1599 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING
Page: 23

Benedick.
Bene. [aside] I should think this a gull but that the
white-bearded
fellow speaks it. Knavery cannot, sure, hide himself in such
reverence.
Claud. [aside] He hath ta'en th' infection. Hold it up.
Pedro. Hath she made her affection known to Benedick?
Leon. No, and swears she never will. That's her torment.
Claud. 'Tis true indeed. So your daughter says. 'Shall I,' says
she, 'that have so oft encount'red him with scorn, write to
him
that I love him?'"
Leon. This says she now when she is beginning to write to him;
for
she'll be up twenty times a night, and there will she sit in
her
smock till she have writ a sheet of paper. My daughter tells
us
all.
Claud. Now you talk of a sheet of paper, I remember a pretty
jest
your daughter told us of.
Leon. O, when she had writ it, and was reading it over, she
found
'Benedick' and 'Beatrice' between the sheet?
Claud. That.
Leon. O, she tore the letter into a thousand halfpence, rail'd
at
herself that she should be so immodest to write to one that
she
knew would flout her. 'I measure him,' says she, 'by my own
spirit; for I should flout him if he writ to me. Yea, though
I
love him, I should.'
Claud. Then down upon her knees she falls, weeps, sobs, beats
her
heart, tears her hair, prays, curses--'O sweet Benedick! God
give
me patience!'
Leon. She doth indeed; my daughter says so. And the ecstasy
hath so
much overborne her that my daughter is sometime afeard she
will
do a desperate outrage to herself. It is very true.
Pedro. It were good that Benedick knew of it by some other, if
she
will not discover it.
Claud. To what end? He would make but a sport of it and torment
the
poor lady worse.
Pedro. An he should, it were an alms to hang him! She's an
excellent sweet lady, and (out of all suspicion) she is
virtuous.
Claud. And she is exceeding wise.
Pedro. In everything but in loving Benedick.
Leon. O, my lord, wisdom and blood combating in so tender a
body,
we have ten proofs to one that blood hath the victory. I am