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Much Ado About Nothing: Act 5 Scene 2

Scene II LEONATO'S garden.

[Enter BENEDICK and MARGARET, meeting]

BENEDICK

Pray thee, sweet Mistress Margaret, deserve well at

my hands by helping me to the speech of Beatrice.

MARGARET

Will you then write me a sonnet in praise of my beauty?

BENEDICK

In so high a style, Margaret, that no man living

shall come over it; for, in most comely truth, thou

deservest it.

MARGARET

To have no man come over me! why, shall I always

keep below stairs?

BENEDICK

Thy wit is as quick as the greyhound's mouth; it catches.

MARGARET

And yours as blunt as the fencer's foils, which hit,

but hurt not.

BENEDICK

A most manly wit, Margaret; it will not hurt a

woman: and so, I pray thee, call Beatrice: I give

thee the bucklers.

MARGARET

Give us the swords; we have bucklers of our own.

BENEDICK

If you use them, Margaret, you must put in the

pikes with a vice; and they are dangerous weapons for maids.

MARGARET

Well, I will call Beatrice to you, who I think hath legs.

BENEDICK

And therefore will come.

[Exit MARGARET]

[Sings]

The god of love,

That sits above,

And knows me, and knows me,

How pitiful I deserve,--

I mean in singing; but in loving, Leander the good

swimmer, Troilus the first employer of panders, and

a whole bookful of these quondam carpet-mangers,

whose names yet run smoothly in the even road of a

blank verse, why, they were never so truly turned

over and over as my poor self in love. Marry, I

cannot show it in rhyme; I have tried: I can find

out no rhyme to 'lady' but 'baby,' an innocent

rhyme; for 'scorn,' 'horn,' a hard rhyme; for,

'school,' 'fool,' a babbling rhyme; very ominous

endings: no, I was not born under a rhyming planet,

nor I cannot woo in festival terms.

[Enter BEATRICE]

Sweet Beatrice, wouldst thou come when I called thee?

BEATRICE

Yea, signior, and depart when you bid me.

BENEDICK

O, stay but till then!

BEATRICE

'Then' is spoken; fare you well now: and yet, ere

I go, let me go with that I came; which is, with

knowing what hath passed between you and Claudio.

BENEDICK

Only foul words; and thereupon I will kiss thee.

BEATRICE

Foul words is but foul wind, and foul wind is but

foul breath, and foul breath is noisome; therefore I

will depart unkissed.

BENEDICK

Thou hast frighted the word out of his right sense,

so forcible is thy wit. But I must tell thee

plainly, Claudio undergoes my challenge; and either

I must shortly hear from him, or I will subscribe

him a coward. And, I pray thee now, tell me for

which of my bad parts didst thou first fall in love with me?

BEATRICE

For them all together; which maintained so politic

a state of evil that they will not admit any good

part to intermingle with them. But for which of my

good parts did you first suffer love for me?

BENEDICK

Suffer love! a good epithet! I do suffer love

indeed, for I love thee against my will.

BEATRICE

In spite of your heart, I think; alas, poor heart!

If you spite it for my sake, I will spite it for

yours; for I will never love that which my friend hates.

BENEDICK

Thou and I are too wise to woo peaceably.

BEATRICE

It appears not in this confession: there's not one

wise man among twenty that will praise himself.

BENEDICK

An old, an old instance, Beatrice, that lived in

the lime of good neighbours. If a man do not erect

in this age his own tomb ere he dies, he shall live

no longer in monument than the bell rings and the

widow weeps.

BEATRICE

And how long is that, think you?

BENEDICK

Question: why, an hour in clamour and a quarter in

rheum: therefore is it most expedient for the

wise, if Don Worm, his conscience, find no

impediment to the contrary, to be the trumpet of his

own virtues, as I am to myself. So much for

praising myself, who, I myself will bear witness, is

praiseworthy: and now tell me, how doth your cousin?

BEATRICE

Very ill.

BENEDICK

And how do you?

BEATRICE

Very ill too.

BENEDICK

Serve God, love me and mend. There will I leave

you too, for here comes one in haste.

[Enter URSULA]

URSULA

Madam, you must come to your uncle. Yonder's old

coil at home: it is proved my Lady Hero hath been

falsely accused, the prince and Claudio mightily

abused; and Don John is the author of all, who is

fed and gone. Will you come presently?

BEATRICE

Will you go hear this news, signior?

BENEDICK

I will live in thy heart, die in thy lap, and be

buried in thy eyes; and moreover I will go with

thee to thy uncle's.

[Exeunt]