DON PEDRO. I shall see thee, ere I die, look pale with love. BENEDICK. With anger, with sickness, or with hunger, my lord; not with love: prove that ever I lose more blood with love than I will get again with drinking, pick out mine eyes with a ballad-maker’s pen and hang me up at the door of a brothel-house for the sign of blind Cupid. DON PEDRO. Well, if ever thou dost fall from this faith, thou wilt prove a notable argument. BENEDICK. If I do, hang me in a bottle like a cat and shoot at me; and he that hits me, let him be clapped on the shoulder and called Adam. DON PEDRO. Well, as time shall try: ‘In time the savage bull doth bear the yoke.’ BENEDICK. The savage bull may; but if ever the sensible Benedick bear it, pluck off the bull’s horns and set them in my forehead; and let me be vilely painted, and in such great letters as they write, ‘Here is good horse to hire,’ let them signify under my sign ‘Here you may see Benedick the married man.’ CLAUDIO. If this should ever happen, thou wouldst be horn-mad. DON PEDRO. Nay, if Cupid have not spent all his quiver in Venice, thou wilt quake for this shortly. BENEDICK. I look for an earthquake too then. DON PEDRO. Well, you will temporize with the hours. In the meantime, good Signior Benedick, repair to Leonato’s: commend me to him and tell him I will not fail him at supper; for indeed he hath made great preparation. BENEDICK. I have almost matter enough in me for such an embassage; and so I commit you— CLAUDIO. To the tuition of God: from my house, if I had it,— DON PEDRO. The sixth of July: your loving friend, Benedick. BENEDICK. Nay, mock not, mock not. The body of your discourse is sometime guarded with fragments, and the guards are but slightly basted on neither: ere you flout old ends any further, examine your conscience: and so I leave you. [Exit.] CLAUDIO. My liege, your Highness now may do me good. DON PEDRO. My love is thine to teach: teach it but how, And thou shalt see how apt it is to learn Any hard lesson that may do thee good. CLAUDIO. Hath Leonato any son, my lord? DON PEDRO. No child but Hero; she’s his only heir. Dost thou affect her, Claudio? CLAUDIO. O! my lord, When you went onward on this ended action, I looked upon her with a soldier’s eye, That lik’d, but had a rougher task in hand Than to drive liking to the name of love; But now I am return’d, and that war-thoughts Have left their places vacant, in their rooms Come thronging soft and delicate desires, All prompting me how fair young Hero is, Saying, I lik’d her ere I went to wars. DON PEDRO. Thou wilt be like a lover presently, And tire the hearer with a book of words. If thou dost love fair Hero, cherish it, And I will break with her, and with her father, And thou shalt have her. Was’t not to this end That thou began’st to twist so fine a story?