DON JOHN. Let us to the great supper: their cheer is the greater that I am subdued. Would the cook were of my mind! Shall we go to prove what’s to be done?
BORACHIO.
We’ll wait upon your lordship.
[Exeunt.]
ACT 2.
Scene I. A hall in LEONATO’S house.
[Enter LEONATO, ANTONIO, HERO, BEATRICE, and Others.]
LEONATO.
Was not Count John here at supper?
ANTONIO.
I saw him not.
BEATRICE. How tartly that gentleman looks! I never can see him but I am heartburned an hour after.
HERO.
He is of a very melancholy disposition.
BEATRICE. He were an excellent man that were made just in the mid-way between him and Benedick: the one is too like an image, and says nothing; and the other too like my lady’s eldest son, evermore tattling.
LEONATO.
Then half Signior Benedick’s tongue in Count John’s mouth, and half
Count John’s melancholy in Signior Benedick’s face,—
BEATRICE. With a good leg and a good foot, uncle, and money enough in his purse, such a man would win any woman in the world ifa’ could get her good will.
LEONATO. By my troth, niece, thou wilt never get thee a husband, if thou be so shrewd of thy tongue.
ANTONIO.
In faith, she’s too curst.
BEATRICE. Too curst is more than curst: I shall lessen God’s sending that way; for it is said, ‘God sends a curst cow short horns;’ but to a cow too curst he sends none.
LEONATO.
So, by being too curst, God will send you no horns?
BEATRICE. Just, if he send me no husband; for the which blessing I am at him upon my knees every morning and evening. Lord! I could not endure a husband with a beard on his face: I had rather lie in the woollen.
LEONATO.
You may light on a husband that hath no beard.
BEATRICE. What should I do with him? dress him in my apparel and make him my waiting-gentlewoman? He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man; and he that is more than a youth is not for me; and he that is less than a man, I am not for him: therefore I will even take sixpence in earnest of the bear-ward, and lead his apes into hell.
LEONATO.
Well then, go you into hell?
BEATRICE. No; but to the gate; and there will the devil meet me, like an old cuckold, with horns on his head, and say, ‘Get you to heaven, Beatrice, get you to heaven; here’s no place for you maids: ‘so deliver I up my apes, and away to Saint Peter for the heavens; he shows me where the bachelors sit, and there live we as merry as the day is long.
ANTONIO.
[To Hero.] Well, niece, I trust you will be ruled by your father.
BEATRICE.
Yes, faith; it is my cousin’s duty to make curtsy, and say,
‘Father, as it please you:’— but yet for all that, cousin, let him
be a handsome fellow, or else make another curtsy, and say,
‘Father, as it please me.’
LEONATO.
Well, niece, I hope to see you one day fitted with a husband.
BEATRICE. Not till God make men of some other metal than earth. Would it not grieve a woman to be overmastered with a piece of valiant dust? to make an account of her life to a clod of wayward marl? No, uncle, I’ll none: Adam’s sons are my brethren; and truly, I hold it a sin to match in my kinred.
LEONATO. Daughter, remember what I told you: if the prince do solicit you in that kind, you know your answer.
BEATRICE. The fault will be in the music, cousin, if you be not wooed in good time: if the prince be too important, tell him there is measure in everything, and so dance out the answer. For, hear me, Hero: wooing, wedding, and repenting is as a Scotch jig, a measure, and a cinque-pace: the first suit is hot and hasty, like a Scotch jig, and full as fantastical; the wedding, mannerly-modest, as a measure, full of state and ancientry; and then comes Repentance, and with his bad legs, falls into the cinque-pace faster and faster, till he sink into his grave.
LEONATO.
Cousin, you apprehend passing shrewdly.
BEATRICE.
I have a good eye, uncle: I can see a church by daylight.
LEONATO.
The revellers are entering, brother: make good room.
[Enter, DON PEDRO, CLAUDIO, BENEDICK, BALTHASAR, DON JOHN,
BORACHIO, MARGARET, URSULA, and Others, masked.]
DON PEDRO.
Lady, will you walk about with your friend?
HERO. So you walk softly and look sweetly and say nothing, I am yours for the walk; and especially when I walk away.
DON PEDRO.
With me in your company?
HERO.
I may say so, when I please.
DON PEDRO.
And when please you to say so?
HERO. When I like your favour; for God defend the lute should be like the case!
DON PEDRO.
My visor is Philemon’s roof; within the house is Jove.
HERO.
Why, then, your visor should be thatch’d.
DON PEDRO.
Speak low, if you speak love.
[Takes her aside.]
BALTHAZAR.
Well, I would you did like me.
MARGARET.
So would not I, for your own sake; for I have many ill qualities.
BALTHAZAR.
Which is one?
MARGARET.
I say my prayers aloud.
BALTHAZAR.
I love you the better; the hearers may cry Amen.
MARGARET.
God match me with a good dancer!
BALTHAZAR.
Amen.
MARGARET. And God keep him out of my sight when the dance is done! Answer, clerk.
BALTHAZAR.
No more words: the clerk is answered.
URSULA.
I know you well enough: you are Signior Antonio.
ANTONIO.
At a word, I am not.
URSULA.
I know you by the waggling of your head.
ANTONIO.
To tell you true, I counterfeit him.
URSULA.