SCENE I.-Street in Messina.

Enter LEONATO, HERO, BEATRICE, and others, with a Messenger."

Leon. I learn in this letter, that Don Pedro of Arragon comes this night to Messina.

Mess. He is very near by this; he was not three leagues off when I left him.

Leon. How many gentlemen have you lost in this action?

Mess. But few of any sort," and none of name. Leon. A victory is twice itself when the

a In the stage direction of the early copies, we have"Enter Leonato, Governor of Messina, Innogen his wife," &c. But the mother takes no part in the action or dialogue. She appears again in the stage direction of the last scene of Act. II.

b Any sort. The obvious meaning here is, of any condition. There can be no doubt of this, for the Messenger adds, " and none of name." The word occurs again, and is used by the same speaker: "there was none such in the army of any sort."

achiever brings home full numbers. I find here, that Don Pedro hath bestowed much honour on a young Florentine, called Claudio.

Mess. Much deserved on his part, and equally remembered by Don Pedro: He hath borne himself beyond the promise of his age; doing, in the figure of a lamb, the feats of lion: he hath, indeed, better bettered expectation than you must expect of me to tell you how. Leon. He hath an uncle here in Messina will be very much glad of it.

Mess. I have already delivered him letters, and there appears much joy in him; even so much that joy could not show itself modest enough without a badge of bitterness.

Leon. Did he break out into tears?
Mess. In great measure.

Leon. A kind overflow of kindness: There are no faces truer than those that are so washed.

a In great measure-abundantly.

How much better is it to weep at joy, than to joy at weeping!

Beat. I pray you, is signior Montanto returned from the wars, or no?

Mess. I know none of that name, lady; there was none such in the army of any sort.b

Leon. What is he that you ask for, niece? Hero. My cousin means siguior Benedick of Padua.

Mess. O, he is returned, and as pleasant as ever he was.

Beat. He set up his bills' here in Messina, and challenged Cupid at the flight: and my uncle's fool, reading the challenge, subscribed for Cupid, and challenged him at the bird-bolt. I pray you, how many hath he killed and caten in these wars? But how many hath he killed? for, indeed, I promised to eat all of his killing.

Leon. Faith, niece, you tax siguior Benedick too much; but he'll be meet with you, I doubt

it not.

Mess. He hath done good service, lady, in these wars.

Beat. You had musty victual, and he hath holp to eat it he is a very valiant trencherman, he hath an excellent stomach.

Mess. And a good soldier too, lady.

Beat. And a good soldier to a lady:-But what is he to a lord?

Mess. A lord to a lord, a man to a man ; stuffed with all honourable virtues.

Beat. It is so, indeed: he is no less than a stuffed man: but for the stuffing,-Well, we are all mortal.

Leon. You must not, sir, mistake my niece: there is a kind of merry war betwixt signior Bencdick and her they never meet but there is a skirmish of wit between them.

Beat. Alas! he gets nothing by that. In our last conflict, four of his five wits went halting off, and now is the whole man governed with one : so that if he have wit enough to keep himself

a Montanto.

Beatrice thus nicknames Benedick, after a term of the fencing-school. b See note a preceding page.

c He'll be meet with you-he 'll be even with you. So in The Tempest:

"We must prepare to meet with Caliban."

d Stuffed-stored, furnished.

e Fire wits Shakspere here uses the term wits in the sense of intellectual powers. In his 141st Sonnet he distinguishes between the five wits and the fire senscs :—

"But my five wits, nor my five senses, can Dissuade one foolish heart from serving thee." By the early writers the fire wits was used synonymously with the five senses; as in Chaucer (The Persones Tale'), "Certes delites ben after the appetites of the fire wittis; as, sight, hering, smelling, savouring, and touching. Johnson says, "The wits seem to have been reckoned fire, by analogy to the five senses, or the five inlets of ideas."

Beat. No: an he were, I would burn my study. But, I pray you, who is his companion? Is there no young squarer now, that will make a voyage with him to the devil?

Mess. He is most in the company of the right noble Claudio.

Beat. O Lord! he will hang upon him like a disease: he is sooner caught than the pestilence, and the taker runs presently mad. God help the noble Claudio! if he have caught the Benedick, it will cost him a thousand pound ere he be cured.

Mess. I will hold friends with you, lady.
Beat. Do, good friend.

Leon. You'll ne'er run mad, niece.
Beat. No, not till a hot January.

Mess. Don Pedro is approached.

Enter Don PEDRO, attended by BALTHAZAR and others, Don JOHN, CLAUDIO, and BENEDICK.

D. Pedro. Good signior Leonato, you are come to meet your trouble: the fashion of the world is to avoid cost, and you encounter it.

Leon. Never came trouble to my house in the likeness of your grace; for trouble being gone, comfort should remain; but when you depart from me sorrow abides, and happiness takes his leave.

a B-ar it for a difference-for a distinction-as in heraldry. b His faith-his belief generally-here, his confidence in a friend.

c In your books. The meaning of this expression, which He we retain to the present day, is generally understood. who is in your books-or, as we sometimes say, in your good books-is he whom you think well of-whom you trust. It appears tolerably obvious, then, that the phrase has a commercial origin; and that, as he who has obtained credit, buys upon trust, is in his creditor's books, so he who has obtained in any way the confidence of another is said to be in his books. None of the earlier commentators have suggested this explanation. Johnson says it means "to be in one's codicils or will: " Steevens, that it is to be in one's visitingbook, or in the books of an university,-or in the books of the Herald's Office; Farmer and Douce, that it is to be in the list of a great man's retainers, because the names of such were entered in a book. This is the most received explanation. Our view of the matter is more homely, and for that reason it appears to us more true.

d Squarer-quarreller. To square is to dispute-to confront hostilely. So in A Midsummer Night's Dream:And now they never meet in grove, or green,

By fountain clear, or spangled star light sheen, But they do square.'

The quarto reads-"are you come."

D. Pedro. You embrace your charge too will ingly. I think this is your daughter.

Leon. Her mother hath many times told me so. Bene. Were you in doubt that you asked her? Leon. Signior Benedick, no; for then were you a child.

D. Pedro. You have it full, Benedick: .we may guess by this what you are, being a man. Truly, the lady fathers herself:-Be happy, lady! for you are like an honourable father.

Bene. If signior Leonato be her father, she would not have his head on her shoulders for all Messina, as like him as she is.

Beat. I wonder that you will still be talking, signior Benedick; nobody marks you.

Bene. What, my dear lady Disdain! are you yet living?

Beat. Is it possible Disdain should die, while she hath such meet food to feed it as signior Benedick? Courtesy itself must convert to disdain if you come in her presence.

Bene. Then is courtesy a turncoat-But it is certain I am loved of all ladies, only you excepted and I would I could find in my heart that I had not a hard heart: for, truly, I love

none.

Beat. A dear happiness to women; they would else have been troubled with a pernicious suitor. I thank God, and my cold blood, I am of your humour for that; I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow, than a man swear he loves me.

Bene. God keep your ladyship still in that mind! so some gentleman or other shall 'scape a predestinate scratched face.

Beat. Scratching could not make it worse, an 't were such a face as yours were.

Bene. Well, you are a rare parrot-teacher. Beat. A bird of my tongue is better than a beast of yours.

Bene. I would my horse had the speed of your tongue; and so good a continuer: But keep your way o' God's name; I have donc.

Beut. You always end with a jade's trick; I know you of old.

D. Pedro. This is the sum of all, Leonato.Signior Claudio, and signior Benedick,—my dear friend Leonato hath invited you all. I tell him we shall stay here at the least a month; and he heartily prays some occasion may detain us longer: I dare swear he is no hypocrite, but prays from his heart.

Leon. If you swear, my lord, you shall not be forsworn.-Let me bid you welcome, my lord: being reconciled to the prince your brother, I owe you all duty.

a The punctuation here given is that of the Cambridge

D. Joh. I thank you: I am not of many words, but I thank you.

Leon. Please it your grace lead on?

D. Pedro. Your hand, Leonato; we will go together. [Exeunt all but BENEDICK and CLAUDIO. Claud. Benedick, didst thou note the daughter of signior Leonato ?

Bene. I noted her not: but I looked on her. Claud. Is she not a modest young lady?

Bene. Do you question me as an honest man should do, for my simple true judgment; or would you have me speak after my custom, as being a professed tyrant to their sex?

