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 curtsies, 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.