LEON. My lord, will you walk? dinner is ready. CLAUD. If he do not dote on her upon this, I will never trust my expectation. [Aside.

D. PEDRO. Let there be the same net spread for her; and that must your daughter and her gentlewoman carry. The sport will be, when they hold one an opinion of another's dotage, and no such matter; that's the scene that I would see, which will be merely a dumb show. Let us send her to call him in to dinner. [Aside. [Exeunt Don PEDRO, CLAUDIO, and LEONATO.

BENEDICK advances from the Arbour.

BENE. This can be no trick: The conference was sadly borne'.-They have the truth of this from Hero. They seem to pity the lady; it seems, her affections have their full bent 2. Love me! why, it must be requited. I hear how I am censured: they say, I will bear myself proudly, if I perceive the love come from her; they say too, that she will rather die than give any sign of affection.-I did never think to marry :-I must not seem proud :Happy are they that hear their detractions, and can put them to mending. They say, the lady is fair; 'tis a truth, I can bear them witness: and virtuous; 'tis so, I cannot reprove it; and wise, but for loving me: By my troth, it is no addition to her wit; nor no great argument of her folly,

2

was sadly borne.] i. e. was seriously carried on.

STEEVENS.

have their FULL BENT.] A metaphor from archery. So, in Hamlet:

"They fool me to the top of my bent." MALONE.

So, again, in Hamlet :

66

And here give up ourselves in the full bent,

"To lay our service freely at your feet."

The first folio reads-" the full bent." I have followed the

for I will be horribly in love with her. I may chance have some odd quirks and remnants of wit broken on me, because I have railed so long against marriage: But doth not the appetite alter? A man loves the meat in his youth, that he cannot endure in his age: Shall quips, and sentences, and these paper bullets of the brain, awe a man from the career of his humour? No, the world must be peopled. When I said, I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married.Here comes Beatrice: By this day, she's a fair lady: I do spy some marks of love in her.

Enter BEATRICE.

BEAT. Against my will, I am sent to bid you come in to dinner.

BENE. Fair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains. BEAT. I took no more pains for those thanks, than you take pains to thank me; if it had been painful, I would not have come.

upon

BENE. You take pleasure then in the message? BEAT. Yea, just so much as you may take a knife's point, and choke a daw withal:-You have no stomach, signior; fare you well. [Exit. BENE. Ha! Against my will I am sent to bid you come to dinner-there's a double meaning in that. I took no more pains for those thanks, than you took pains to thank me-that's as much as to say, Any pains that I take for you is as easy as thanks :-If I do not take pity of her, I am a villain; if I do not love her, I am a Jew: I will go get her picture. [Exit.

ACT III. SCENE I.

LEONATO'S Garden.

3

Enter HERO, MARGARET, and URSULA.
HERO. Good Margaret, run thee to the parlour;
There shalt thou find my cousin Beatrice
Proposing with the Prince and Claudio 3 :
Whisper her ear, and tell her, I and Ursula
Walk in the orchard, and our whole discourse
Is all of her; say, that thou overheard'st us;
And bid her steal into the pleached bower,
Where honey-suckles, ripen'd by the sun,
Forbid the sun to enter;-like favourites,
Made proud by princes, that advance their pride
Against that power that bred it:-there will she
hide her,

To listen our propose: This is thy office;
Bear thee well in it, and leave us alone.

MARG. I'll make her come, I warrant you, pre

sently.

[Exit. HERO. Now, Ursula, when Beatrice doth come, As we do trace this alley up and down, Our talk must only be of Benedick: When I do name him, let it be thy part

3 PROPOSING with the Prince and Claudio:] Proposing is conversing, from the French word-propos, discourse, talk.

STEEVENS.

4 — Our PROPOSE :] Thus the quarto. The folio reads—“ our purpose." Propose is right. See the preceding note. STEEVENS.

Purpose, however, may be equally right. It depends only on the manner of accenting the word, which, in Shakspeare's time, was often used in the same sense as propose. Thus, in Knox's L'istory of the Reformation in Scotland, p. 72: " with him six sons; and getting entrie, held purpose with the porter." zai, p. 54: "After supper he held comfortable purpose of God's chosen children." REED.

To praise him more than ever man did merit:
My talk to thee must be, how Benedick
Is sick in love with Beatrice: Of this matter
Is little Cupid's crafty arrow made,

That only wounds by hearsay. Now begin;

Enter BEATRICE, behind.

For look where Beatrice, like a lapwing, runs
Close by the ground, to hear our conference.
URS. The pleasant'st angling is to see the fish
Cut with her golden oars the silver stream,
And greedily devour the treacherous bait:
So angle we for Beatrice; who even now
Is couched in the woodbine coverture:
Fear you not my part of the dialogue.

HERO. Then go we near her, that her ear lose nothing

Of the false sweet bait that we lay for it.

[They advance to the bower.

No, truly, Ursula, she is too disdainful;
I know, her spirits are as coy and wild
As haggards of the rock".

But are you sure

URS.
That Benedick loves Beatrice so entirely?

HERO. So says the prince, and my new-trothed lord.

URS. And did they bid her tell you of it, madam?

5 AS HAGGARDS of the rock.] Turberville, in his book of Falconry, 1575, tells us, that "the haggard doth come from foreign parts a stranger and a passenger;" and Latham, who wrote after him, says, that, "she keeps in subjection the most part of all the fowl that fly, insomuch, that the tassel gentle, her natural and chiefest companion, dares not come near that coast where she useth, nor sit by the place where she standeth. Such is the greatness of her spirit, she will not admit of any society, unti! a time as nature worketh," &c. So, in The Tragical History Didaco and Violenta, 1576:

"Perchaunce she's not of haggard's kind,
"Nor heart so hard to bend," &c. STEEVENS.

HERO. They did intreat me to acquaint her of it: But I persuaded them, if they lov'd Benedick, To wish him wrestle with affection,

6

And never to let Beatrice know of it.

URS. Why did you so? Doth not the gentleman Deserve as full, as fortunate a bed",

As ever Beatrice shall couch upon?

HERO. O God of love! I know, he doth deserve As much as may be yielded to a man: But nature never fram'd a woman's heart Of prouder stuff than that of Beatrice: Disdain and scorn ride sparkling in her eyes, Misprising what they look on; and her wit Values itself so highly, that to her

8

All matter else seems weak: she cannot love,
Nor take no shape nor project of affection,
She is so self-endeared.

URS.

Sure, I think so;

And therefore, certainly, it were not good
She knew his love, lest she make sport at it.

6 TO WISH him-] i. e. recommend or desire. So, in The Honest Whore, 1604:

"Go wish the surgeon to have great respect," &c. Again, in The Hog hath Lost his Pearl, 1614: "But lady mine that shall be, your father, hath wish'd me to appoint the day with you." REED.

7

as FULL, &c.] So, in Othello:

"What a full fortune doth the thick-lips owe?" &c.

Mr. M. Mason very justly observes, that what Ursula means to say is," that he is as deserving of complete happiness in the marriage state, as Beatrice herself." STEEVENS.

8 Misprising-] Despising, contemning. JOHNSON.

To misprise is to undervalue, or take in a wrong light. So, in Troilus and Cressida :

All matter else SEEMS WEAK;] So, in Love's Labour's Lost:

to your huge store

"Wise things seem foolish, and rich things but poor."

STEEVENS.