Margaret asks Beatrice for what she cries, hey ho; Beatrice answers, for an H, that is, for an ache or pain.
III.iv.57 (290,6) [turn'd Turk] [i.e. taken captive by love, and turned a renegade to his religion. Warburton.] This interpretation is somewhat far-fetched, yet, perhaps, it is right.
III.iv.78 (291,7) [some morel] That is, some secret meaning, like the moral of a fable.
III.iv.89 (291,8) [he eats his meat without grudging] I do not see how this is a proof of Benedick's change of mind. It would afford more proof of amourosness to say, he eats not his meat without grudging; but it is impossible to fix the meaning of proverbial expressions: perhaps, to eat meat without grudging, was the same as, to do as others do, and the meaning is, he is content to live by eating like other mortals and will be content, notwithstanding his boasts, like other mortals, to have a wife.
III.v.15 (293,9) [I am as honest as any man living, that is an old man, and no honester than I] [There is much humour, and extreme good sense under the covering of this blundering expression. It is a sly insinuation that length of years, and the being much hacknied in the ways of men, as Shakespeare expresses it, take off the gloss of virtue, and bring much defilement on the manners. Warburton.] Much of this is true, but I believe Shakespeare did not intend to bestow all this reflection on the speaker.
III.v.40 (294,1) [an two men ride of a horse, one must ride behind] This is not out of place, or without meaning. Dogberry, in his vanity of superiour parts, apologizing for his neighbour, observes, that of two men on an horse, one must ride behind. The first place of rank or understanding can belong but to one, and that happy one ought not to despise his inferiour.
IV.i.22 (296,2) [Interjections? Why, then some be of laughing] This is a quotation from the Accidence.
IV.i.42 (296,3) [luxurious bed] That is, lascivious. Luxury is the confessor's term for unlawful pleasures of the sex.
IV.i.53 (297,5) [word too large] So he uses large jests in this play, for licentious, not restrained within due bounds.
IV.i.57 (297,6) [I will write against it] [W: rate against] As to subscribe to any thing is to allow it, so to write against is to disallow or deny.