Bene. O, she misused me past the endurance of a [214] block! an oak but with one green leaf on it would have 215 answered her; my very visor began to assume life and scold with her. She told me, not thinking I had been [217] myself, that I was the prince’s jester, that I was duller [218] than a great thaw; huddling jest upon jest, with such impossible conveyance, upon me, that I stood like a man at 220 a mark, with a whole army shooting at me. She speaks poniards, and every word stabs: if her breath were as terrible [222] as her terminations, there were no living near her; [223] she would infect to the north star. I would not marry her, though she were endowed with all that Adam had [225] 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 [228] her the infernal Ate in good apparel. I would to God some scholar would conjure her; for certainly, while she is 230 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 [233] follows her.
D. Pedro. Look, here she comes.
Enter Claudio, Beatrice, Hero, and Leonato.
[235] Bene. Will your grace command me any service to the world’s end? I will go on the slightest errand now to the Antipodes that you can devise to send me on; I will fetch you a toothpicker now from the furthest inch of Asia; bring you the length of Prester John’s foot; fetch you a [240] hair off the great Cham’s beard; do you any embassage to the Pigmies; rather than hold three words’ conference [242] with this harpy. You have no employment for me?
D. Pedro. None, but to desire your good company.
Bene. O God, sir, here’s a dish I love not: I cannot [245] endure my Lady Tongue. [Exit.
D. Pedro. Come, lady, come; you have lost the heart of Signior Benedick.
Beat. Indeed, my lord, he lent it me awhile; and I [249] gave him use for it, a double heart for his single one: 250 marry, once before he won it of me with false dice, therefore your Grace may well say I have lost it.
D. Pedro. You have put him down, lady, you have put him down.
Beat. So I would not he should do me, my lord, lest I 255 should prove the mother of fools. I have brought Count Claudio, whom you sent me to seek.