Beatrice Flashcards
Messenger: Much deserved on his part. This Claudio hath borne himself beyond his age. He hath done the feats of a lion.
I pray you, is Signior “Montanto” returned from the wars?
Messenger: Oh, he is returned; and as pleasant as he ever was.
I pray you, how many hath he killed and eaten in these wars?
Margaret: Lady Beatrice!
Hero: Cousin!
I mean, how many hath he killed? For indeed I promised to eat all of his killing.
Messenger: He hath done good service in these wars.
He hath a good stomach.
Messenger: And ‘tis a good soldier too, Lady
And a good soldier to a lady! But what is he to a lord?
Messenger: A lord to a lord, a man to a man; stuffed with all honorable virtues.
Indeed. He is no less than a stuffed man. Well, we are all mortal.
You must not, sir, mistake my niece. There is a kind of merry war betwixt Signior Benedick and her. They never meet but there’s a skirmish of wit between them.
Alas, in our last conflict, four of his five wits went halting off and now is the whole man governed with one. So if he have wit enough to keep himself warm, let him bear it for a difference between himself and his horse.
I see, lady, the gentleman is not in your books.
No; an’ he were, I would burn my study. Who is his companion now (aside) he hath every month a new sworn brother.
He is most in the company of the right noble Claudio.
O lord, he will hang upon him like a disease. God help the noble Claudio!
Leonato: You will never run mad, niece.
No. Not ‘till a hot January.
Benedick: If Signior Leonato be her father, she would not have his head on her shoulders for all Messina, as like him as she is.
I wonder that you will still be talking, Signior Benedick, nobody marks you.
Benedick: What, my dear Lady Disdain! Are you yet living?
Is it possible Disdain should die while she hath such food to feed it as Signior Benedick? Courtesy itself must convert to disdain if you come in her presence.
Benedick; Then courtesy is a turncoat. But it is certain I am loved of all ladies, only you excepted. And I would I could find that I had not a hard heart, for, truly, I love none.
A dear happiness to women! (aside) I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than hear a man swear he loves me.
Benedick: God keep your ladyship still in that mind, so some gentleman or other shall escape a preordained scratched face.
Scratching could not make it worse, if ‘twere such a face as yours.
Benedick: Well, you are a rare parrot-teacher.
A bird of my tongue is better than a beast of yours.
Benedick: I would my horse had the speed of your tongue. But keep your way, in God’s name. I have done.
Muses: Nonny nonny nonny nonny hey hey hey Goodbye
You always end with a jade’s trick (aside) I know him of old.
Leonato: Was not Don John there at supper?
How tartly that gentleman looks! I never can see him but I am heartburned an hour after.
Leonato: He is of a very melancholy disposition.
He were an excellent man that were made midway between him and Benedick: the one is like an image and says nothing, the other evermore tattling.
Leonato: Then half Signior Benedick’s tongue in Count John’s mouth and half Count John’s melancholy in Signior Benedick’s face?
With a good leg and a good foot, uncle, and money enough in his purse, such a man would win any woman in the world, if he could get her good-will.
Leonato: By my troth, niece, thou wilt never get thee a husband, if thou be so shrewd of thy tongue.
Just, if God send me no husband; for the which blessing I am at him upon my knees every morning and evening. Lord, I could not endure a husband with a beard on his face; I had rather lie in the woolen.
Leonato: You may light upon a husband that hath no beard.
What should I do with him? Dress him in my apparel and make him my waiting-gentlewoman? He that hath a beard is more than a youth, he that hath no beard is less than a man: and he that is more than a youth is not for me (to audience) and he that is less than a man, I am not for him.
Leonato: Well, then, go you into hell, Beatrice, as an old maid?
No, just to the gates of hell; and there will the devil meet me like an old cuckold with horns on his head and say, “Get you to heaven, Beatrice, get you to heaven; Here’s no place for you maids” So I up and fly away to Saint Peter for the heavens. There, he shows me where the bachelors sit, and there live we, as merry as the day is long.
Leonato: Well, Hero, I trust you will be ruled by your father.
Yes, faith, it is my cousin’s duty to make curtsey and say “Father, as it please you.” but yet for all that cousin, let him be a handsome fellow, or else make another curtsy and say “Father, as it please /me/”
Leonato: Well, Niece, I hope to see you one day fitted with a husband.
Ha! Not till God make men of some metal other than earth (to audience) would it not grieve a woman to be overmastered by a piece of valiant dust? To make account of her life to a clod of wayward mud? (to leonato) No, uncle, i’ll none.
Leonato: Daughter, remember what I told you. If the prince do solicit you in that kind, you know your answer.
Hero: Yes, Father.
(Curtsies) Yes, it is my cousin’s duty.
Borachio: No more words (End of B/M dance)
Will you not tell me who told you of me?
Benedick: No, you shall pardon me.
Nor will you not tell me who you are?
Benedick: No (aside) Not now.
That I was disdainful, and that my wit came from the Hundred Merry Tales. Well, this was Signior Benedick that said so.
Benedick: I pray you, who is this Signior Benedick.
I am sure you know him well enough.
Benedick: Not I, believe me.
Did he not make you laugh?
Benedick: I pray you, what is he?
Why, he is the Prince’s jester: a very dull fool; his gift is in devising impossible slanders; he both pleases men and angers them, and then they laugh at him and beat him. I am sure he is in this company.
When I know the gentleman, I’ll tell him what you say.
Do. Do.
Don Pedro: Come, lady, come; you have lost the heart of Signior Benedick.
Indeed, my lord, he lent it me awhile; and i gave him use for it – a double heart for his single one.
Don Pedro: You have put him down, lady, you have put him down.
So I would not have him do me, my lord, lest I should prove the mother of fools. I have brought Count Claudio, whom you sent me to seek.
Don Pedro: How then? Sick?
Claudio: Neither, my lord.
The count is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor well; but has something of a jealous complexion.
