MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING
Page: 6

DON PEDRO.
That she is worthy, I know.

BENEDICK.
That I neither feel how she should be loved nor know how she should
be worthy, is the opinion that fire cannot melt out of me: I will die
in it at the stake.

DON PEDRO.
Thou wast ever an obstinate heretic in the despite of beauty.

CLAUDIO.
And never could maintain his part but in the force of his will.

BENEDICK.
That a woman conceived me, I thank her; that she brought me up, I
likewise give her most humble thanks; but that I will have a recheat
winded in my forehead, or hang my bugle in an invisible baldrick, all
women shall pardon me. Because I will not do them the wrong to mistrust
any, I will do myself the right to trust none; and the fine is,--for
the which I may go the finer,--I will live a bachelor.

DON PEDRO.
I shall see thee, ere I die, look pale with love.

BENEDICK.
With anger, with sickness, or with hunger, my lord; not with love: prove
that ever I lose more blood with love than I will get again with
drinking, pick out mine eyes with a ballad-maker's pen and hang me up at
the door of a brothel-house for the sign of blind Cupid.

DON PEDRO.
Well, if ever thou dost fall from this faith, thou wilt prove a notable
argument.

BENEDICK.
If I do, hang me in a bottle like a cat and shoot at me; and he that
hits me, let him be clapped on the shoulder and called Adam.

DON PEDRO.
Well, as time shall try: 'In time the savage bull doth bear the yoke.'

BENEDICK.
The savage bull may; but if ever the sensible Benedick bear it, pluck
off the bull's horns and set them in my forehead; and let me be vilely
painted, and in such great letters as they write, 'Here is good horse
to hire,' let them signify under my sign 'Here you may see Benedick
the married man.'

CLAUDIO.
If this should ever happen, thou wouldst be horn-mad.

DON PEDRO.
Nay, if Cupid have not spent all his quiver in Venice, thou wilt quake
for this shortly.

BENEDICK.
I look for an earthquake too then.

DON PEDRO.
Well, you will temporize with the hours. In the meantime, good Signior
Benedick, repair to Leonato's: commend me to him and tell him I will