[SCENE I. "My visor is Philemon's roof; within the house is Jove."]

ACT II.

SCENE I.-A Hall in Leonato's House.

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 heartburned 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 's 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 bearward, 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, "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 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 music, cousin, if you be not wooed in good time: if the prince be too important, tell him there is measure in everything, and so dance out the answer c. 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, man

Bearward. In the original berrord. The modern editions have bear-herd. In 'Henry VI., Part II.,' it is bearard. The pronunciation is indicated by both of the ancient modes of spelling; and bearward appears to be the word meant, when rapidly uttered.

b Important-importunate.

• The technical meaning of measure, a particular sort of dance, is here played upon. Beatrice's own description of that dance, "full of state and ancientry," is the most characteristic account we have of it. See Romeo and Juliet,' Illustrations of Act I.

6

nerly-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 daylight.
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?

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?

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 a the lute should be like the

case!

D. PEDRO. My visor is Philemon's roof; within the house is Jove".

HERO. Why, then your visor should be thatch'd.

D. PEDRO.

BENE. Well, I would you did like me.

Speak low, if you speak love.

[Takes her aside.

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.

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.

• Defend-forbid.

This line, which is in the rhythm of Chapman's Homer and Golding's Ovid, is an allusion to the story of 'Baucis and Philemon;' and perhaps Shakspere was thinking of Golding's version of the original. The subsequent speeches of Hero and Don Pedro complete a couplet.

• Tieck supposes that these three speeches, which are assigned to Benedick, really belong to Balthazar;-that there is a series of dialogues between four masked pairs-Hero and Don Pedro, Margaret and Balthazar, Ursula and Antonio, Beatrice and Benedick. He is probably right; but still Benedick may first address Margaret, and then pass on, leaving Balthazar with her.

COMEDIES.-VOL. II.

B

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 you so?

BENE. No, you shall pardon me.

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;' 10-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 commendation is not in his wit but in his villainy; for he both pleaseth men and angers them, and then they laugh at him and beat him: I am sure he is in the fleet; I would he had boarded me.

BENE. When I know the gentleman, I'll tell him what you say.

BEAT. Do, do: he'll but break a comparison or two on me; which, peradventure, not marked, or not laughed at, strikes him into melancholy; and then there's a partridge' wing saved, for the fool will eat no supper that night. [Music within.] We must follow the leaders.

BENE. In every good thing.

BEAT. Nay, if they lead to any ill, I will leave them at the next turning.

[Dance. Then exeunt all but DoN JOHN, BORACHIO, and CLAUDIO. D. JOHN. Sure, my brother is amorous on Hero, and hath withdrawn her father to break with him about it: The ladies follow her, and but one visor remains.

BORA. And that is Claudio: I know him by his bearing.

D. JOHN. Are not you signior Benedick?

CLAUD. You know me well; I am he.

D. JOHN. Signior, you are very near my brother in his love: he is enamoured on Hero; I pray you dissuade him from her, she is no equal for his birth: you may do the part of an honest man in it.

CLAUD. How know you he loves her?

D. JOHN. I heard him swear his affection.

BORA. So did I too; and he swore he would marry her to-night.

D. JOHN. Come, let us to the banquet.

CLAUD. Thus answer I in name of Benedick,

[Exeunt DON JOHN and BORACHIO.

"In a subsequent passage of this scene we have "impossible conveyance." The commentators make difficulties of both these passages, and would change the adjective to impassable or importable. This is, indeed, to "speak by the card."

b Boarded-accosted.

But hear these ill news with the ears of Claudio.

'T is certain so;-the prince woos for himself.
Friendship is constant in all other things,
Save in the office and affairs of love:

Therefore, all hearts in love use their own tongues;
Let every eye negotiate for itself,

And trust no agent: for beauty is a witch,

Against whose charms faith melteth into blood.

This is an accident of hourly proof,

Which I mistrusted not: Farewell, therefore, Hero!

BENE. Count Claudio?

Re-enter BENEDICK.

CLAUD. Yea, the same.

>

BENE. Come, will you go with me?

CLAUD. Whither?

BENE. Even to the next willow, about your own business, count. What fashion will you wear the garland of? About your neck, like an usurer's chain"? or under your arm, like a lieutenant's scarf? You must wear it one way, for the prince hath got your Hero.

CLAUD. I wish him joy of her.

BENE. Why, that's spoken like an honest drover; so they sell bullocks. But did you think the prince would have served you thus?

CLAUD. I pray you, leave me.

BENE. Ho! now you strike like the blind man; 't was the boy that stole your

meat and you'll beat the post.

CLAUD. If it will not be, I'll leave you.

BENE. Alas! poor hurt fowl! Now will he creep into sedges.

[Exit.

But that my lady

Beatrice should know me, and not know me! The prince's fool!-Ha, it may be I go under that title, because I am merry.-Yea; but so; I am apt to do myself wrong: I am not so reputed: it is the base though bitter disposition of Beatrice, that puts the world into her person, and so gives me out. Well, I'll be revenged as I may.

Re-enter Don PEDRO.

D. PEDRO. Now, signior, where's the count; Did you see him?

BENE. Troth, my lord, I have played the part of lady Fame. I found him here as melancholy as a lodge in a warrend; I told him, and I think told him

⚫ Count. The quarto has the more ancient and more poetical county.

b An usurer's chain-the ornament of a wealthy citizen or goldsmith. The Jews were not in Shakspere's time the only class who took use for money.

• Base though bitter. So the old copies. But the phrase has been changed into "the base, the bitter." Benedick means to say that the disposition of Beatrice, which pretends to speak the opinion of the world, is a grovelling disposition, although it is sharp and satirical.

* It has been supposed that this image of solitariness was suggested by the “lodge in a garden of cucumbers" of the Hebrew prophet. Shakspere has another picture of loneliness-" at the moated grange resides this dejected Mariana.”—('Measure for Measure,' Act III., Scene 1.)

• In the quarto, I told him.