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 living | 5 |
| 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 good | 25 |
| 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, I | 30 |
| 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, ere | 40 |
| 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 I | 45 |
| 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 subscribe | 50 |
| 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 my | 55 |
| 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 for | 60 |
| 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 in | 65 |
| |