Much Ado About Nothing | Page 8

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.
LEONATO. Then half Signior Benedick's tongue in Count John's
mouth, and half Count John's melancholy in Signior Benedick's face,--
BEATRICE. 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 ifa'
could get her good will.
LEONATO. By my troth, niece, thou wilt never get thee a husband, if
thou be so shrewd of thy tongue.
ANTONIO. In faith, she's too curst.
BEATRICE. Too curst is more than curst: I shall lessen God's sending
that way; for it is said, 'God sends a curst cow short horns;' but to a cow
too curst he sends none.
LEONATO. So, by being too curst, God will send you no horns?
BEATRICE. 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 on his face: I had rather lie in the
woollen.
LEONATO. You may light on a husband that hath no beard.
BEATRICE. 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 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.
LEONATO. Well then, go you into hell?
BEATRICE. 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 bachelors sit, and there live we as merry as the day is long.
ANTONIO. [To Hero.] Well, niece, I trust you will be ruled by your
father.
BEATRICE. Yes, faith; it is my cousin's duty to make curtsy, and say,
'Father, as it please you:'-- but yet for all that, cousin, let him be a
handsome fellow, or else make another curtsy, and say, 'Father, as it
please me.'
LEONATO. Well, niece, I hope to see you one day fitted with a
husband.
BEATRICE. Not till God make men of some other metal than earth.
Would it not grieve a woman to be over-mastered 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 kinred.
LEONATO. Daughter, remember what I told you: if the prince do
solicit you in that kind, you know your answer.
BEATRICE. The fault will be in the music, cousin, if you be not wooed
in good time: if the prince be too important, tell him there is measure in
everything, and so dance out the answer. For, hear me, Hero: wooing,
wedding, and repenting is as a Scotch jig, a measure, and a cinque-
pace: the first suit is hot and hasty, like a Scotch jig, and full as
fantastical; the wedding, mannerly-modest, as a measure, full of state
and ancientry; and then comes Repentance, and with his bad legs, falls
into the cinque-pace faster and faster, till he sink into his grave.
LEONATO. Cousin, you apprehend passing shrewdly.
BEATRICE. I have a good eye, uncle: I can see a church by daylight.
LEONATO. The revellers are entering, brother: make good room.
[Enter, DON PEDRO, CLAUDIO, BENEDICK, BALTHASAR, DON
JOHN, BORACHIO, MARGARET, URSULA, and Others, masked.]
DON PEDRO. Lady, will you walk about with your friend?
HERO. So you walk softly and look sweetly and say nothing, I am
yours for the walk; and especially when I walk away.
DON PEDRO. With me in your company?
HERO. I may say so, when I please.
DON PEDRO. And when please you to say so?
HERO. When I like your favour; for God defend the lute should be like
the case!

DON PEDRO. My visor is Philemon's roof; within the house is Jove.
HERO. Why, then, your visor should be thatch'd.
DON PEDRO. Speak low, if you speak love.
[Takes her aside.]
BALTHAZAR. Well, I would you did like me.
MARGARET. So would not I, for your own sake; for I have many ill
qualities.
BALTHAZAR. Which is one?
MARGARET. I say my prayers aloud.
BALTHAZAR. I love you the better; the hearers