ACT II.

SCENE I. A Hall in Leonato's House.

Enter LEONATO, ANTONIO, HERO, BEATRICE, and others.

Leon. Was not count John here at supper?
Ant. I saw him not.

Beat. How tartly that gentleman looks! I never can see him, but I am heart-burned an hour after. Hero. He is of a very melancholy disposition.

Beat. He were an excellent man, that were made just in the mid-way between him and Benedick: the one is too like an image, and says nothing; and the other, too like my lady's eldest son, evermore tattling.

Leon. Then half signior Benedick's tongue in count John's mouth, and half count John's melancholy in signior Benedick's face,—

Beat. With a good leg, and a good foot, uncle, and money enough in his purse, such a man would win any woman in the world,—if he could get her good will.

Leon. By my troth, niece, thou wilt never get thee a husband, if thou be so shrewd of thy tongue. Ant. In faith, she is too curst.

Beat. Too curst is more than curst: I shall lessen God's sending that way: for it is said, God sends a curst cow short horns; but to a cow too curst he sends none.

Leon. So, by being too curst, God will send you no horns.

Beat. Just, if he send me no husband: for the which blessing, I am at him upon my knees every morning and evening: Lord! I could not endure a

husband with a beard on his face; I had rather lie

in the woollen.

Leon. You may light upon a husband, that hath no beard.

Beat. What should I do with him? dress him in my apparel, and make him my waiting gentlewoman? He that hath a beard, is more than a youth; and he that hath no beard, is less than a man: and he that is more than a youth, is not for me; and he that is less than a man, I am not for him. Therefore I will even take sixpence in earnest of the bear-herd, and lead his apes into hell.

Leon. Well then, go you into hell?

Beat. No; but to the gate; and there will the devil meet me, like an old cuckold, with horns on his head, and say, Get you to heaven, Beatrice, get you to heaven; here's no place for you maids: so deliver I up my apes, and away to Saint Peter for the heavens; he shows me where the bachelors sit, and there live we as merry as the day is long.

Ant. Well, niece, [To HERO.] I trust, you will be ruled by your father.

Beat. Yes, faith; it is my cousin's duty to make courtesy, and say, Father, as it please you:-but yet for all that, cousin, let him be a handsome fellow, or else make another courtesy, and say, Father, as it please me.

Leon. Well, niece, I hope to see you one day fitted with a husband.

Beat. Not till God make men of some other metal than earth. Would it not grieve a woman to be over-mastered with a piece of valiant dust? to make an account of her life to a clod of wayward marl ? No, uncle, I'll none: Adam's sons are my brethren; and truly, I hold it a sin to match in my kindred.

Leon. Daughter, remember what I told you: if

the prince do solicit you in that kind, you know

your answer.

Beat. The fault will be in the musick, cousin, if you be not woo'd in good time: if the prince be too important1, tell him, there is measure2 in every thing, and so dance out the answer. For hear me, Hero; Wooing, wedding, and repenting, is as a Scotch jig, a measure, and a cinque-pace: the first suit is hot and hasty, like a Scotch jig, and full as fantastical; the wedding, mannerly-modest, as a measure full of state and ancientry; and then comes repentance, and, with his bad legs, falls into the cinque-pace faster and faster, till he sink into his grave.

Leon. Cousin, you apprehend passing shrewdly. Beat. I have a good eye, uncle; I can see a church by day-light.

Leon. The revellers are entering; brother, make good room.

Enter DON PEDRO, CLAUDIO, BENEDICK, BALTHAZAR; DON JOHN, BORACHIO, MARGARET, URSULA, and others, masked.

D. Pedro. Lady, will you walk about with your friend 3?

Hero. So you walk softly, and look sweetly, and say nothing, I am yours for the walk; and, especially, when I walk away.

D. Pedro. With me in your company?

1 Importunate.

2 A measure in old language, besides its ordinary meaning, signified also a dance. So, in Richard II.

'My legs can keep no measure in delight,

When my poor heart no measure keeps in grief.'

The measures were grave solemn dances with slow and measured steps like the minuet; and therefore described as 'full of state and ancientry.'

3 Lover.

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 Jove5.

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 canná 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.

you so?

Beat. Nor will you not tell me who you are?
Bene. Not now.

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

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.