MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING
Page: 44

you, let me go.

BENEDICK.
Beatrice,--

BEATRICE.
In faith, I will go.

BENEDICK.
We'll be friends first.

BEATRICE.
You dare easier be friends with me than fight with mine enemy.

BENEDICK.
Is Claudio thine enemy?

BEATRICE.
Is he not approved in the height a villain, that hath slandered,
scorned, dishonoured my kinswoman? O! that I were a man. What! bear
her in hand until they come to take hands, and then, with public
accusation, uncovered slander, unmitigated rancour,--O God, that I
were a man! I would eat his heart in the market-place.

BENEDICK.
Hear me, Beatrice,--

BEATRICE.
Talk with a man out at a window! a proper saying!

BENEDICK.
Nay, but Beatrice,--

BEATRICE.
Sweet Hero! she is wronged, she is slandered, she is undone.

BENEDICK.
Beat---

BEATRICE.
Princes and counties! Surely, a princely testimony, a goodly Count
Comfect; a sweet gallant, surely! O! that I were a man for his sake,
or that I had any friend would be a man for my sake! But manhood is
melted into cursies, valour into compliment, and men are only turned
into tongue, and trim ones too: he is now as valiant as Hercules, that
only tells a lie and swears it. I cannot be a man with wishing,
therefore I will die a woman with grieving.

BENEDICK.
Tarry, good Beatrice. By this hand, I love thee.

BEATRICE.
Use it for my love some other way than swearing by it.

BENEDICK.
Think you in your soul the Count Claudio hath wronged Hero?

BEATRICE.
Yea, as sure is I have a thought or a soul.

BENEDICK.
Enough! I am engaged, I will challenge him. I will kiss your hand,
and so leave you. By this hand, Claudio shall render me a dear account.
As you hear of me, so think of me. Go, comfort your cousin: I must
say she is dead; and so, farewell.

[Exeunt.]



Scene 2. A Prison.

[Enter DOGBERRY, VERGES, and SEXTON, in gowns; and the Watch,
with CONRADE and BORACHIO.]

DOGBERRY.
Is our whole dissembly appeared?

VERGES.
O! a stool and a cushion for the sexton.

SEXTON.
Which be the malefactors?

DOGBERRY.
Marry, that am I and my partner.