MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING
Page: 25

BENEDICK.
Fair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains.

BEATRICE.
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.

BENEDICK.
You take pleasure then in the message?

BEATRICE.
Yea, just so much as you may take upon a knife's point, and choke
a daw withal. You have no stomach, signior: fare you well.

[Exit.]

BENEDICK.
Ha! 'Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner,'
there's a double meaning in that. 'I took no more pains for those
thanks than you took pains to thank me,' that's as much as to say,
Any pains that I take for you is as easy as thanks. If I do not take
pity of her, I am a villain; if I do not love her, I am a Jew. I
will go get her picture.

[Exit.]



ACT 3.

Scene I. Leonato's Garden.

[Enter HERO, MARGARET, and URSULA.]

HERO.
Good Margaret, run thee to the parlour;
There shalt thou find my cousin Beatrice
Proposing with the prince and Claudio:
Whisper her ear, and tell her, I and Ursala
Walk in the orchard, and our whole discourse
Is all of her; say that thou overheard'st us,
And bid her steal into the pleached bower,
Where honey-suckles, ripen'd by the sun,
Forbid the sun to enter; like favourites,
Made proud by princes, that advance their pride
Against that power that bred it. There will she hide her,
To listen our propose. This is thy office;
Bear thee well in it and leave us alone.

MARGARET.
I'll make her come, I warrant you, presently.

[Exit.]

HERO.
Now, Ursula, when Beatrice doth come,
As we do trace this alley up and down,
Our talk must only be of Benedick:
When I do name him, let it be thy part
To praise him more than ever man did merit.
My talk to thee must be how Benedick
Is sick in love with Beatrice: of this matter
Is little Cupid's crafty arrow made,
That only wounds by hearsay.

[Enter BEATRICE, behind.]

Now begin;
For look where Beatrice, like a lapwing, runs
Close by the ground, to hear our conference.

URSULA.
The pleasant'st angling is to see the fish
Cut with her golden oars the silver stream,
And greedily devour the treacherous bait: