D. PEDRO. Well, we will hear further of it by your daughter. Let it cool the while. I love Benedick well and I could wish he would modestly examine himself to see how much he is unworthy to have so good a lady. LEON. My lord, will you walk? dinner is ready. CLAUD. If he do not dote on her upon this, I will never trust my expectation. [Aside. D. PEDRO. Let there be the same net spread for her: and that must your daughter and her gentlewoman carry. The sport will be, when they hold one an opinion of another's dotage, and no such matter; that's the scene that I would see, which will be merely a dumb-show. Let us send her to call him in to dinner. [Aside. [Exeunt DON PEDRO, CLAUDIO, and LEONATO. BENEDICK advances from the arbour. BENE. This can be no trick: The conference was sadly borne.-They have the truth of this from Hero. They seem to pity the lady; it seems her affections have their a full bent. Love me! why, it must be requited. I hear how I am censured: they say I will bear myself proudly, if I perceive the love come from her; they say too, that she will rather die than give any sign of affection. I did never think to marry-I must not seem proud :-Happy are they that hear their detractions, and can put them to mending. They say the lady is fair; 't is a truth, I can bear them witness and virtuous— 't is so, I cannot reprove it; and wise, but for loving me:-By my troth, it is no addition to her wit;-nor no great argument of her folly, for I will be horribly in love with her.-I may chance have some odd quirks and remnants of wit broken on me, because I have railed so long against marriage: But doth not the appetite alter? A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age: Shall quips, and sentences, and these paper bullets of the brain, awe a man from the career of his humour? No: The world must be peopled. When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married.-Here comes Beatrice; By this day, she's a fair lady: I do spy some marks of love in her. Enter BEATRICE. BEAT. Against my will, I am sent to bid you come in to dinner. BENE. Fair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains. BEAT. I took no more pains for those thanks, than you take pains to thank me; if it had been painful I would not have come. BENE. You take pleasure, then, in the message? BEAT. Yea, just so much as you may take upon a knife's point, and choke a daw withal:-You have no stomach, signior; fare you well. [Exit. BENE. Ha! "Against my will, I am sent to bid you come in to dinner "-there's Their. So the quarto; the folio, the. a double meaning in that. "I took no more pains for those thanks, than you took pains to thank me "-that's as much as to say, Any pains that I take for you is as easy as thanks :-If I do not take pity of her I am a villain; if I do not love her I am a Jew: I will go get her picture. [Exit. Enter HERO, MARGARET, and URSULA. HERO. Good Margaret, run thee to the parlour; Walk in the orchard, and our whole discourse Is all of her; say, that thou overheard'st us; Made proud by princes, that advance their pride Against that power that bred it :-there will she hide her, To listen our purpose: This is thy office, Bear thee well in it, and leave us alone. MARG. I'll make her come, I warrant you, presently. HERO. Now, Ursula, when Beatrice doth come, As we do trace this alley up and down, To praise him more than ever man did merit : Is sick in love with Beatrice: Of this matter Enter BEATRICE, behind. For look where Beatrice, like a lapwing, runs HERO. Then go we near her, that her ear lose nothing [Exit. [They advance to the bower. Purpose. So the folio; the quarto, propose. The accent must be placed on the second syllable of purpose. The words have the same meaning-that of conversation-and were indifferently used by old writers. In the third line of this scene we have, In Spenser, 66 Proposing with the prince and Claudio." "For she in pleasant purpose did abound." But I persuaded them, if they lov'd Benedick, To wish him wrestle with affection, And never to let Beatrice know of it. URS. Why did you so? Doth not the gentleman As ever Beatrice shall couch upon? HERO. O God of love! I know he doth deserve And therefore, certainly, it were not good If speaking, why, a vane blown with all winds; URS. Sure, sure, such carping is not commendable. But who dare tell her so? If I should speak, She would mocke me into air; O, she would laugh me Out of myself, press me to death with wit. Therefore let Benedick, like cover'd fire, Misprising-undervaluing. She would swear. commentators. This has been turned into she'd swear, to suit the mincing rhythm of the • Black-as opposed to fair-swarthy. d Agate. In Henry IV., Part II.,' Act I., Scene 2, Falstaff says of his page, "I was never manned with an agate till now." Agates were cut into various forms, such as men's heads. See Note on the passage in Henry IV.' • She would mock. Changed also to she'd mock by modern editors. |