stuffed man: but for the stuffing-well, we are all mortal.

Leon. You must not, sir, mistake my niece: there is a kind of merry war betwixt Signior Benedick and her: they never meet but there is a skirmish of wit between them.

Beat. Alas, he gets nothing by that. In our last conflict, four of his five wits went halting off, and now is the whole man governed with one: so that if he have wit enough to keep himself warm, let him bear it for a difference between himself and his horse; for it is all the wealth that he hath left, to be known a reasonable creature. - Who is his companion now? He hath every month a new sworn brother.

Mess. Is it possible?

D. Pedro. You embrace your charge too willingly. I think this is your daughter.

Leon. Her mother hath many times told me so. Bene. Were you in doubt, sir, that you asked her?

Leon. Signior Benedick, no; for then were you a child.

D. Pedro. You have it full, Benedick: we may guess by this what you are, being a man. Truly the lady fathers herself. Be happy, lady! for you are like an honorable father.

Bene. If Signior Leonato be her father, she would not have his head on her shoulders for all Messina, as like him as she is.

Beat. I wonder that you will still be talking,
Signior Benedick; nobody marks you.
Bene. What, my dear lady Disdain! are you yet
living?

Beat. Is it possible disdain should die, while she

Beat. Very easily possible: he wears his faith but as the fashion of his hat, it ever changes with the next block. Mess. I see, lady, the gentleman is not in your hath such meet food to feed it, as Signior Benebooks. dick? Courtesy itself must convert to disdain, if you come in her presence.

Beat. No: an he were, I would burn my study. But, I pray you, who is his companion? Is there no young squarer now, that will make a voyage with him to the devil?

Bene. Then is courtesy a turncoat. But it is certain, I am loved of all ladies, only you excepted: and I would I could find in my heart that I had

Mess. He is most in the company of the right not a hard heart; for truly I love none. noble Claudio.

Beat. O Lord! he will hang upon him like a
disease he is sooner caught than the pestilence,
and the taker runs presently mad. God help the
noble Claudio! if he have caught the Benedick, it
will cost him a thousand pound ere he be cured.
Mess. I will hold friends with you, lady.
Beat. Do, good friend.

Leon. You will never run mad, niece.
Beat. No, not till a hot January.
Mess. Don Pedro is approached.

Enter DON PEDRO, attended by BALTHAZAR and others; DON JOHN, CLAUDIO, and BENEDICK.

D. Pedro. Good Signior Leonato, you are come to meet your trouble: the fashion of the world is to avoid cost, and you encounter it.

Leon. Never came trouble to my house in the likeness of your grace; for trouble being gone, comfort should remain; but when you depart from me, sorrow abides, and happiness takes his leave.

Beat. A dear happiness to women; they would else have been troubled with a pernicious suitor. I thank God, and my cold blood, I am of your humor for that; I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow, than a man swear he loves me.

Bene. God keep your ladyship still in that mind! so some gentleman or other shall 'scape a predestinate scratched face.

Beat. Scratching could not make it worse, an 't were such a face as yours were.

Bene. Well, you are a rare parrot-teacher. Beat. A bird of my tongue is better than a beast of yours.

Bene. I would my horse had the speed of your tongue; and so good a continuer. But keep your way o' God's name; I have done.

Beat. You always end with a jade's trick; I know you of old.

D. Pedro. This is the sum of all: Leonato Signior Claudio and Signior Benedick my dear friend Leonato hath invited you all. 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. Leon. If you swear, my lord, you shall not be forsworn. Let me bid you welcome, my lord: being reconciled to the prince your brother, I owe you all duty.

Bene. Is it come to this, i' faith? Hath not the world one man but he will wear his cap with suspicion? shall I never see a bachelor of threescore again? Go to, i' faith: an thou wilt needs thrust thy neck into a yoke, wear the print of it, and sigh away Sundays. Look, Don Pedro is returned to

D. John. I thank you: I am not of many words, seek you. but I thank you.

Leon. Please it your grace lead on?

D. Pedro. Your hand, Leonato; we will go together. [Exeunt all but BENEDICK and CLAUDIO. Claud. Benedick, didst thou note the daughter of Signior Leonato?

Bene. I noted her not; but I looked on her. Claud. Is she not a modest young lady? Bene. 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?

Re-enter DON PEDRO.

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

Bene. I would your grace would constrain me to tell.

