I tell him we shall stay here, at the least a month, and he heartily prays some occasion may detain us longer. I dare swear he is no hypocrite, but prays from his heart.

Leonato. If you swear, my lord, you shall not be forsworn. [To Don John] Let me bid you welcome, my lord; being reconciled to the Prince your brother, I owe you all duty.

Don John. I thank you. I am not of many words, but I thank you.

Leonato. Please it your Grace lead on?

Don Pedro. Your hand, Leonato. We will go together. Exeunt. Manent° Benedick and Claudio.

Claudio. Benedick, didst thou note the daughter of Signior Leonato?

Benedick. I noted° her not, but I looked on her.

Claudio. Is she not a modest young lady?

Benedick. Do you question me as an honest man - should do, for my simple true judgment? Or would you have me speak after my custom, as being a professed tyrant to their sex?

142 parrot-teacher i.e., monotonous speaker of nonsense

137 continuer staying power

140 jade’s trick trick of a vicious horse (i.e., a sudden stop?)

142 the sum of all the end of the sparring match

155 s.d. Manent remain (Latin)

158 noted (1) scrutimzed (2) set to music (3) stigmatized

Claudio. No, I pray thee speak in sober judgment.

Benedick. Why, i’ faith, methinks she’s too low for a high praise, too brown for a fair praise, and too little for a great praise. Only this commendation I can afford her, that were she other than she is, she were unhandsome, and being no other but as she is, I do not like her.

Claudio. Thou thinkest I am in sport. I pray thee tell me truly how thou lik‘st her.

Benedick. Would you buy her, that you inquire after her?

Claudio. Can the world buy such a jewel?

Benedick. Yea, and a case to put it into. But speak you this with a sad brow?° Or do you play the flouting Jack, to tell us Cupid is a good hare-finder and Vulcan a rare carpenter?° Come, in what key shall a man take you to go in the song?

Claudio. In mine eye she is the sweetest lady that ever I looked on.

Benedick. I can see yet without spectacles, and I see no such matter. There’s her cousin, and she were not possessed with a fury, exceeds her as much in beauty as the first of May doth the last of December. But I hope you have no intent to turn husband, have you?

Claudio. I would scarce trust myself, though I had sworn the contrary, if Hero would be my wife.

Benedick. Is’t come to this? In faith, hath not the world one man but he will wear his cap with suspicion?°

177 with a sad brow seriously

178-79 to tell us ... carpenter i.e., to mock us with nonsense (Cupid was blind, Vulcan was a blacksmith)

191 but he ... suspicion who (because he is unmarried) will not fear that he has a cuckold’s horns

Shall I never see a bachelor of threescore again? Go to, i’ faith! And thou wilt needs thrust thy neck into a yoke, wear the print of it and sigh away Sundays.° Look! Don Pedro is returned to seek you.

Enter Don Pedro.

Don Pedro. What secret hath held you here, that you followed not to Leonato’s?

Benedick. I would your Grace would constrain me to tell.

Don Pedro. I charge thee on thy allegiance.°

Benedick. You hear, Count Claudio; I can be secret as a dumb man. I would have you think so. But, on my allegiance—mark you this—on my allegiance! He is in love. With who? Now that is your Grace’s part. Mark how short his answer is—with Hero, Leonato’s short daughter.

Claudio. If this were so, so were it utt‘red.

Benedick. Like the old tale, my lord: “It is not so, nor ‘twas not so, but indeed, God forbid it should be so!”

Claudio. If my passion change not shortly, God forbid it should be otherwise.

Don Pedro. Amen, if you love her, for the lady is very well worthy.

Claudio. You speak this to fetch me in, my lord.

Don Pedro. By my troth, I speak my thought.

Claudio. And, in faith, my lord, I spoke mine.

Benedick. And, by my two faiths and troths, my lord, I spoke mine.

Claudio. That I love her, I feel.

Don Pedro. That she is worthy, I know.

193-94 thrust thy neck ... Sundays i.e., enjoy the tiresome bondage of marriage

200 allegiance solemn obligation to a prince

Benedick. That I neither feel how she should be loved, nor know how she should be worthy, is the opinion that fire cannot melt out of me. I will die in it at the stake.

Don Pedro. Thou wast ever an obstinate heretic in the despite of beauty.

Claudio. And never could maintain his part but in the force of his will.°

Benedick. That a woman conceived me, I thank her; that she brought me up, I likewise give her most humble thanks. But that I will have a rechate° winded in my forehead, or hang my bugle in an invisible baldrick,° all women shall pardon me. Because I will not do them the wrong to mistrust any, I will do myself the right to trust none; and the fine° is (for the which I may go the finer), I will live a bachelor.

Don Pedro. I shall see thee, ere I die, look pale with love.

Benedick. With anger, with sickness, or with hunger, my lord, not with love. Prove that ever I lose more blood with love than I will get again with drinking, pick out mine eyes with a ballad maker’s pen and hang me up at the door of a brothel house for the sign of blind Cupid.

Don Pedro. Well, if ever thou dost fall from this faith, thou wilt prove a notable argument.°

Benedick. If I do, hang me in a bottle° like a cat and shoot at me; and he that hits me, let him be clapped on the shoulder and called Adam.°

Don Pedro. Well, as time shall try:

225-26 in the despite of in contempt of

228 will sexual appetite

231 rechate recheate, notes on a hunting horn

233 baldrick belt, sling (the reference here, and in rechate, is to the horns of a cuckold)

235 fine finis, result

247 notable argument famous example

248 bottle basket

250 Adam i.e., Adam Bell, one of the three superlative archers in the ballad “Adam Bell”

“In time the savage bull doth bear the yoke.”

Benedick. The savage bull may, but if ever the sensible Benedick bear it, pluck off the bull’s horns and set them in my forehead, and let me be vilely painted, and in such great letters as they write “Here is good horse to hire,” let them signify under my sign “Here you may see Benedick the married man.”

Claudio. If this should ever happen, thou wouldst be horn-mad.°

Don Pedro. Nay, if Cupid have not spent all his quiver in Venice,° thou wilt quake for this shortly.

Benedick. I look for an earthquake too then.

Don Pedro. Well, you will temporize with the hours.° In the meantime, good Signior Benedick, repair to Leonato’s. Commend me to him and tell him I will not fail him at supper; for indeed he hath made great preparation.

Benedick. I have almost matter° enough in me for such an embassage, and so I commit you—

Claudio. To the tuition° of God. From my house, if I had it—

Don Pedro. The sixth of July. Your loving friend, Benedick.

275 Benedick. Nay, mock not, mock not.