It is the base (though bitter) disposi tion of Beatrice that puts the world into her person and so gives me out.° Well, I’ll be revenged as I may.

Enter the Prince [Don Pedro], Hero, Leonato.

Don Pedro. Now, signior, where’s the Count? Did you see him?

Benedick. Troth, my lord, I have played the part of Lady Fame.° I found him here as melancholy as a lodge in a warren.° I told him, and I think I told him true, that your Grace had got the good will of this young lady, and I off red him my company to a willow tree, either to make him a garland, as being forsaken, or to bind him up a rod, as being worthy to be whipped.

185 next nearest

185 willow symbol of unrequited love

186 County Count 192 drovier cattle dealer

197-98 beat the post i.e., strike out blindly

205-07 It is ... gives me out it is the low and harsh disposition of Beatrice to assume her opinion of me is the world’s opinion of me

212 Lady Fame goddess of rumor

Don Pedro. To be whipped? What’s his fault?

Benedick. The flat transgression of a schoolboy who, being overjoyed with finding a bird’s nest, shows it his companion, and he steals it.

Don Pedro. Wilt thou make a trust a transgression? The transgression is in the stealer.

Benedick. Yet it had not been amiss the rod had been made, and the garland too; for the garland he might have worn himself, and the rod he might have bestowed on you, who (as I take it) have stol’n his bird’s nest.

Don Pedro. I will but teach them to sing and restore them to the owner.

Benedick. If their singing answer your saying, by my faith you say honestly.

Don Pedro. The Lady Beatrice hath a quarrel to you. The gentleman that danced with her told her she is much wronged by you.

Benedick. O, she misused me past the endurance of a block! An oak but with one green leaf on it would have answered her; my very visor began to assume life and scold with her. She told me, not thinking I had been myself, that I was the Prince’s jester, that I was duller than a great thaw; huddling jest upon jest with such impossible conveyance° upon me that I stood like a man at a mark,° with a whole army shooting at me. She speaks poniards, and every word stabs. If her breath were as terrible as her termiriations,° there were no living near her; she would infect to the North Star. I would not marry her though she were endowed with all that Adam had left him before he transgressed. She would have made Hercules have turned spit, yea, and have cleft his club to make the fire too. Come, talk not of her. You shall find her the infernal Ate° in good apparel. I would to God some scholar would conjure her,° for certainly, while she is here, a man may live as quiet in hell as in a sanctuary; and people sin upon purpose, because they would go thither; so indeed all disquiet, horror, and perturbation follows her.

213 in a warren i.e., in a lonely place

243 impossible conveyance incredible dexterity

244 mark target

Enter Claudio and Beatrice.

Don Pedro. Look, here she comes.

Benedick. Will your Grace command me any service to the world’s end? I will go on the slightest errand now to the Antipodes that you can devise to send me‘on; I will fetch you a toothpicker now from the furthest inch of Asia; bring you the length of Prester John’s° foot; fetch you a hair off the great Cham‘s° beard; do you any embassage to the Pygmies—rather than hold three words’ conference with this harpy. You have no employment for me?

Don Pedro. None, but to desire your good company.

Benedick. O God, sir, here’s a dish I love not! I cannot endure my Lady Tongue. Exit.

Don Pedro. Come, lady, come; you have lost the heart of Signior Benedick.

Beatrice. Indeed, my lord, he lent it me awhile, and I gave him use° for it, a double heart for his single one. Marry, once before he won it of me with false dice; therefore your Grace may well say I have lost it.

247 terminations words

253 Ate goddess of discord

255conjure her i.e., exorcise the devil out of her

265-66 Prester John legendary Christian king in remote Asia

266Cham Khan

276use interest

Don Pedro. You have put him down, lady; you have put him down.

Beatrice. So I would not he should do me, my lord, lest I should prove the mother of fools.° I have brought Count Claudio, whom you sent me to seek.

Don Pedro. Why, how now, Count? Wherefore are you sad?

Claudio. Not sad, my lord.

Don Pedro. How then? Sick?

Claudio. Neither, my lord.

Beatrice. The Count is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor well; but civil Count, civil° as an orange, and something of that jealous complexion.°

Don Pedro. I’ faith, lady, I think your blazon° to be true; though I’ll be sworn, if he be so, his conceit° is false. Here, Claudio, I have wooed in thy name, and fair Hero is won. I have broke with her father, and his good will obtained. Name the day of marriage, and God give thee joy!

Leonato. Count, take of me my daughter, and with her my fortunes. His Grace hath made the match, and all grace say amen to it!

Beatrice. Speak, Count, ‘tis your cue.

Claudio. Silence is the perfectest herald of joy. I were but little happy if I could say how much. Lady, as you are mine, I am yours. I give away myself for you and dote upon the exchange.

Beatrice. Speak, cousin; or (if you cannot) stop his mouth with a kiss and let not him speak neither.

283 fools babies

291 civil polite (with a pun on orange of Seville)

292 complexion (1) disposition (2) color (i.e., yellowish for jealousy)

293 blazon description

294 conceit idea, concept

Don Pedro. In faith, lady, you have a merry heart.

Beatrice. Yea, my lord; I thank it, poor fool, it keeps on the windy° side of care. My cousin tells him in his ear that he is in her heart.

Claudio. And so she doth, cousin.

Beatrice. Good Lord, for alliance! Thus goes every one to the world but I, and I am sunburnt.° I may sit in a comer and cry “Heigh-ho for a husband!”

Don Pedro. Lady Beatrice, I will get you one.

Beatrice. I would rather have one of your father’s getting.° Hath your Grace ne‘er a brother like you? Your father got excellent husbands, if a maid could come by them.

Don Pedro. Will you have me, lady?

Beatrice. No, my lord, unless I might have another for working days; your Grace is too costly to wear every day. But I beseech your Grace pardon me. 325 I was born to speak all mirth and no matter.

Don Pedro. Your silence most offends me, and to be merry best becomes you, for out o’ question you were born in a merry hour.

Beatrice. No, sure, my lord, my mother cried; but then there was a star danced, and under that was I born. Cousins, God give you joy!

Leonato. Niece, will you look to those things I told you of?

Beatrice. I cry you mercy,° uncle. By your Grace’s pardon.

Exit Beatrice.

Don Pedro. By my troth, a pleasant-spirited lady.

311 windy windward, safe

314-15 Good Lord... sunburnt i.e., everyone gets a husband but me, and I am ugly (sunburnt=tanned, and therefore ugly in the sixteenth century)

319 getting begetting

335 cry you mercy beg your pardon

Leonato. There’s little of the melancholy element in her, my lord. She is never sad but when she sleeps, and not ever° sad then; for I have heard my daughter say she hath often dreamt of unhappiness and waked herself with laughing.

Don Pedro. She cannot endure to hear tell of a husband.

Leonato. O, by no means! She mocks all her wooers out of suit.

Don Pedro. She were an excellent wife for Benedick.

Leonato. O Lord, my lord! If they were but a week married, they would talk themselves mad.

Don Pedro. County Claudio, when mean you to go to church?

Claudio. Tomorrow, my lord.