dance out the anfwer. For hear me, Hero, wooing, wedding, and repenting, is as a Scotch jig, a measure, and a cinque-pace: the firft fuit is hot and hafty, like a Scotch jig, and full as fantastical; the wedding, mannerly_modeft, as a measure full of ftate and ancientry; and then comes repentance, and, with his bad legs, falls into the cinque-pace faster and faster, till he fink into his grave. Leon. Coufin, you apprehend paffing fhrewdly. Beat. I have a good eye, uncle; I can fee a church by day-light. Leon. The revellers are entering, brother; make good room.. Enter Don PEDKO, CLAUDIO, BENEDICK, BALTHAZAR,, Don JOHN, BORACHIO, MARGARET, URSULA, and others, mask'd. Pedro. Lady, will you walk about with your friend.. Hero. So you walk foftly, and look fweetly, and say nothing, I am yours for the walk; and especially when I walk away. Pedro. With me in your company ? Pedro. And when please you to say fo? Hero. When I like your favour; for God defend the lute fhould be like the cafe ! Pedro. My vizor is Philemon's roof; within the house is Jove. Hero. Why, then your vizor fhould be thatch'd. Bene. Well, I would you did like me. Marg. So would not I, for your own fake; for I have many ill qualities. Bene. Which is one? Marg. I fay 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 fight when the dance is done !-Anfwer, clerk. Balth. No more words; the clerk is anfwer'd. Urf. I know you well enough; you are fignior Antonio. Urf. I know you by the waggling of your head. Ant. To tell you true, I counterfeit him. Urf. You could never do him fo 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. Urf. Come, come; do you think I do not know you by your excellent wit? Can virtue hide itfelf? Go to, mum, you are he: Graces will appear, and there's an end. Beat. Will you not tell me who told you fo? Bene. No, you shall pardon me. Beat. Nor will you not tell me who you are? Beat. That I was disdainful-and that I had my good. wit out of the Hundred merry Tales ;-Well, this was fignior Benedick that faid fo. Bene. What's he? Beat. I am fure you know him well enough. Beat. Did he never make you laugh? Bene. I pray you, what is he? Beat. Why, he is the prince's jefter: a very dull fool; only his gift is in devifing impoffible flanders: none but libertines delight in him; and the commendation is not in his wit, but in his villany; for he both pleaseth men, and angers them, and then they laugh at him, and beat him: I am fure he is in the fleet; I would he had boarded me. Bene. When I know the gentleman, I'll tell him what you fay. Beat. Do, do; he'll but break a comparison or two on me; which, peradventure, not mark'd, or not laugh'd at, ftrikes him into melancholy; and then there's a par tridge wing fav'd, for the fool will eat no fupper that night. We muft follow the leaders. [Mufic within. Bene. In every good thing. Beat. Nay, if they lead to any ill, I will leave them at the next turning. [Exeunt. Manent JOHN, BORACHIO, and CLAUDIO. 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 vizor remains. Bora. And that is Claudio; I know him by his bearing. John. Are you not fignior Benedick ? Claud. You know me well; I am he. John. Signior, you are very near my brother in his love he is enamour'd on Hero; I pray you, dissuade him from her, she is no equal for his birth: you may do the part of an honeft man it. Claud. How know you he loves her? John. I heard him fwear his affection. Bora. So did I too; and he fwore he would marry her o-night. John. Come, let us to the banquet. [Exeunt JOHN and BORA. Claud. Thus anfwer I in name of Benedick, But hear this ill-news with the ears of Claudio."Tis certain fo :-The prince woos for himself. Friendship is conftant in all other things, Save in the office and affairs of love: Therefore, all hearts in love use their own tongues: And truft no agent; for beauty is a witch, Which I mistrusted not: Farewel, therefore, Hero! Bene. Count Claudio! Claud. Yea, the fame. Bene. Come, will you go with me? Bene. Even to the next willow, about your own bufinefs, count. What fashion will you wear the garland of? About your neck, like an ufurer's chain? or under your arm, like a lieutenant's fcarf? 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 honeft drover; fo they fell bullocks. But did you think the prince would have ferv'd you thus ? Claud. I pray you, leave me. Bene. Ho! now you strike like the blind man ; 'twas the boy that stole your meat, and you'll beat the post. Claud. If it will not be, I'll leave you. [Exit. Bene. Alas, poor hurt fowl! Now will he creep into fedges. But, that my lady Beatrice fhould know me, and not know me! The prince's fool!