Leonato's Garden.
 Enter BENEDICK and MARGARET, meeting.

Benedick	Pray thee, sweet Mistress Margaret, deserve well at my hands 
	by helping me to the speech of Beatrice.

Margaret	Will you then write me a sonnet in praise of my beauty?

Benedick	In so high a style, Margaret, that no man living shall come 
	over it, for, in most comely truth, thou deservest it.

Margaret	To have no man come over me? Why, shall I always keep below 
	stairs?

Benedick	Thy wit is as quick as the greyhound's mouth, it catches.

Margaret	And yours as blunt as the fencer's foils, which hit, but hurt 
	not.

Benedick	A most manly wit, Margaret, it will not hurt a woman. And so, 
	I pray thee, call Beatrice. I give thee the bucklers.

Margaret	Give us the swords, we have bucklers of our own.

Benedick	If you use them, Margaret, you must put in the pikes with a 
	vice; and they are dangerous weapons for maids.

Margaret	Well, I will call Beatrice to you, who I think hath legs.
													[Exit.
Benedick	And therefore will come.

	[Sings.]		The god of love,
				That sits above,
			And knows me, and knows me,
				How pitiful I deserve=-=

	I mean in singing; but in loving, Leander the good swimmer, 
	Troilus the first employer of pandars, and a whole book full 
	of these quondam carpet-mongers, whose names yet run smoothly 
	in the even road of a blank verse, why, 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. 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?

Beatrice	Yea, signor, and depart when you bid me.

Benedick	O, stay but till then!

Beatrice	'Then' is spoken; fare you well now. And yet, ere I go, let me 
	go with that I came for, which is, with knowing what hath 
	passed between you and Claudio.

Benedick	Only foul words, and thereupon I will kiss thee.

Beatrice	Foul words is but foul wind, and foul wind is but foul breath, 
	and foul breath is noisome; therefore I will depart unkissed.

Benedick	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 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?

Beatrice	For them all together, which maintained so politic a state of 
	evil that they will not admit any good part to intermingle 
	with them. But for which of my good parts did you first suffer 
	love for me?

Benedick	'Suffer love', a good epithet. I do suffer love indeed, for I 
	love thee against my will.

Beatrice	In spite of your heart, I think. Alas, poor heart; if you 
	spite it for my sake, I will spite it for yours, for I will 
	never love that which my friend hates.

Benedick	Thou and I are too wise to woo peaceably.

Beatrice	It appears not in this confession. There's not one wise man 
	among twenty that will praise himself.

Benedick	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.

Beatrice	And how long is that, think you?

Benedick	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, is 
	praiseworthy. And now tell me, how doth your cousin?

Beatrice	Very ill.

Benedick	And how do you?

Beatrice	Very ill too.

Benedick	Serve God, love me, and mend. There will I leave you too, for 
	here comes one in haste.

                              Enter URSULA.

Ursula	Madam, you must come to your uncle. Yonder's old coil at home. 
	It is proved my Lady Hero hath been falsely accused, the 
	prince and Claudio mightily abused, and Don John is the author 
	of all, who is fled and gone. Will you come presently?

Beatrice	Will you go hear this news, signor?

Benedick	I will live in thy heart, die in thy lap, and be buried in thy 
	eyes, and, moreover, I will go with thee to thy uncle's.
													[Exeunt.
