I mean, in singing: but in loving, Leander the good swimmer, Troilus the first employer of panders, and a whole book full of these quondam carpet-mongers, whose names yet run smoothly in the even road of a blank verse, why, they were never so truly turned over and over as my poor self in love. Marry, I cannot show it in rime; I have tried: I can find out no rime to ‘lady’ but ‘baby’, an innocent rime; for ‘scorn,’ ‘horn’, a hard rime; for ‘school’, ‘fool’, a babbling rime; very ominous endings: no, I was not born under a riming planet, nor I cannot woo in festival terms.
Enter Beatrice.
Sweet Beatrice, wouldst thou come when I called thee?
BEATRICE.
Yea, signior; and depart when you bid me.
BENEDICK.
O, stay but till then!
BEATRICE.
‘Then’ is spoken; fare you well now: and yet, ere I go, let me go with that I came for; which is, with knowing what hath passed between you and Claudio.
BENEDICK.
Only foul words; and thereupon I will kiss thee.
BEATRICE.
Foul words is but foul wind, and foul wind is but foul breath, and foul breath is noisome; therefore I will depart unkissed.
BENEDICK.
Thou hast frighted the word out of his right sense, so forcible is thy wit. But I must tell thee plainly, Claudio undergoes my challenge, and either I must shortly hear from him, or I will subscribe him a coward. And, I pray thee now, tell me, for which of my bad parts didst thou first fall in love with me?
BEATRICE.
For them all together; which maintained so politic a state of evil that they will not admit any good part to intermingle with them. But for which of my good parts did you first suffer love for me?