Page 1435 - Shakespeare - Vol. 2

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
[60] parts did you first suffer love for me?

BENEDICK
Suffer love! A good epithet, I do suffer love indeed, for I love thee against my
will.

BEATRICE
In spite of your heart, I think; alas, poor heart! If you spite it for my sake, I
will spite it for yours; for I [65] will never love that which my friend hates.

BENEDICK
Thou and I are too wise to woo peaceably.

BEATRICE
It appears not in this confession; there’s not one wise man among twenty
that will praise himself.

BENEDICK

An old, an old instance, Beatrice, that lived in [70] the time of good
neighbours. If a man do not erect in this age his own tomb ere he dies, he
shall live no longer in monument than the bell rings and the widow weeps.

BEATRICE
And how long is that, think you?

BENEDICK
Question − why, an hour in clamour and a [75] quarter in rheum. Therefore is
it most expedient for the wise, if Don Worm, his conscience, find no

impediment to the contrary, to be the trumpet of his own virtues, as I am to
myself. So much for praising myself, who, I myself will bear witness, is
praiseworthy. And now tell me, how [80] doth your cousin?

BEATRICE
Very ill.