-Ha? it may be, it I go under that title, because I am merry.-Yea; but fo I am apt to do myself wrong: I am not fo reputed is the base, the bitter difpofition of Beatrice, that puts the world into her person, and fo gives me out. Well, I'll be reveng'd as I may. Re-enter Don PEDRO. Pedro. Now, fignior, where's the count? Did you fee him? Bene. Troth, my lord, I have play'd the part of lady Fame. I found him here as melancholy as a lodge in a warren ;[1] I told him, (and I think I told him true) that your grace had got the will of this young lady; and I offered him my company to a willow tree, either to make him a garland, as being forfaken, or to bind him up a rod, as being worthy to be whipt. Pedro. To be whipt! What's his fault? Bene. The flat tranfgreffion of a school-boy; who, being overjoy'd with finding a bird's neft, fhews it his companion, and he fteals it. Pedro. Wilt thou make a trust a tranfgreffion? The tranfgreffion is in the stealer. Bene. Yet it had not been amifs, the rod had been made, and the garland too: for the garland he might have worn himself; and the rod he might have bestow'd on you, who, (as I take it) have ftol'n his bird's neft. Pedro. I will but teach them to fing, and restore them to the owner. Bene. If their finging anfwer your faying, by my faith, you fay honeftly. Pedro. The lady Beatrice hath a quarrel to you; the gentleman that danc'd with her, told her she is much wrong'd by you. Bene. O, the misus'd me past the indurance of a block; an oak, but with one green leaf on it, would have an fwer'd her; my very vizor began to affume life and scold with her She told me, not thinking I had been myself, that I was the prince's jefter, and that I was duller than a great thaw; huddling jeft upon jeft, with such impof [1] A parallel thought occurs in the first chapter of Ifaiah, where the prophet, defcribing the defolation of Judah, fays," The daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers," &c. I am informed, that near Aleppo, thefe lonely buildings are ftill made ufe of, it being neceffary, that the fields where water-melons, cucumbers, &c. are raised, should be regularly watched. STEEV. fible conveyance upon me, that I ftood like a man at a mark, with a whole army fhooting at me: she speaks poniards, and every word ftabs: If her breath were as terrible as her terminations, there were no living near her; fhe would infect to the north ftar. I would not marry her, though the were endowed with all that Adam had left him before he tranfgrefs'd: fhe would have made Hercules have turn'd fpit; yea, and have cleft his club to make the fire too. Come, talk not of her; you fhall find her the infernal Até in good apparel.[2] I would to God, fome scholar would conjure her: for, certainly, while fhe is here, a man may live as quiet in hell as in a sanctuary; and people fin upon purpose, because they would go thither: fo, indeed, all difquiet, horror, and perturbation follow her. Enter CLAUDIO, BEATRICE, LEONATO, and HERO. Pedro. Look, here the comes. Bene. Will your grace command me any service to the world's end? I will go on the flighteft errand now to the antipodes, that you can devise to send me on; I will fetch you a tooth-picker now from the fartheft inch of Afia; bring you the length of Prefter John's foot; fetch you a hair off the great Cham's beard ;[3] do you any embaffage to the Pigmies, rather than hold three words conference with this harpy: You have no employment for me? Pedro. None, but to defire your good company. Bene. O God, fir, here's a dish I love not: I cannot endure this lady Tongue. [Exit. Pedro. Come, lady, come; you have loft the heart of fignior Benedick. Beat. Indeed, my lord, he lent it me a while; and I gave him ufe for it, a double heart for a fingle one: marry, once before he won it of me with falfe dice, therefore, your grace may well fay, I have loft it. Pedro. You have put him down, lady; you have put him down. Beat. So I would not he should do me, my lord, left I should prove the mother of fools. I have brought [2] This is a pleafant allufion to the custom of ancient poets and painters, who reprefent the furies in rags. WARB. [3] i. e. I will undertake the most difficult task, rather than have any converfation with lady Beatrice: Alluding to the difficulty of access to either of those monarchs, but more particularly to the former. VOL. II. X STEEV. |