Friendship is constant in all other things, Therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues, And trust no agent; beauty is a witch, Against whose charms faith melteth into blood. Which I mistrusted not. Farewel then, Hero! Enter Benedick. Bene. Count Claudio ? Claud. Yea, the fame. Bene. Come, will you go with me? Bene. Even to the next willow, about your own business, 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 scarf? 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 honest drover ; so they fell bullocks: but did you think, the Prince would have ferved 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 Poft. [Exit. Claud. If it will not be, I'll leave you. Bene. Alas, poor hurt fowl! now will he creep into sedges. But, that my Lady Beatrice should know me, and not know me! the Prince's fool! ha? it may be, I go under that Title, because I am merry 6 - Ufurer's chain?] I know not whether the chain was, in our authour's time, the common ornament of wealthy citi zens, or whether he fatirically uses ufurer and alderman as synonymous terms. Ο 2 yea, It is the base, the bitter, dis pofition of Beatrices, who puts the world into her person.) That is, it is the difpofition of Beatrice, who takes upon ber to perfonate the world, and therefore represents the world as saying what she only says yea, but so I am apt to do myself wrong: I am not so reputed. It is the base (tho' bitter) disposition of Beatrice, that puts the world into her person, and so gives me out; well, I'll be reveng'd as I may. Pedro. Now, 'Signior, 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, I told him (and I think, told him true) that your Grace had got the Will of this young lady, and I offer'd him my company to a willow tree, either to make him a garland, as being forsaken, 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 nest, shews it his companion, and he steals it. Pedro. Wilt thou make a trust, a tranfgreffion ? the tranfgreffion is in the stealer. Bene. Yet it had not been amiss, 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 stol'n his bird's neft. Pedro. I will but teach them to fing, and restore them to the owner. : herself. Base the bitter. I do not understand how base and bitter are inconsistent, or why what is bitter should not be base. I believe we may safely read, it is the bafe, the bitter disposition. Bene. Bene. If their finging answer your saying, by my faith, you say honestly. 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, she misus'd me past the indurance of a block; an oak, but with one green leaf on it, would have answer'd her; my very visor began to assume life, and fcold with her; she told me, not thinking I had been myself, that I was the Prince's jester, and that I was duller than a great thaw; hudling jest upon jest, with such impassable conveyance upon me, that I stood like a man at a mark, with a whole army shooting at me; she speaks Ponyards, and every word stabs: if her breath were as terrible as her terminations, there were no living near her, the would infect to the North-star; I would not marry her, though she were endowed with all that Adam had left him before he tranfgrefs'd; the would have made Hercules have turn'd Spit, yea and have cleft his club to make the fire too. Come, talk not of her, you shall find her the infernal Até in good apparel. I would to God, fome scholar & fuch IMPOSSIBLE-conveyance) We should read IMмPASSABLE. A term taken from fencing, when the strokes are so fwift and repeated as not to be parried or paffed off. WARB. I know not what to propose. Imposible seems to have no meaning here, and for impassable I have not found any authority. Spenfer uses the word importable in a sense very congruous to this passage, for insupportable, or not to be sustained. Both him charge on either fide With hideous ftrokes and importable pow'r, It may be easily imagined, that the transcribers would change a word so unusual, into that word most like it, which they could readily find. It must be however confessed, that importable appears harsh to our ears; and I wish a happier Critick may find a better word. Sir Thomas Hanmer reads impetuous, which will serve the purpose well enough, but is not likely to have been changed to impoffible. Which forced him his ground to traverse wide. 9 the infernal Até in good apparel.) This is a pleasant allufion to the custom of ancient poets and painters, who reprefent the furies in raggs. WARB. 03 would would conjure her; for, certainly, while she is here, a man may live as quiet in hell as in a fanctuary, and people fin upon purpose, because they would go thither; fo, indeed, all disquiet, horror, and perturbation follow her. SCENE V. Enter Claudio, Beatrice, Leonato and Hero. Pedro. Look, here she comes. Bene. Will your Grace command me any service to the world's end? I will go on the flightest errand now to the Antipodes, that you can devise to send me on; I will fetch you a tooth-picker now from the farthest inch of Afia; bring you the length of Prester John's foot: fetch you a hair off the great Cham's beard: do you any ambaffage 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, Sir, here's a dish I love not. I cannot indure this Lady Tongue. Pedro. Come, Lady, come; you have lost the heart of Signior Benedick. Beat. Indeed, my Lord, he lent it me a while, and I gave him use for it, a double heart for a single one; marry, once before he won it of me with false dice, therefore your Grace may well say, I have lost it. Pedro. You have put him down, Lady, you have put him down. Beat. So I would not he should do me, my Lord, lest I should prove the mother of fools; I have brought Count Claudio, whom you fent me to seek. Pedro. Why, how now, Count, wherefore are you fad? Claud. Not fad, my Lord. Pedro. How then? fick? Claud Claud. Neither, my Lord. Beat. The Count is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor well; but civil, Count, civil as an orange, and something of that jealous complexion. Pedro. I'faith, Lady, I think your blazon to be true; though I'll be sworn, if he be so, his conceit is false. Here, Claudio, I have wooed in thy name, and fair Hero is won; I have broke with her father, and his good will obtained; name the day of marriage, and God give thee joy. Leon. Count, take of me my daughter, and with her my fortunes: his Grace hath made the match, and all grace say, Amen, to it. Beat. Speak, Count, 'tis your cue. Claud. Silence is the perfecteft herald of joy; I were but little happy, if I could say how much. Lady, as you are mine, I am yours: Į give away myself for you, and doat upon the exchange. Beat. Speak, Coufin, or (if you cannot) stop his mouth with a kiss, and let him not speak neither. Pedro. In faith, Lady, you have a merry heart. Beat. Yea, my Lord, I thank it, poor fool, it keeps on the windy fide of care; my cousin tells him in his ear, that he is in her heart. I Claud. And fo she doth, coufin. Thus goes every one to the world but I, and I am sunburnt.) What is it, to go to the world? perhaps, to enter by marriage into a fettled state: but why is the unmarried Lady junburnt? I believe we should read, thus goes every one to the wood but 1, and I am Sunburnt. Thus does every one but I find a shelter, and I am left exposed to wind and fun. The nearest away to the wood, is a phrafe for the readieft means to any end. It is said of *thus goes every a woman, who accepts a worse match than those which she had refused, that she has passed through the wood, and at last taken a crooked stick. But conjectural criticism has always something to abate its confidence. Shakespeare, in All's well that ends well, uses the phrase, to go to the world, for marriage. So that my emendation depends only on the opposition of wood to fun-burut. 04 one |