William Shakespeare: Much Ado About Nothing

ACT 2. 1. Scene I. A hall in LEONATO'S house. (continued)

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 bear-ward, 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.

ANTONIO.
[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 over-mastered 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 kinred.

LEONATO.
Daughter, remember what I told you: if the prince do solicit you
in that kind, you know your answer.