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I mean, in singing; but in loving, - Leander the good swimmer, Troilus the first employer of panders, and a whole book full of these quondam carpet-mongers, 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.3

Enter BEATRICE.

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Sweet Beatrice, wouldst thou come when I call'd thee?

Beat. Yea, signior; and depart when you bid me.
Bene. O, stay but till then!

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Beat. "Then is spoken; fare you well now:and yet, ere I go, let me go with that I came for; which is, with knowing what hath pass'd between you and Claudio.

Bene. Only foul words; and thereupon I will kiss

thee.

Beat. Foul words is but foul wind, and foul wind is but foul breath, and foul breath is noisome; therefore I will depart unkiss'd.

Bene. 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

4

That is, in choice phraseology. So mine Host in The Merry Wives of Windsor says of Fenton," He speaks holiday." And Hotspur, in 1 Henry IV. : "With many holiday and lady terms." Is under challenge, or now stands challenged, by me.

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?

Beat. For them all together; which maintain'd 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?

Bene. "Suffer love!" a good epithet. I do suffer love, indeed, for I love thee against my will.

Beat. 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.

Bene. Thou and I are too wise to woo peaceably. Beat. It appears not in this confession: there's not one wise man among twenty that will praise himself.

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Bene. An old, an old instance, Beatrice, that liv'd in the time 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.

Beat. And how long is that, think you?

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Bene. Question: Why, an hour in clamour. and a quarter in rheum: Therefore it is 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 praise-worthy. And now tell me, how doth your cousin ?

That is, when men were not envious, but every one gave another his due. You ask a question

This phrase seems equivalent to, indeed!" or, "That is the question!"

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Beat. Very ill.

Bene. And how do you?

Beat. Very ill too.

Bene. Serve God, love me, and mend: there will I leave you too, for here comes one in haste.

Enter URSULA.

Urs. Madam, you must come to your uncle : Yonder's old coil at home: it is proved, my lady Hero hath been falsely accus'd, the prince and Claudio mightily abus'd; and Don John is the author of all, who is fled and gone: Will you come presently?

Beat. Will you go hear this news, signior?

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Bene. 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

SCENE III. The Inside of a Church.

Enter Don Pedro, Claudio, and Attendants,
with music and tapers.

Claud. Is this the monument of Leonato ?
Atten. It is, my lord.

7 That is, huge bustle, or stir. Old was much used as an ang mentative in familiar language, perhaps because things that are old have given proof of strength, in having outstood the trial of time. Thus, in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act i. sc. + Here will be an old abusing of God's patience, and the king's English." So, likewise, in Dekker's comedy, "If this be not a good Play the Devil is in it:" "We shall have old breaking of necks" And in Le Bone Florence, quoted by Boswell Gode

olde fyghtyng was there."

H.

8 Mr. Collier says, -The Rev. Mr. Barry suggests to me that the words heart and eyes have in some way changed places in the old copies "

H.

Claud. [Reads.]

Epitaph.

Done to death' by slanderous tongues

Was the Hero that here lies:
Death, in guerdon of her wrongs,

Gives her fame which never dies:
So the life, that died with shame,
Lives in death with glorious fame.
Hang thou there upon the tomb,
Praising her when I am dumb.

Now, music, sound, and sing your solemn hymn.

Song.

Pardon, goddess of the night,

Those that slew thy virgin knight;3
For the which, with songs of woe,

Round about her tomb they go.

Midnight, assist our moan;

Help us to sigh and groan,

Heavily, heavily:

Graves, yawn, and yield your dead,

Till death be uttered,

Heavily, heavily.

This phrase occurs frequently in writers of Shakespeare s time it appears to be derived from the French phrase, faire

mourir.

Reward.

3 Knight was a common poetical appellation of virgins in Shakespeare's time; probably in allusion to their being the vo tarists of Diana, whose chosen pastime was in knightly sports. Thus, in Fletcher's Two Noble Kinsmen, Act v. sc. 1:

"O sacred, shadowy, cold, and constant queen,
Abandoner of revels, mute, contemplative,
Sweet, solitary, white as chaste, and pure
As wind-fann'd snow, who to thy female knights
Allow'st no more blood than will make a blush,
Which is their order's robe."

H.

We here give the reading of the quarto, though we confess

Claul. Now, unto thy bones good night!

Yearly will I do this rite.

D. Pedro. Good morrow, masters; put you.

torches out:

of

grey.

The wolves have prey'd; and look, the gentle day,
Before the wheels of Phœbus, round about
Dapples the drowsy east with spots
Thanks to you all, and leave us: fare you well.
Claud. Good morrow, masters: each his several
way.

D. Pedro. Come, let us hence, and put on other
weeds;

And then to Leonato's we will go.

Claud. And Hymen now with luckier issue speeds, Than this, for whom we render'd up this woe!

[Exeunt.

SCENE IV. A Room in LEONATO'S House.

Enter LEONATO, ANTONIO, BENEDICK, BEATRICE, URSULA, Friar, and HERO.

Friar. Did I not tell you she was innocent? Leon. So are the prince and Claudio, who accus'd

her

Upon the error that you heard debated :

ourselves somewhat puzzled to find its meaning, and on the whole rather doubtful whether it have any. The folio reads,14 Heav enly, heavenly," which seems still more obscure or meaningless but which Knight and Verplanck retain, explaining uttered to mean put out or expelled, a sense which it sometimes bears, and hear enly to mean by the power of heaven. In this case the sense jumps well enough with what goes before, but it looks too much like making the passage a hieroglyph. Steevens' explanation is, "till songs of death be uttered;" which makes heavily appropri ate; but then it gives a sense that can hardly be crushed into agreement with what precedes. Difficult as the meaning is either way, we keep to the reading that has the oldest authority. Mr. Dyce justly urges against the reading of the folio, that it gives a

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