Enter HERO, MARGARET, and URSULA. HERO. Good Margaret, run thee to the parlour; Walk in the orchard, and our whole discourse Made proud by princes, that advance their pride Against that power that bred it :-there will she hide her, To listen our purpose a: This is thy office, Bear thee well in it, and leave us alone. MARG. I'll make her come, I warrant you, presently. HERO. Now, Ursula, when Beatrice doth come, As we do trace this alley up and down, To praise him more than ever man did merit : Is sick in love with Beatrice: Of this matter Enter BEATRICE, behind. For look where Beatrice, like a lapwing, runs HERO. Then go we near her, that her ear lose nothing URS. No, truly, Ursula, she is too disdainful; But are you sure, [Exit. [They advance to the bower. Purpose. So the folio; the quarto, propose. The accent must be placed on the second syllable of purpose. The words have the same meaning-that of conversation-and were indifferently used by old writers. In the third line of this scene we have,— But I persuaded them, if they lov'd Benedick, To wish him wrestle with affection, And never to let Beatrice know of it. URS. Why did you so? Doth not the gentleman As ever Beatrice shall couch upon ? HERO. O God of love! I know he doth deserve a a And therefore, certainly, it were not good She knew his love, lest she make sport at it. If speaking, why, a vane blown with all winds; If silent, why, a block moved with none. But who dare tell her so? If I should speak, e She would mock me into air; O, she would laugh me Out of myself, press me to death with wit. Therefore let Benedick, like cover'd fire, Misprising-undervaluing. She would swear. This has been turned into she'd swear, to suit the mincing rhythm of the commentators. • Black-as opposed to fair-swarthy. d Agate. In Henry IV., Part II.,' Act I., Scene 2, Falstaff says of his page, "I was never manned with an agate till now." Agates were cut into various forms, such as men's heads. See Note on the passage in Henry IV.' She would mock. Changed also to she'd mock by modern editors. Consume away in sighs, waste inwardly: It were a better death than die with mocks ; URS. Yet tell her of it; hear what she will say. And counsel him to fight against his passion: She cannot be so much without true judgment, As she is priz'd to have,) as to refuse Always excepted my dear Claudio. URS. I pray you, be not angry with me, madam, For shape, for bearing, argumenta, and valour, HERO. Indeed, he hath an excellent good name. HERO. Why, every day;-to-morrow: Come, go in; I'll show thee some attires; and have thy counsel, URS. She's ta'en ", I warrant you; we have caught her, madam. HERO. If it prove so, then loving goes by haps: Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps. [Exeunt HERO and URSULA. BEATRICE advances. BEAT. What fire is in mine ears 15? Can this be true? A Stand I condemn'd for pride and scorn so much? Contempt, farewell! and maiden pride, adieu! No glory lives behind the back of such. And, Benedick, love on, I will requite thee; For others say thou dost deserve; and I Believe it better than reportingly. [Exit. Argument-conversation. So in 'Henry IV., Part I.:' " It would be argument for a week." Ta'en. So the folio; the quarto, limed. SCENE II.-A Room in Leonato's House. Enter DON PEDRO, CLAUDIO, BENEDICK, and LEONATO. D. PEDRO. I do but stay till your marriage be consummate, and then go ward Arragon. CLAUD. I'll bring you thither, my lord, if you 'll vouchsafe me. I to D. PEDRO. Nay, that would be as great a soil in the new gloss of your marriage, as to show a child his new coat, and forbid him to wear it. I will only be bold with Benedick for his company; for, from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot, he is all mirth; he hath twice or thrice cut Cupid's bowstring, and the little hangman dare not shoot at him: he hath a heart as sound as a bell, and his tongue is the clapper; for what his heart thinks his tongue speaks. BENE. Gallants, I am not as I have been. LEON. So say I; methinks you are sadder. CLAUD. I hope he be in love. D. PEDRO. Hang him, truant; there's no true drop of blood in him, to be truly touched with love: if he be sad, he wants money. BENE. I have the tooth-ach. D. PEDRO. Draw it. BENE. Hang it ! CLAUD. You must hang it first, and draw it afterwards. D. PEDRO. What? sigh for the tooth-ach? LEON. Where is but a humour, or a worm? BENE. Well, every one can'a master a grief, but he that has it. CLAUD. Yet, say I, he is in love. D. PEDRO. There is no appearance of fancy in him, unless it be a fancy that he hath to strange disguises; as, to be a Dutchman to-day; a Frenchman to-morrow; [or in the shape of two countries at once, as, a German from the waist downward, all slops; and a Spaniard from the hip upward, no doublet] Unless he have a fancy to this foolery, as it appears he hath, he is no fool for fancy, as you would have it to appear he is. CLAUD. If he be not in love with some woman, there is no believing old signs: he brushes his hat o' mornings: What should that bode? D. PEDRO. Hath any man seen him at the barber's? CLAUD. No, but the barber's man hath been seen with him; and the old ornament of his cheek hath already stuffed tennisballs a. Can. The original copies, cannot. b Fancy is here used in a different sense from the same word which immediately precedes it— although fancy in the sense of love is the same as fancy in the sense of the indulgence of a humour. The fancy which makes a lover, and the fancy which produces a bird-fancier, each express the same subjection of the will to the imagination. • The passage in brackets is not found in the folio, but is supplied from the quarto. In one of Nashe's pamphlets, 1591, we have, "they may sell their hair by the pound, to stuff tennis-balls." Several of the old comedies allude to the same employment of human hair. |