4

him before he tranfgrefs'd: fhe would have made Hercules have turn'd fpit; yea, and have cleft his club to make the fire too. Come, talk not of her; you shall find her the infernal Até in good apparel. I would to God, fome scholar would conjure her: for, certainly, while fhe is here, a man may live as quiet in hell, as in a fanctuary; and people fin upon purpose, because they would go thither: fo, indeed, all difquiet, horror, and perturbation follow her.

Enter CLAUDIO and BEATRICE.

D. Pedro. Look, here fhe comes.

Bene. Will your grace command me any service to the world's end? I will go on the flighteft errand now to the Antipodes, that you can devife to fend me on; I will fetch you a tooth-picker now from the fartheft inch of Afia; bring you the length of Prefter John's foot; fetch you a hair off the great Cham's beard 5; do you any embaffage to the Pigmies, rather than hold three words conference with this harpy: You have no employment for

me?

D. Pedro. None, but to defire your good company.

Bene. O God, fir, here's a difh I love not; I cannot endure my lady Tongue.

D. Pedro. Come, lady, come; you have loft the heart of fignior Benedick.

Beat. Indeed, my lord, he lent it me a while; and I gave him use for it", a double heart for a single one: marry, once before he won it of me with falfe dice, therefore your grace may well fay, I have lost it.

D. Pedro. You have put him down, lady, you have put him down.

4 the infernal Até―The geddefs of revenge. STEEVENS.

5-bring you the length of Prefter John's foot; fetch you a bair off the great Cham's beard;} i. e. I will undertake the hardest task, rather than have any converfation with lady Beatrice. Alluding to the difficulty of accefs to either of thofe monarchs, but more particularly to the former. STEEVENS.

6 -I gave him ufe for it,] Ufe, in our author's time, meant intereft of money. MALONE.

Beat.

Beat. So I would not he should do me, my lord, left I fhould prove the mother of fools. I have brought count Claudio, whom you fent me to feek.

D. Pedro. Why, how now, count? wherefore are you fad?

Claud. Not fad, my lord.

D. Pedro. How then? Sick?

Claud. Neither, my

lord.

Beat. The count is neither fad, nor fick, nor merry, nor well but civil, count; civil as an orange, and fomething of that jealous complexion.

D. Pedro. I'faith, lady, I think your blazon to be true; though, I'll be fworn, if he be fo, his conceit is falle. Here, Claudio, I have wooed in thy name, and fair Hero I have broke with her father, and his good will obtained: name the day of marriage, and God give thee joy!

is won;

Leon. Count, take of me my daughter, and with her my fortunes: his grace hath made the match, and all grace fay Amen to it!

Beat. Speak, count, 'tis your cue.

Claud. Silence is the perfecteft herald of joy: I were but little happy, if I could fay how much.-Lady, as you are mine, I am yours: I give away myself for

dote upon the exchange.

you, and Beat. Speak, coufin; or, if you cannot, ftop his mouth with a kiss, and let him not speak neither.

D. Pedro. In faith, lady, you have a merry heart. Beat. Yea, my lord; I thank it, poor fool, it keeps on the windy fide of care: my coufin tells him in his ear, that he is in her heart.

Claud, And fo fhe doth, coufin.

Beat. Good lord, for alliance !-Thus goes every one

7

- civil as an orange,] This conceit likewife occurs in Nashe's Four Letters confuted, 1593 :—" for the order of my life, it is as civil as an orange." STEEVENS.

poor fool,] This was formerly an expreffion of tenderness. See King Lear, laft fcene. "And my poor fool is hang'd." MALONE.

Good lord, for alliance !] Claudio has juft called Beatrice coufin. I fuppofe, therefore, the meaning is,-Good Lord, here have I got a new kiniman by marriage. MALONE.

to

to the world but I, and I am fun-burn'd9; I may fit in a corner, and cry, heigh ho! for a husband,

D. Pedro. Lady Beatrice, I will get you one.

Beat. I would rather have one of your father's getting : Hath your grace ne'er a brother like you? Your father got excellent husbands, if a maid could come by them. D. Pedro. Will you have me, lady?

Beat. No, my lord, unless I might have another for working days; your grace is too coftly to wear every day: But, I beseech your grace, pardon me; I was born to speak all mirth, and no matter.

D. Pedro. Your filence moft offends me, and to be merry beft becomes you; for, out of question, you were born in a merry hour,

Beat. No, fure, my lord, my mother cry'd; but then there was a ftar danced, and under that was I born.Coufins, God give you joy.

Leon. Niece, will you look to those things I told you of? Beat. I cry you mercy, uncle.-By your grace's par[Exit BEATRICE.

don.

