ACT V SCENE II  LEONATO'S garden.
Enter BENEDICK and MARGARET, meeting
BENEDICK  Pray thee, sweet Mistress Margaret, deserve well at
my hands by helping me to the speech of Beatrice.
MARGARET  Will you then write me a sonnet in praise of my beauty?
BENEDICK  In so high a style, Margaret, that no man living5
shall come over it; for, in most comely truth, thou
deservest it.
MARGARET  To have no man come over me! why, shall I always
keep below stairs?
BENEDICK  Thy wit is as quick as the greyhound's mouth; it catches.10
MARGARET  And yours as blunt as the fencer's foils, which hit,
but hurt not.
BENEDICK  A most manly wit, Margaret; it will not hurt a
woman: and so, I pray thee, call Beatrice: I give
thee the bucklers.15
MARGARET  Give us the swords; we have bucklers of our own.
BENEDICK  If you use them, Margaret, you must put in the
pikes with a vice; and they are dangerous weapons for maids.
MARGARET  Well, I will call Beatrice to you, who I think hath legs.
BENEDICK  And therefore will come.20
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 good25
swimmer, Troilus the first employer of panders, and
a whole bookful of these quondam carpet-mangers,
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, I30
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,35
nor I cannot woo in festival terms.
Enter BEATRICE
Sweet Beatrice, wouldst thou come when I called thee?
BEATRICE  Yea, signior, and depart when you bid me.
BENEDICK  O, stay but till then!
BEATRICE  'Then' is spoken; fare you well now: and yet, ere40
I go, let me go with that I came; which is, with
knowing what hath passed between you and Claudio.
BENEDICK  Only foul words; and thereupon I will kiss thee.
BEATRICE  Foul words is but foul wind, and foul wind is but
foul breath, and foul breath is noisome; therefore I45
will depart unkissed.
BENEDICK  Thou 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 subscribe50
him a coward. And, I pray thee now, tell me for
which of my bad parts didst thou first fall in love with me?
BEATRICE  For 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 my55
good parts did you first suffer love for me?
BENEDICK  Suffer love! a good epithet! I do suffer love
indeed, for I love thee against my will.
BEATRICE  In spite of your heart, I think; alas, poor heart!
If you spite it for my sake, I will spite it for60
yours; for I will never love that which my friend hates.
BENEDICK  Thou and I are too wise to woo peaceably.
BEATRICE  It appears not in this confession: there's not one
wise man among twenty that will praise himself.
BENEDICK  An old, an old instance, Beatrice, that lived in65