LEONATO'S garden.
Enter BENEDICK and MARGARET, meeting
BENEDICK
Pray thee, sweet Mistress Margaret, deserve well at
my hands by helping me to the speech of Beatrice.
MARGARET
Will you then write me a sonnet in praise of my beauty?
BENEDICK
In so high a style, Margaret, that no man living
shall come over it; for, in most comely truth, thou
deservest it.
MARGARET
To have no man come over me! why, shall I always
keep below stairs?
BENEDICK
Thy wit is as quick as the greyhound's mouth; it catches.
MARGARET
And yours as blunt as the fencer's foils, which hit,
but hurt not.
BENEDICK
A most manly wit, Margaret; it will not hurt a
woman: and so, I pray thee, call Beatrice: I give
thee the bucklers.
MARGARET
Give us the swords; we have bucklers of our own.
BENEDICK
If you use them, Margaret, you must put in the
pikes with a vice; and they are dangerous weapons for maids.
MARGARET
Well, I will call Beatrice to you, who I think hath legs.
BENEDICK
And therefore will come.
Exit MARGARET
Sings
The god of love,
That sits above,
And knows me, and knows me,
How pitiful I deserve,–
I mean in singing; but in loving, Leander the good
swimmer, Troilus the first employer of panders, and
a whole bookful of these quondam carpet-mangers,
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 rhyme; I have