Claud. No, I pray thee, speak in sober judg ment.

Bene. Why, i' faith, methinks she is too low for a high praise, too brown for a fair praise, and too little for a great praise; only this commendation I can afford her: that were she other than she is, she were unhandsome; and being no other but as she is, I do not like her.

Claud. Thou thinkest I am in sport; I pray thee, tell me truly how thou likest her. Bene. Would you buy her, that you inquire after her?

Claud. Can the world buy such a jewel?

Bene. Yea, and a case to put it into. But speak you this with a sad brow? or do you play the flouting Jack; to tell us Cupid is a good hare-finder, and Vulcan a rare carpenter? 4 Come, in what key shall a man take you, to go in the song?b

Claud. In mine eye she is the sweetest lady that ever I looked on.

Bene. I can see yet without spectacles, and I see no such matter: there's her cousin, an she were not possessed with a fury, exceeds her as much in beauty as the first of May doth the last of December. But I hope you have no intent to turn husband; have you?

Claud. I would scarce trust myself, though I had sworn the contrary, if Hero would be my wife.

Bene. Is 't come to this, i' faith? Hath not the world one man but he will wear his cap with suspicion? Shall I never see a bachelor of three-score again? Go to, i' faith: an thou wilt needs thrust thy neck into a yoke, wear the print of it, and sigh away Sundays. Look, Don Pedro is returned to seek you.

Re-enter Don PEDRO.

D. Pedro. What secret hath held you here, that you followed not to Leonato's?

edition. Pedro and Leonato have been talking apart, and "the sum" is that Leonato gives the invitation. b To join in the song.

Bene. I would your grace would constrain me to tell.

D. Pedro. I charge thee on thy allegiance. Bene. You hear, count Claudio: I can be secret as a dumb man, I would have you think so; but on my allegiance,—mark you this, on my allegiance-He is in love. With who?now that is your grace's part.-Mark how short his answer is:-With Hero, Leonato's short daughter.

Claud. If this were so, so were it uttered Bene. Like the old tale, my lord: 'it is not so, nor 't was not so; but, indeed, God forbid it should be so.' 5

Claud. If my passion change not shortly, God forbid it should be otherwise.

D. Pedro. Amen, if you love her; for the lady is very well worthy.

Claud. You speak this to fetch me in, my lord.

D. Pedro. By my troth I speak my thought. Claud. And in faith, my lord, I spoke mine. Bene. And by my two faiths and troths, my lord, I spoke mine.

Claud. That I love her, I feel.

D. Pedro. That she is worthy, I know.

Bene. That I neither feel how she should be loved, nor know how she should be worthy, is the opinion that fire cannot melt out of me: I will die in it at the stake.

D. Pedro. Thou wast ever an obstinate heretic in the despite of beauty.

Claud. And never could maintain his part but in the force of his will.

D. Pedro. I shall see thee, ere I die, look pale with love.

Bene. 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.

D. Pedro. Well, if ever thou dost fall from this faith thou wilt prove a notable argument.

a Recheat. The huntsman's note to recall the hounds. b Baldrick-a belt. The fine-the conclusion.

Bene. 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." D. Pedro. Well, as time shall try: 'In time the savage bull doth bear the yoke."

Bene. The savage bull may; but if ever this 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.'

Claud. If this should ever happen thou wouldst be horn-mad.

D. Pedro. Nay, if Cupid have not spent all his quiver in Venice, thou wilt quake for this shortly.

Bene. I look for an earthquake too then.

D. Pedro. Well, you will temporize with the hours. In the mean time, 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.

Bene. I have almost matter enough in me for such an embassage; and so I commit you— Claud. To the tuition of God: From my house (if I had it)

D. Pedro. The sixth of July: Your loving friend, Benedick.

Bene. 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 BENEDICK. Claud. My liege, your highness now may do

me good.

D. 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.

Claud. Hath Leonato any son, my lord?
D. Pedro. No child but Hero, she's his only
heir:

Dost thou affect her, Claudio?
Claud.
O my lord,
When you went onward on this ended action,
I look'd 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,

a This line is from Hieronymo.

b Guarded-trimmed-as with guards on apparel.