I mean in singing; but in loving, Leander the good swimmer, Troilus the first employer of panders, and a whole bookful of these quondam carpet-mongers, whose names yet run smoothly in the even road of a blank verse, why, 30 they were never so truly turned over and over as my poor self in love. Marry, I 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: 35 no, I was not born under a rhyming planet, nor I cannot woo in festival terms. _Enter_ BEATRICE. Sweet Beatrice, wouldst thou come when I called thee? _Beat._ Yea, signior, and depart when you bid me. _Bene._ O, stay but till then! 40 _Beat._ ‘Then’ is spoken; fare you well now: and yet, ere I go, let me go with that I came; which is, with knowing what hath passed between you and Claudio. _Bene._ Only foul words; and thereupon I will kiss thee. _Beat._ Foul words is but foul wind, and foul wind is but 45 foul breath, and foul breath is noisome; therefore I will depart unkissed. _Bene._ 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 50 hear from him, or I will subscribe him a coward. And, I pray thee now, tell me for which of my bad parts didst thou first fall in love with me? _Beat._ For them all together; which maintained so politic a state of evil, that they will not admit any good part to 55 intermingle with them. But for which of my good parts did you first suffer love for me? _Bene._ Suffer love,—a good epithet! I do suffer love indeed, for I love thee against my will. _Beat._ In spite of your heart, I think; alas, poor heart! 60 If you spite it for my sake, I will spite it for yours; for I will never love that which my friend hates. _Bene._ Thou and I are too wise to woo peaceably. _Beat._ It appears not in this confession: there’s not one wise man among twenty that will praise himself. 65 _Bene._ An old, an old instance, Beatrice, that lived in the time 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. _Beat._ And how long is that, think you? 70 _Bene._ 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 praising myself, who, I myself will bear witness, 75 is praiseworthy: and now tell me, how doth your cousin? _Beat._ Very ill. _Bene._ And how do you? _Beat._ Very ill too.