MARGARET Well, I will call Beatrice to you, who I think hath legs.
BENEDICK And therefore will come.
Exit MARGARET
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 panders, and a whole bookful of these quondam carpet-mangers, 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, signior, 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; which is, with knowing what hath passed between you and Claudio.
BENEDICK Only foul words; and thereupon I will kiss thee.
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 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 lime 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?
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 fed and gone. Will you come presently?
Benedick trades some saucy banter with Margaret, then sends her to fetch Beatrice. While waiting, he tries, and fails, to write a love poem.
Benedick tells Beatrice he has challenged Claudio to a duel. Beatrice is satisfied and the two tease and flirt with each other.
Ursula arrives with news: “my Lady Hero hath been falsely accused, the prince and Claudio mightily abused; and Don John is the author of all.” Beatrice and Benedick go with her to find out more.
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