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By my troth, niece, thou wilt never get thee a husband

Leonato
By my troth, niece, thou wilt never get thee a
husband if thou be so shrewd of thy tongue.
Leonato’s Brother
In faith, she’s too curst.
Beatrice
Too curst is more than curst. I shall lessen God’s sending
that way, for it is said “God sends a curst cow short horns,”
but to a cow too curst, he sends none.

I have a good eye, uncle; I can see a church by daylight.

Leonato
So, by being too curst, God will send you no horns.
Beatrice
Just, if He send me no husband, for the which blessing
I am at Him upon my knees every morning and evening.
Lord, I could not endure a husband with a beard on his face.
I had rather lie in the woolen!
Leonato
You may light on a husband that hath no beard.
Beatrice
What should I do with him? Dress him in my
apparel and make him my waiting gentlewoman?
He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he
that hath no beard is less than a man; and he that is
more than a youth is not for me, and he that is less
than a man, I am not for him. Therefore I will even
take sixpence in earnest of the bearherd, and lead
his apes into hell.
Leonato
Well then, go you into hell?
Beatrice
No, but to the gate, and there will the devil
meet me like an old cuckold with horns on his
head, and say “Get you to heaven, Beatrice, get you
to heaven; here’s no place for you maids.” So deliver
I up my apes and away to Saint Peter; for the
heavens, he shows me where the bachelors sit, and
there live we as merry as the day is long.
Leonato’s Brother, to Hero
Well, niece, I trust you will be ruled by your father.
Beatrice
Yes, faith, it is my cousin’s duty to make curtsy and
say “Father, as it please you.” But yet for all that, cousin,
let him be a handsome fellow, or else make another curtsy
and say “Father, as it please me.”
Leonato
Well, niece, I hope to see you one day fitted
with a husband.
Beatrice
Not till God make men of some other metal
than earth. Would it not grieve a woman to be
overmastered with a piece of valiant dust? To make
an account of her life to a clod of wayward marl?
No, uncle, I’ll none. Adam’s sons are my brethren,
and truly I hold it a sin to match in my kindred.
Leonato, to Hero
Daughter, remember what I told you. If the Prince
do solicit you in that kind, you know your answer.
Beatrice
The fault will be in the music, cousin, if you
be not wooed in good time. If the Prince be too
important, tell him there is measure in everything,
and so dance out the answer. For hear me, Hero,
wooing, wedding, and repenting is as a Scotch jig, a
measure, and a cinquepace. The first suit is hot and
hasty like a Scotch jig, and full as fantastical; the
wedding, mannerly modest as a measure, full of
state and ancientry; and then comes repentance,
and with his bad legs falls into the cinquepace faster
and faster till he sink into his grave.
Leonato
Cousin, you apprehend passing shrewdly.
Beatrice
I have a good eye, uncle; I can see a church by daylight.
Leonato
The revelers are entering, brother. Make good room.
  Leonato and his brother step aside.

Source:
Act 2
Scene 1
Line 18

Source Type:

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