BENEDICK.
Will your Grace command me any service to the world’s end?
I will go on the slightest errand now to the Antipodes that you can devise
to send me on; I will fetch you a toothpicker now from the furthest inch
of Asia; bring you the length of Prester John’s foot; fetch you a
hair off the Great Cham’s beard; do you any embassage to the
Pygmies, rather than hold three words’ conference with this harpy.
You have no employment for me?
DON PEDRO.
None, but to desire your good company.
BENEDICK.
O God, sir, here’s a dish I love not: I cannot endure my Lady Tongue.
[Exit.]
DON PEDRO.
Come, lady, come; you have lost the heart of Signior Benedick.
BEATRICE.
Indeed, my lord, he lent it me awhile; 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.
DON PEDRO.
You have put him down, lady, you have put him down.
BEATRICE.
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 sent me to seek.
DON PEDRO.
Why, how now, Count! wherefore are you sad?
CLAUDIO.
Not sad, my lord.
DON PEDRO.
How then? Sick?
CLAUDIO.
Neither, my lord.
BEATRICE.
The Count is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor well; but
civil Count, civil as an orange, and something of that jealous complexion.
DON 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!
LEONATO.
Count, take of me my daughter, and with her my fortunes: his
Grace hath made the match, and all grace say Amen to it!
BEATRICE.
Speak, Count, ’tis your cue.
CLAUDIO.
Silence is the perfectest herald of joy: I were but little happy,
if I could say how much. Lady, as you are mine, I am yours: I give away
myself for you and dote upon the exchange.
BEATRICE.
Speak, cousin; or, if you cannot, stop his mouth with a kiss,
and let not him speak neither.
DON PEDRO.
In faith, lady, you have a merry heart.
BEATRICE.
Yea, my lord; I thank it, poor fool, it keeps on the windy
side of care. My cousin tells him in his ear that he is in her heart.
CLAUDIO.
And so she doth, cousin.
BEATRICE.
Good Lord, for alliance! Thus goes everyone to the world but I,
and I am sunburnt. I may sit in a corner and cry heigh-ho for a husband!
DON PEDRO.
Lady Beatrice, I will get you one.
BEATRICE.
I would rather have one of your father’s getting. Hath
your Grace ne’er a brother like you? Your father got excellent
husbands, if a maid could come by them.
DON PEDRO.
Will you have me, lady?
BEATRICE.
No, my lord, unless I might have another for working days:
your Grace is too costly to wear every day. But, I beseech your
Grace, pardon me; I was born to speak all mirth and no matter.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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