D. Pedro. By my troth, a pleasant-fpirited lady. Lean. There's little of the melancholy element in her, my lord: fhe is never fad, but when the fleeps; and not ever fad then; for I have heard my daughter fay, fhe hath often dream'd of unhappiness, and waked herself with laughing.

D. Pedro. She cannot endure to hear tell of a husband.

Leon

Thus goes every one to the world but I, and I am fun-burn'd;] What is it, to go to the world? perhaps, to enter by marriage into a fettled state. Shakspeare in All's Well that ends Well, uses the phrafe to go to the world for marriage. But why is the unmarried lady fun-burnt? JOHNS. I am fun-burnt may mean, I have loft my beauty, and am confequently no longer such an object as can tempt a man to marry.

STEEVENS.

1 There's little of the melancholy element in ber,] "Does not our life confift of the four elements ?" fays Sir Toby, in Twelfth Night. So alfo in King Henry V: "He is pure air and fire, and the dull elements of earth and water never appear in him.” MALONE.

2- fhe bath often dream'd of unhappiness,] Unhappiness fignifies a wild, wanton, unlucky trick. Thus Beaumont and Fletcher, in their comedy of the Maid of the Mill÷

"My

!

Leon. O, by no means, the mocks all her wooers out of fuit.

D. Pedro. She were an excellent wife for Benedick. Lean. O Lord, my lord, if they were but a week marry'd, they would talk themselves mad.

D. Pedro. Count Claudio, when mean you to go to church?

Claud. To-morrow, my lord: Time goes on crutches, till love have all his rites.

Leon. Not till Monday, my dear fon, which is hence a juft feven-night; and a time too brief too, to have all things anfwer my mind.

D. Pedro. Come, you shake the head at fo long a breathing; but, I warrant thee, Claudio, the time fhall not go dully by us: I will, in the interim, undertake one of Hercules' labours; which is, to bring fignior Benedick, and the lady Beatrice into a mountain of affection 3, the one with the other. I would fain have it a match; and I doubt not but to fashion it, if you three will but minister fuch affiftance as I fhall give you direction.

Leon. My lord, I am for you, though it cost me ten nights' watchings.

Claud. And I, my lord.

D. Pedro. And you too, gentle Hero?

Hero. I will do any modeft office, my lord, to help my coufin to a good husband.

D. Pedro. And Benedick is not the unhopefullest hufband that I know: thus far can I praife him; he is of a noble strain, of approved valour, and confirm'd honesty. I will teach you how to humour your coufin, that she shall "My dreams are like my thoughts, boneft and innocent: "Yours are unhappy." WARBURTON.

3

into a mountain of affection,] By a mountain of affection, I believe, is meant great deal of affection. Thus, in K. Henry VIII. "a fea of glory;" in Hamlet, a fea of troubles." Again, in Howel's Hift. of Venice: "-though they fee mountains of miferie heaped on one's back." Again, in the Comedy of Errors : “—the mountain of mad flesh that claims marriage of me." STEEVENS.

Shakspeare has many phrafes equally harth. He who would hazard fuch expreffions as a form of fortunes, a vale of years, and a tempeft of provocation, would not fcruple to write a mountain of affection." MALONE. 4 of a noble ftrain,] i. e. defcent, lineage. REED.

fall

fall in love with Benedick:—and I, with your two helps, will fo practise on Benedick, that, in defpight of his quick wit and his queafy ftomach, he fhall fall in love with Beatrice. If we can do this, Cupid is no longer an archer; his glory fhall be ours, for we are the only lovegods. Go in with me, and I will tell you my drift. [Exeunt.

Another room in Leonato's House.

Enter Don JoHN and BORACHIO.

D. John. It is fo; the count Claudio fhall marry the daughter of Leonato.

Bora. Yea, my lord; but I can cross it.

D. John. Any bar, any crofs, any impediment will be medicinable to me: I am fick in difpleasure to him; and whatsoever comes athwart his affection, ranges evenly with mine. How canft thou crofs this marriage?

Bora. Not honeftly, my lord: but fo covertly that no dishonesty shall appear in me.

D. John. Shew me briefly how.

Bora. I think, I told your lordship, a year fince, how much I am in the favour of Margaret, the waiting gentlewoman to Hero.

D. John. I remember.

Bora. I can, at any unfeafonable inftant of the night, appoint her to look out at her lady's chamber window. D. John. What life is in that, to be the death of this marriage?

Bora. The poifon of that lies in you to temper. Go you to the prince your brother; fpare not to tell him, that he hath wrong'd his honour in marrying the renown'd Claudio (whofe eftimation do you mightily hold up) to a contaminated ftale, fuch a one as Hero.

D. John. What proof fhall I make of that?

Bora. Proof enough to misuse the prince, to vex Claudio, to undo Hero, and kill Leonato: Look you for any other iffue?

D. John. Only to defpite them, I will endeavour any thing.

Bora.