| ACT V 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 | 5 |
| | 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. | 10 |
| 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. | 15 |
| 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. | 20 |
| | 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 | 25 |
| | 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 | 30 |
| | 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, | 35 |
| | 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 | 40 |
| | 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 | 45 |
| | 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 | 50 |
| | 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 | 55 |
| | 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 | 60 |
| | 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 | 65 |
| | 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? | 70 |
| 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 | 75 |
| | 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. | 80 |
| 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 | 85 |
| | 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 | 90 |
| | thee to thy uncle's. | |
| | Exeunt | |
