_Beat._ He were an excellent man that were made just in the midway between him and Benedick: the one is too like an image and says nothing, and the other too like my lady’s eldest son, evermore tattling. _Leon._ Then half Signior Benedick’s tongue in Count 10 John’s mouth, and half Count John’s melancholy in Signior Benedick’s face,— _Beat._ With a good leg and a good foot, uncle, and money enough in his purse, such a man would win any woman in the world, if a’ could get her good-will. 15 _Leon._ By my troth, niece, thou wilt never get thee a husband, if thou be so shrewd of thy tongue. _Ant._ In faith, she’s too curst. _Beat._ Too curst is more than curst: I shall lessen God’s sending that way; for it is said, ‘God sends a curst cow 20 short horns;’ but to a cow too curst he sends none. _Leon._ So, by being too curst, God will send you no horns. _Beat._ Just, if he send me no husband; for the which blessing I am at him upon my knees every morning and evening. Lord, I could not endure a husband with a beard 25 on his face: I had rather lie in the woollen. _Leon._ You may light on a husband that hath no beard. _Beat._ What should I do with him? dress him in my apparel, and make him my waiting-gentlewoman? He that hath a beard is more than a youth; and he that hath no 30 beard is less than a man: and he that is more than a youth is not for me; and he that is less than a man, I am not for him: therefore I will even take sixpence in earnest of the bear-ward, and lead his apes into hell. _Leon._ Well, then, go you into hell? 35 _Beat._ No, but to the gate; and there will the devil meet me, like an old cuckold, with horns on his head, and say ‘Get you to heaven, Beatrice, get you to heaven; here’s no place for you maids:’ so deliver I up my apes, and away to Saint Peter for the heavens; he shows me where the 40 bachelors sit, and there live we as merry as the day is long. _Ant._ [_To Hero_] Well, niece, I trust you will be ruled by your father. _Beat._ Yes, faith; it is my cousin’s duty to make courtesy, and say, ‘Father, as it please you.’ But yet for all 45 that, cousin, let him be a handsome fellow, or else make another courtesy, and say, ‘Father, as it please me.’ _Leon._ Well, niece, I hope to see you one day fitted with a husband. _Beat._ Not till God make men of some other metal than 50 earth. Would it not grieve a woman to be overmastered with a piece of valiant dust? to make an account of her life to a clod of wayward marl? No, uncle, I’ll none: Adam’s sons are my brethren; and, truly, I hold it a sin to match in my kindred. 55 _Leon._ Daughter, remember what I told you: if the prince do solicit you in that kind, you know your answer.