Page 1367 - Shakespeare - Vol. 2

DON PEDRO

Hath she made her affection known to Benedick?

LEONATO
No, and swears she never will; that’s her [125] torment.

CLAUDIO
’Tis true, indeed, so your daughter says. ‘Shall I,’ says she, ‘that have so oft
encountered him with scorn, write to him that I love him?’

LEONATO
This says she now when she is beginning to [130] write to him; for she’ll be

up twenty times a night, and there will she sit in her smock till she have writ
a sheet of paper. My daughter tells us all.

CLAUDIO
Now you talk of a sheet of paper, I remember a pretty jest your daughter told
us of. [135]

LEONATO
O, when she had writ it and was reading it over, she found Benedick and

Beatrice between the sheet?

CLAUDIO

That.

LEONATO
O, she tore the letter into a thousand halfpence; railed at herself, that she
should be so immodest [140] to write to one that she knew would flout her. ‘I
measure him,’ says she, ‘by my own spirit; for I should flout him, if he writ to

me; yea, though I love him, I should.’

CLAUDIO
Then down upon her knees she falls, weeps, sobs, beats her heart, tears her
hair, prays, curses − ‘O [145] sweet Benedick! God give me patience!’

LEONATO