MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. NATURE WILL OUT. I cannot hide what I am: I must be sad when I have cause, and smile at no man's jests; eat when I have stomach, and wait for no man's leisure; sleep when I am drowsy, and tend to no man's business; laugh when I am merry, and claw no man in his humour. WOOING, Wedding, and Repenting. Wooing, wedding, and repenting, is as a Scotch jig, a measure, and a cinque-pace: the first suit is hot and hasty, like a Scotch jig, and full as fantastical; the wedding, mannerlymodest, as a measure full of state and ancientry; and then comes repentance, and, with his bad legs, falls into the cinque-pace faster and faster, till he sink into his grave. NO FRIENDSHIP IN LOVE. Friendship is constant in all other things, Save in the office and affairs of love : Therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues; Let every eye negotiate for itself, And trust no agent; for beauty is a witch, Against whose charms faith melteth into blood. BEATRICE'S BEHAVIOUR TO BENEDICK. O, she misused me past the endurance of a block; an oak, but with one green leaf on it, would have answered her: my very visor began to assume life, and scold with her. She told me, not thinking I had been myself, that I was the prince's jester; that I was duller than a great thaw; huddling jest upon jest, with such impossible conveyance, upon me, that I stood like a man at a mark, with a whole army shooting at me. She speaks poniards, and every word stabs: if her breath were as terrible as her terminations, there were no living near her, she would infect to the north star. I would not marry her, though she were endowed with all that Adam had left him before he transgressed she would have made Hercules have turned spit; yea, and have cleft his club to make the fire too. Come, talk not of her; you shall find her the infernal Até in good apparel. I would to God some scholar would conjure her; for, certainly, while she is here, a man may live as quiet in hell as in a sanctuary; and people sin upon purpose, because they would go thither; so, indeed, all disquiet, horror, and perturbation follow her. BENEDICK WAVERING. 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 alter? 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. BENEDICK DESCRIBED. From the crown of his head to the sole of his foot, he is all mirth; he hath twice or thrice cut Cupid's bow-string, and the` little hangman dare not shoot at him he hath a heart as sound as a bell, and his tongue is the clapper; for what his heart thinks, his tongue speaks. BALTHAZAR'S SONG. Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more, Men were deceivers ever; One foot in sea, and one on shore; But let them go, And be you blithe and bonny; Sing no more ditties, sing no mo EVIL DISPOSITION. Too curst is more than curst: I shall lessen God's sending that way for it is said, 'God sends a curst cow short horns;' but to a cow too curst he sends none. CLAUDIO IN LOVE. : I do much wonder, that one man, seeing how much another man is a fool when he dedicates his behaviours to love, will, after he hath laughed at such shallow follies in others, become the argument of his own scorn, by falling in love and such a man is Claudio. I have known, when there was no music with him but the drum and fife; and now had he rather hear the tabor and the pipe: I have known, when he would have walked ten mile afoot, to see a good armour; and now will he lie ten nights awake, carving the fashion of a new doublet. He was wont to speak plain, and to the purpose, like an honest man, and a soldier ; and now is he turn'd orthographer; his words are a very fantastical banquet, just so many strange dishes. May |