt.