1599 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING
Page: 25

your
daughter and her gentlewomen 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.
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. Love me? Why,
it
must be requited. I hear how I am censur'd. 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, 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
alters? 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.

Enter Beatrice.

Here comes Beatrice. By this day, she's a fair lady! I do spy
some marks of love in her.
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.
Bene. You take pleasure then in the message?
Beat. Yea, just so much as you may take upon a knives point,