D. Pedro. I charge thee on thy allegiance. Bene. 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 an

Claud. No, I pray thee, speak in sober judg-swer is:-With Hero, Leonato's short daughter. ment.

Bene. Why, i' faith, methinks she is 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.

Claud. Thou thinkest I am in sport; I pray thee tell me truly how thou likest her.

Claud. If this were so, so were it uttered. Bene. Like the old tale, my lord: "It is not so, nor 't was not so; but, indeed, God forbid it should be so."

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

is

D. Pedro. Amen, if you love her; for the lady very well worthy.

Claud. You speak this to fetch me in, my

Bene. Would you buy her, that you enquire af- lord. ter her?

Claud. Can the world buy such a jewel? Bene. 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 harefinder, and Vulcan a rare carpenter? Come, in what key shall a man take in the song? you, to go

D. Pedro. By my troth, I speak my thought. Claud. And in faith, my lord, I spoke mine. Bene. And by my two faiths and troths, my lord, I spoke mine.

Claud. That I love her, I feel.

D. Pedro. That she is worthy, I know.

Bene. That I neither feel how she should be

Claud. In mine eye, she is the sweetest lady loved, nor know how she should be worthy, is the that ever I looked on. opinion that fire cannot melt out of me; I will die in it at the stake.

Bene. I can see yet without spectacles, and I see no such matter: there's her cousin, an 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?

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

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

Claud. And never could maintain his part, but in the force of his will.

Bene. 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 recheat 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.

Claud. My liege, your highness now may do me good.

D. Pedro. My love is thine to teach; teach it but how,

And thou shalt see how apt it is to learn

D. Pedro. I shall see thee, ere I die, look pale | Any hard lesson that may do thee good. with love.

Bene. 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.

Claud. Hath Leonato any son, my lord?

D. Pedro. No child but Hero, she's his only
heir:

Dost thou affect her, Claudio?
Claud. O, my lord,

When you went onward on this ended action,
I looked upon her with a soldier's eye,

D. Pedro. Well, if ever thou dost fall from this That liked, but had a rougher task in hand faith, thou wilt prove a notable argument.

Bene. 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.

D. Pedro. Well, as time shall try; "In time the savage bull doth bear the yoke." Bene. 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.

Than to drive liking to the name of love:
But now I am returned, and that war-thoughts
Have left their places vacant, in their rooms
Come thronging soft and delicate desires,
All prompting me how fair young Hero is;
Saying, I liked her ere I went to wars.

D. Pedro. Thou wilt be like a lover presently,
And tire the hearer with a book of words.
If thou dost love fair Hero, cherish it;
And I will break with her and with her father,
And thou shalt have her. Was 't not to this end
That thou began'st to twist so fine a story?
Claud. How sweetly do you minister to love,

Claud. If this should ever happen, thou wouldst That know love's grief by his complexion! be horn-mad.

D. Pedro. Nay, if Cupid have not spent all his quiver in Venice, thou wilt quake for this shortly. Bene. I look for an earthquake too, then. D. Pedro. Well, you will temporize with the hours. In the mean time, 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.

But lest my liking might too sudden seem,
I would have salved it with a longer treatise.
D. Pedro. What need the bridge much broader
than the flood?

The fairest grant is the necessity:
Look, what will serve is fit: 't is once, thou
lov'st;

And I will fit thee with the remedy.
I know we shall have reveling to-night;

Bene. I have almost matter enough in me for I will assume thy part in some disguise, such an embassage; and so I commit you And tell fair Hero I am Claudio;

Claud. "To the tuition of God. From my And in her bosom I'll unclasp my heart, house," (if I had it) And take her hearing prisoner with the force

D. Pedro. "The sixth of July: your loving And strong encounter of my amorous tale:
friend, Benedick."
Then, after, to her father will I break;
And the conclusion is, she shall be thine:
In practice let us put it presently.

Bene. Nay, mock not, mock not. The body of your discourse is sometime guarded with fragments, and the guards are but slightly basted on neither: ere you flout old ends any further, examine your conscience; and so I leave you.

[Exit.

[Exeunt.

Leon. Hath the fellow any wit that told you blood to be disdained of all, than to fashion a carthis? riage to rob love from any: in this, though I canAnt. A good sharp fellow. I will send for him, not be said to be a flattering honest man, it must and question him yourself.

D. John. A very forward March-chick! How hath all the glory of my overthrow; if I can cross came you to this? him any way, I bless myself every way: you are both sure, and will assist me?

ACT II.